. "SULP him, he has only had an 'alf-pint of
beer with his dinner six hours ago;" and none of his fellow-servants
will say other wise. Polly is smuggled on board ship. Who tells the
lieutenant when he comes his rounds? Boys are playing cards in the
bedroom. The outlying fag announces master coming--out go candles--cards
popped into bed--boys sound asleep. Who had that light in the dormitory?
Law bless you! the poor dear innocents are every one snoring. Every one
snoring, and every snore is a lie told through the nose! Suppose one of
your boys or mine is engaged in that awful crime, are we going to break
our hearts about it? Come, come. We pull a long face, waggle a grave
head, and chuckle within our waistcoats.

Between me and those fellow-creatures of mine who are sitting in the
room below, how strange and wonderful is the partition! We meet at
every hour of the daylight, and are indebted to each other for a hundred
offices of duty and comfort of life; and we live together for years, and
don't know each other. John's voice to me is quite different from John's
voice when it addresses his mates below. If I met Hannah in the street
with a bonnet on, I doubt whether I should know her. And all these good
people with whom I may live for years and years, have cares, interests,
dear friends and relatives, mayhap schemes, passions, longing hopes,
tragedies of their own, from which a carpet and a few planks and beams
utterly separate me. When we were at the seaside, and poor Ellen used to
look so pale, and run after the postman's bell, and seize a letter in
a great scrawling hand, and read it, and cry in a corner, how should we
know that the poor little thing's heart was breaking? She fetched the
water, and she smoothed the ribbons, and she laid out the dresses, and
brought the early cup of tea in the morning, just as if she had had
no cares to keep her awake. Henry (who lived out of the house) was the
servant of a friend of mine who lived in chambers. There was a dinner
one day, and Harry waited all through the dinner. The champagne was
properly iced, the dinner was excellently served; every guest was
attended to; the dinner disappeared; the dessert was set; the claret
was in perfect order, carefully decanted, and more ready. And then Henry
said, "If you please, sir, may I go home?" He had received word that his
house was on fire; and, having seen through his dinner, he wished to go
and look after his children, and little sticks