of the
matter, a decided triumph over her rivals. It sometimes required,
however, the full force of this reflection, to induce Meg, old and
crabbed as she was, to submit to the various caprices and exactions of
attention which were displayed by her new lodger. Never any man talked
so much as Touchwood, of his habitual indifference to food, and
accommodation in travelling; and probably there never was any traveller
who gave more trouble in a house of entertainment. He had his own whims
about cookery; and when these were contradicted, especially if he felt
at the same time a twinge of incipient gout, one would have thought he
had taken his lessons in the pastry-shop of Bedreddin Hassan, and was
ready to renew the scene of the unhappy cream-tart, which was compounded
without pepper. Every now and then he started some new doctrine in
culinary matters, which Mrs. Dods deemed a heresy; and then the very
house rang with their disputes. Again, his bed must necessarily be made
at a certain angle from the pillow to the footposts; and the slightest
deviation from this disturbed, he said, his nocturnal rest, and did
certainly ruffle his temper. He was equally whimsical about the brushing
of his clothes, the arrangement of the furniture in his apartment, and a
thousand minutiae, which, in conversation, he seemed totally to contemn.

It may seem singular, but such is the inconsistency of human nature,
that a guest of this fanciful and capricious disposition gave much more
satisfaction to Mrs. Dods, than her quiet and indifferent friend, Mr.
Tyrrel. If her present lodger could blame, he could also applaud; and no
artist, conscious of such skill as Mrs. Dods possessed, is indifferent
to the praises of such a connoisseur as Mr. Touchwood. The pride of art
comforted her for the additional labour; nor was it a matter unworthy
of this most honest publican's consideration, that the guests who give
most trouble, are usually those who incur the largest bills, and pay
them with the best grace. On this point Touchwood was a jewel of a
customer. He never denied himself the gratification of the slightest
whim, whatever expense he might himself incur, or whatever trouble he
might give to those about him; and all was done under protestation, that
the matter in question was the most indifferent thing to him in the
world. "What the devil did he care for Burgess's sauces, he that had eat
his kouscousou, spiced with nothing but the sand of the desert? o