get his back full to my opinionated friend
and servant, and, beginning to read, tossed the words at him over his
(Jabez Jarber's) own ear and shoulder.

He read what follows:

THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE

Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw came from Manchester to London and took the House
To Let. He had been, what is called in Lancashire, a Salesman for a
large manufacturing firm, who were extending their business, and opening
a warehouse in London; where Mr. Openshaw was now to superintend the
business. He rather enjoyed the change of residence; having a kind of
curiosity about London, which he had never yet been able to gratify in
his brief visits to the metropolis. At the same time he had an odd,
shrewd, contempt for the inhabitants; whom he had always pictured to
himself as fine, lazy people; caring nothing but for fashion and
aristocracy, and lounging away their days in Bond Street, and such
places; ruining good English, and ready in their turn to despise him as a
provincial. The hours that the men of business kept in the city
scandalised him too; accustomed as he was to the early dinners of
Manchester folk, and the consequently far longer evenings. Still, he was
pleased to go to London; though he would not for the world have confessed
it, even to himself, and always spoke of the step to his friends as one
demanded of him by the interests of his employers, and sweetened to him
by a considerable increase of salary. His salary indeed was so liberal
that he might have been justified in taking a much larger House than this
one, had he not thought himself bound to set an example to Londoners of
how little a Manchester man of business cared for show. Inside, however,
he furnished the House with an unusual degree of comfort, and, in the
winter time, he insisted on keeping up as large fires as the grates would
allow, in every room where the temperature was in the least chilly.
Moreover, his northern sense of hospitality was such, that, if he were at
home, he could hardly suffer a visitor to leave the house without forcing
meat and drink upon him. Every servant in the house was well warmed,
well fed, and kindly treated; for their master scorned all petty saving
in aught that conduced to comfort; while he amused himself by following
out all his accustomed habits and individual ways in defiance of what any
of his new neighbours might think.

His wife was a pretty, gentle woman, of suitable age and character. He
was forty-