mplacency,
notwithstanding the unseasonableness of their interruption.

At last, when they were all disposed of, I resumed my inquiries about
the resting-place of the mummies. But the grand dispute who should have
oranges and who should have almonds and raisins, soon raised such a
clamor that it was impossible to hear my Egyptian friend. This great
contest was, however, at length settled, and I was returning to the
antiquities of Memphis, when the important point, who should have red
wine, and who should have white, who should have half a glass, and who a
whole one, set us again in an uproar. Sir John was visibly uneasy, and
commanded silence. During this interval of peace, I gave up the
catacombs and took refuge in the pyramids. But I had no sooner proposed
my question about the serpent said to be found in one of them, than the
son and heir, a fine little fellow just six years old, reaching out his
arm to dart an apple across the table at his sister, roguishly intending
to overset her glass, unluckily overthrew his own, brimful of port wine.
The whole contents were discharged on the elegant drapery of a
white-robed nymph.

All was now agitation, and distress, and disturbance, and confusion; the
gentlemen ringing for napkins, the ladies assisting the dripping fair
one; each vying with the other who should recommend the most approved
specific for getting out the stain of red wine, and comforting the
sufferer by stories of similar misfortunes. The poor little culprit was
dismissed, and all difficulties and disasters seemed at last surmounted.
But you can not heat up again an interest which has been so often
cooled. The thread of conversation had been so frequently broken that I
despaired of seeing it tied together again. I sorrowfully gave up
catacombs, pyramids, and serpent, and was obliged to content myself with
a little desultory chat with my next neighbor; sorry and disappointed to
glean only a few scattered ears where I had expected so abundant a
harvest; and the day from which I had promised myself so much benefit
and delight passed away with a very slender acquisition of either.

CHAPTER V.

I went almost immediately after, at the invitation of Mr. Ranby, to pass
a few days at his villa at Hampstead. Mr. and Mrs. Ranby were esteemed
pious persons, but having risen to great affluence by a sudden turn of
fortune in a commercial engagement, they had a little self-sufficiency,
and not a little disposition t