PUTTING TO 1UGHT.S. 627 



March 13. Rose at 8 o'clock very cold, a little snow upon the 

 ground my wife rises an hour earlier, she, careful creature, is deter- 

 mined the servant shall have no opportunity for making tea and toast 

 for the policeman got out of bed on to the cold bare floor my wife 

 says, that carpets harbour dust, and not healthful in bed rooms shave 

 with cold water, teeth chattering with cold, and cut myself can't get 

 hot water, my wife says, cold water's bracing. Come down at last, stiff 

 as an icicle, and blue as the cholera find windows and doors all wide 

 open my wife says, a well ventilated house, makes things sweet and 

 wholesome, and keeps dust from settling ! find a little green smoke 

 instead of fire, struggling through a host of cinders walk briskly up 

 and down the room blowing my fingers no signs of breakfast, can't 

 get the kettle to boil servant employed in the interim whitening the 

 door-steps, street door open, of course, a cutting north-east wind finding 

 its way into one's very marrow. Enter, at last, a bright tea-kettle, 

 placed at a respectable distance from the green smoke bit of bread 

 singed here and there, and called toast tea made with luke warm water, 

 better that tea should be weak, than the bright tea-kettle be blacked, so 

 my wife says try in vain to get on my boots, find a scrubbing brush in 

 one, and a duster in the other ! 



About 1 1 o'clock find my way out, and toil all day among publishers, 

 editors, &c. without success, return hungry and dispirited, hoping 

 though with some misgiving, to find comfort at home turn the corner of 

 the street where I live, and view with dismay a volume of dust, the 

 downy residue of bed-room sweepings, and tea leaves flying with the 

 velocity of light, through the street door of my domicile not my house 

 on fire, and a dozen engines playing upon it, could convey to my 

 senses a more appalling image heard half a dozen miserable children 

 in the street, squalling " Home sweet home, theres no place like home" 

 joined in the chorus. My mind made up to the worst, by the sight of 

 the airing process, I rush onwards and knock at the door. They know 

 my knock inside, and therefore in no hurry to come cutting north- 

 east wind with sleet the door opened at last, and back door, being of 

 course wide open, am saluted with a blast of wind, stormy enough to 

 spring the fore topmast of a man of war my hat flies into the middle 

 of the street striving to save it, my umbrella goes after it and I, 

 struggling for my footing, am covered in a twinkling with a cloud of 

 feathers, dust, and tea leaves, the contents of a dust pan at the foot of 

 the stairs ! 



Regain my equilibrium together with my beaver and umbrella, 

 though with infinite difficulty not so my temper. Enter my par- 

 lour good heaven ! what am I doomed to behold Is it an auction 

 room, or a place distressed for rent ? Is it a marine store shop, or a 

 Jew's exchange ? Chairs and tables piled up in the centre of the room 

 carpet turned up all round the flooring just scoured windows and 

 doors all open, of course fire raked out and grate black-leaded hearth- 

 rug covering the chairs fender and fire irons upon my writing -table, 

 and my papers where? dusted and "put to rights!" "put to 

 rights," Oh ! what retrospective agonies does not that most expressive 

 of horrors conjure up ! to those who have suffered under the discipline 

 embraced in that detestable phrase it is needless to expatiate, to those 

 who have not, no words can convey an adequate meaning. To sum 

 up nothing in the house to eat, and no fire to cook anything, not a 



2T2 



