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inclined and as great a lover of quiet as myself. This lady I married,
having previously secured a house in one of the quietest and most
retired places in the town, so as to be out of the way of all noise and
din. Immediately beneath this house, however, there was an empty unlet
shop, which I could not help regarding with a suspicious eye, from an
apprehension that it might be taken by a person of some noisy calling or
other; and so much at last did this fear alarm me, that I determined on
taking the shop into my own hands, and running myself the risk of its
letting--thus securing the choice of a tenant. Having come to this
resolution, then, I called upon the landlord and inquired the rent.

"O sir," said he, "the shop is let."

"Let, sir!" replied I; "I saw a ticket on it yesterday."

"That might well be, sir, for it was only let this morning."

"And to whom, sir, is it let, may I ask? I mean, sir, what is his
business?"

"A tinsmith, sir," said the landlord, coolly.

"A tinsmith!" replied I, turning pale. "Then my worse fears are
realized!"

The landlord looked surprised, and inquired what I meant. I told him,
and had a laugh from him for my pains.

Yes, my friends (said the melancholy gentleman), a tinsmith had taken
the shop--a working tinsmith--and a most industrious and hard-working
one he was, to my cost. But this was not the worst of it. The tinsmith
was not a week in his new shop, when he received a large West India
order; and when I mention that this piece of good fortune, as I have
no doubt he reckoned it, compelled him to engage about a score of
additional hands, I may safely leave it to yourselves, gentlemen, to
conceive what sort of a neighbourhood I soon found myself in. On this
subject, then, I need only say, that, in less than a week thereafter, I
was fairly hammered out of the house, and compelled to look out for
other quarters. But this, after all, was merely a personal matter--one
which did not involve the inimical feelings of others towards me; and,
therefore, though an inconvenience at the time, it did not disturb my
quiet beyond the moment of suffering, as those unhappy occurrences did
in which I had, however unwittingly, provoked the enmity of others; and,
therefore, after I had been fairly settled in my new house, I thought
very little more about the matter, and was beginning to enjoy the calm,
quiet life which I so much loved, as nobody had meddled with me for
upwards of three weeks