ost
convenient thing in the world--living in the two-pair back, gave up her
bed to the baby, and got a little girl to watch it. Then, to match this
young lady, was a young man, who had known Mr Kenwigs when he was a
bachelor, and was much esteemed by the ladies, as bearing the reputation
of a rake. To these were added a newly-married couple, who had visited
Mr and Mrs Kenwigs in their courtship; and a sister of Mrs Kenwigs's,
who was quite a beauty; besides whom, there was another young man,
supposed to entertain honourable designs upon the lady last mentioned;
and Mr Noggs, who was a genteel person to ask, because he had been a
gentleman once. There were also an elderly lady from the back-parlour,
and one more young lady, who, next to the collector, perhaps was the
great lion of the party, being the daughter of a theatrical fireman, who
'went on' in the pantomime, and had the greatest turn for the stage that
was ever known, being able to sing and recite in a manner that brought
the tears into Mrs Kenwigs's eyes. There was only one drawback upon
the pleasure of seeing such friends, and that was, that the lady in
the back-parlour, who was very fat, and turned of sixty, came in a
low book-muslin dress and short kid gloves, which so exasperated Mrs
Kenwigs, that that lady assured her visitors, in private, that if it
hadn't happened that the supper was cooking at the back-parlour grate
at that moment, she certainly would have requested its representative to
withdraw.

'My dear,' said Mr Kenwigs, 'wouldn't it be better to begin a round
game?'

'Kenwigs, my dear,' returned his wife, 'I am surprised at you. Would you
begin without my uncle?'

'I forgot the collector,' said Kenwigs; 'oh no, that would never do.'

'He's so particular,' said Mrs Kenwigs, turning to the other married
lady, 'that if we began without him, I should be out of his will for
ever.'

'Dear!' cried the married lady.

'You've no idea what he is,' replied Mrs Kenwigs; 'and yet as good a
creature as ever breathed.'

'The kindest-hearted man as ever was,' said Kenwigs.

'It goes to his heart, I believe, to be forced to cut the water off,
when the people don't pay,' observed the bachelor friend, intending a
joke.

'George,' said Mr Kenwigs, solemnly, 'none of that, if you please.'

'It was only my joke,' said the friend, abashed.

'George,' rejoined Mr Kenwigs, 'a joke is a wery good thing--a wery
good thing--but when that joke is made at the exp