efits of bed and board. While he stood with his finger
to his lip, undecided and musing, but fully resolved at least on one
thing,--not to return to the Mug,--little Dummie, who was a good-natured
fellow at the bottom, peered up in his face, and said,--

"Vy, Paul, my kid, you looks down in the chops; cheer up,--care killed a
cat!"

Observing that this appropriate and encouraging fact of natural history
did not lessen the cloud upon Paul's brow, the acute Dummie Dunnaker
proceeded at once to the grand panacea for all evils, in his own
profound estimation.

"Paul, my ben cull," said he, with a knowing wink, and nudging the young
gentleman in the left side, "vot do you say to a drop o' blue ruin? or,
as you likes to be conish [genteel], I does n't care if I sports you a
glass of port!" While Dunnaker was uttering this invitation, a
sudden reminiscence flashed across Paul: he bethought him at once of
MacGrawler; and he resolved forthwith to repair to the abode of that
illustrious sage, and petition at least for accommodation for the
approaching night. So soon as he had come to this determination, he
shook off the grasp of the amiable Dummie, and refusing with many thanks
his hospitable invitation, requested him to abstract from the dame's
house, and lodge within his own until called for, such articles of
linen and clothing as belonged to Paul and could easily be laid hold of,
during one of the matron's evening siestas, by the shrewd Dunnaker. The
merchant promised that the commission should be speedily executed; and
Paul, shaking hands with him, proceeded to the mansion of MacGrawler.

We must now go back somewhat in the natural course of our narrative, and
observe that among the minor causes which had conspired with the great
one of gambling to bring our excellent Paul to his present situation,
was his intimacy with MacGrawler; for when Paul's increasing years
and roving habits had put an end to the sage's instructions, there was
thereby lopped off from the preceptor's finances the weekly sum of two
shillings and sixpence, as well as the freedom of the dame's cellar and
larder; and as, in the reaction of feeling, and the perverse course of
human affairs, people generally repent the most of those actions once
the most ardently incurred, so poor Mrs. Lobkins, imagining that Paul's
irregularities were entirely owing to the knowledge he had acquired from
MacGrawler's instructions, grievously upbraided herself for her forme