THE CHATEAU. 409 



brush, were something like so many bunches of unkindly parsnips, and 

 protruded like a ruined house- thatch over a pair of sunken greedy 

 pig's eyes, and a little cocked up snout, with an odious expanse of 

 gaping nostril. Where other beings usually sport their ears, the 

 beloved Apollo of Mrs. Thompson, exhibited the likeness of a pair of 

 swinging oyster shells, of which the upper flaps had been subdued into 

 the shape of ledges, by the constant habit of depressing them beneath 

 the margin of his hat. His mouth reminded you of a patent rat-trap, 

 and when " the love" was pleased into a grin, developed an irregular 

 but formidable force of sharp, and round, and broad demolishers, which 

 to the eye of fancy might have seemed a model of the mountain scenery 

 of Switzerland. The charmer had as fair a quantity of dew-lap, as any 

 bloated Spanish pointer. Two high round shoulders, and a pair of 

 undeniable supporters, constituting, from the knees, a good sized 

 Roman V subverted, will complete the reader's notion of Master Theo- 

 dosius Thompson's Phosbeian face and symmetry. All the boy's 

 untoward inclinations had been senselessly confirmed by the fatal 

 weakness of an ignorant and doating mother ; reproof of the susceptible 

 Theodosius was forbidden, lest his spirit should be checked, and his 

 every fault was amply extenuated on the plea of childhood. He was 

 helped first at table, because he was a mere child allowed to lie, 

 because he was but a child to bear false witness and tell tales against 

 the servants and his comrades, because he was but a child ; and to be a 

 general torment and incessant nuisance, wheresoever he might be, with 

 the same omnipotent apology in his behalf. Through the creature's 

 obtuse and contracted faculties there ran a vein of craft, sometimes 

 mistaken for capacity, and vulgarly for shrewdness to be brief, though 

 yet a boy, he had the juste morale of an adult attorney of the worst 

 description ; and to give due credit to the discrimination of the loving 

 parents, he is designed to practice in the Marshalsea, and hold his 

 court of persecution in the classic soil of Clifford's-inn. 



It so happened that in the interval between the arrival of the guests 

 and the service of dinner, this very amiable melange selected no less a 

 personage than John Smith the elder, as the object of his assiduities ; 

 and as the conversation of that important gentleman with a tiresome 

 child, supplies a happy model of its kind, we shall first recite pre- 

 cisely in my uncle's words the colloquy that passed between the 

 ingenuus puer and his astute examiner. " Well, sir; and, where do you 

 go to school?" said Smith, laying his hand upon the parsnips, with 

 what the Latins termed a fond poppysma. " I know ;" said looby. 

 (c Oh ! my pippin, tell the gentleman," said Mrs. Thompson. " No I 

 sha'n't ;" said looby. " Oh, dear ! that's naugnty !" said the amiable 

 Mr. Smith. " No, it a'n't," said the cub. " He goes to school at 

 Islington, sir:" said Mrs. Thompson, "don't you Theodosius, darling ?" 

 But Master Thompson took the sulks at this untimely intimation of his 

 mother's ; and was just upon the point of blubbering, when Mr. Smith's 

 revived inquiries restored the boy's serenity. " I dare say, master 

 Theodosius, you were very sorry to come home." " No, I wasn't, 

 though ;" replied the animal, as he leaned half over a chair back, and 

 kicked his heels up to the seat of honour. " And what book, sir, are 

 you reading now ?" said Smith, with that kind of pompous confidence, 

 which cowards use at the approach of danger, for he felt that he was 

 treading upon perilous ground. " I know," said the boy. " Come let 



