of it, for it's the last blessed day of
rest you'll see here. Sunday morning I'll trouble you to pack."

"Do you mean it?"

"Upon my soul--as true as I'm here."

"_Hear that, ye gods, and wonder how you made him!_" exclaimed Abraham,
turning up his nose at his parent, and then looking to the ceiling with
emotion--"You unnatural old Lear! you bloodless piece of earth!"

"Go 'long, go 'long!" said the prosaic Moses, senior; "don't talk
rubbish!"

"Father!" cried the youth, with an attitude, "when I'm gone, you'll
think of me, and want me back."

"Vait, my dear, till I send for you."

"When the woice is silent, you'll be glad to give a ten pun' note for an
echo."

"No, my boy; I don't like the security."

"When you have lost sight of these precious featers, you'll be glad to
give all you have got for a picter."

"Vot a lucky painter he'll be as draws you off!" said the stoic father.

Abraham Moses gazed upon the author of his being for one minute with
intensest disgust. Then taking a chair in his hand, he first raised it
in the air, and afterwards struck it with vehement indignation to the
ground. That done, he seated himself with a mingled expression of
injured innocence and lofty triumph.

"You old sinner," said he, "you've done for yourself."

"Sorry for it," replied the cool old gentleman.

"I've sounded you, have I? Oh! did I try to strike a chord in that
hollow buzzum, and did I think to make it answer? Now listen, you
disreputable father. I leave your house, not the day after to-morrow,
but this very hour. I shall go to that high sphere which you knows
nothing about, and is only fit for a gent of the present generation. I
don't ask you for nothing. I'm settled and provided for. If you were to
take out your cheque-book and say, 'Aby, fill it up,' I can't answer for
a impulse of nater; but I do think I should scorn the act, and feel as
though I had riz above it. You have told me, all my wretched life, that
I should take my last snooze outside o' Newgate. I always felt very much
obliged to you for the compliment; but you'll recollect that I've told
you as often that I'd live to make you take your hat off to me. The time
is come, sir! I've got an appointment! Such a one! I came to tell you of
it; but I considered it my religious duty to inwestigate your paternal
feelings concerning me aforehand. I have inwestigated 'em. I am sorry to
say it; I have put you into the weighing machine, and found you short.