fain
to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was likely that the
gentleman would call, in order that being presently responsible for the
beef, greens, and sundries, he might take to be in the way at the time.
Mr Swiveller, after mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety,
replied that he should look in at from two minutes before six and seven
minutes past; and the man disappearing with this feeble consolation,
Richards Swiveller took a greasy memorandum-book from his pocket and
made an entry therein.

'Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?' said Trent
with a sneer.

'Not exactly, Fred,' replied the imperturbable Richard, continuing to
write with a businesslike air. 'I enter in this little book the names
of the streets that I can't go down while the shops are open. This
dinner today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen
Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There's only one
avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that
to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every
direction, that in a month's time, unless my aunt sends me a
remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get
over the way.'

'There's no fear of failing, in the end?' said Trent.

'Why, I hope not,' returned Mr Swiveller, 'but the average number of
letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far
as eight without any effect at all. I'll write another tom-morrow
morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it out
of the pepper-castor to make it look penitent. 'I'm in such a state of
mind that I hardly know what I write'--blot--' if you could see me at
this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct'--pepper-castor--my
hand trembles when I think'--blot again--if that don't produce the
effect, it's all over.'

By this time, Mr Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now replaced
his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a perfectly
grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that it was time
for him to fulfil some other engagement, and Richard Swiveller was
accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine and his own
meditations touching Miss Sophy Wackles.

'It's rather sudden,' said Dick shaking his head with a look of
infinite wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with
scraps of verse as if they were only prose in a hurry; 'when