206 SOME GENTLEMAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



of decided ownership, I gave her a glance so seriously negative, that 

 the dear susceptible little woman shrieked with emotion, rose, 

 staggered towards my plate, snatched up my anchovy knife, and 

 made a desperate lunge, which, had it been successful, would have 

 laid her open to a capital imputation. Of course, therefore, I parried 

 it ; pushed her back what less could I do r and she dropped on the 

 hearth-rug in violent hysterics. The chamber-maid and cook, 

 alarmed by her toscin, the shriek which I mentioned, now burst 

 into the room. I bled her to profusion, while partially delirious. 

 Being convinced, however, that there was no reason for alarm, I left 

 her in the care of her women, and the cab being at the door just 

 jumped into it and took a brief bold dashing drive about town. 



Beelzebub proved to be a perfect darling : he possessed action as 

 well as pace ; kept both head and stern gallantly up j and unlike many 

 fast-goers, he was neither cat-hammed nor goose-rumped. I gloried 

 in him. Maria's groom was an ass. He had dwelt on the reins with 

 so dead a hand as to irritate the noble nag : the consequence was, 

 that he had pulled the cab, not from the collar but the bit. I could 

 have cuffed the fellow where he sat, (for I had taken him with me,) 

 but for the anachronism of a man, who hadn't been out of his room for 

 years, thrashing his groom. Rhino, the name to which the rascal 

 answered, was amazed at my tact and Beelzebub's obedience. The 

 animal found himself treated by a master-hand, and might have been 

 driven, with the velocity of an arrow, through the most encumbered 

 streets, by the slender pilotage of a pack-thread. Several highly 

 respectable looking persons, after having stared egregiouslv, took off 

 their hats as I passed, to make amends for the offence of having, as I 

 guessed, foolishly taken me, at the first glance, for some low vagabond 

 whom they knew. Rhino was astonished at the multitude of persons 

 who recognized me, after having been so long an invisible invalid; 

 while my perfect generalship in all the minutiae of cab-driving, pro- 

 duced, in his appreciating bosom, a sensation of positive awe. The 

 fact is, that without vanity be it spoken, although I succumb to 

 Apsley, the Nimrod of the Sporting Magazine, in " tooling a team," 

 I sing second to no man, so bountiful is nature as a buggy whip 

 over the stones. All this is parenthetical, and by-the-bye ; but I 

 have so little to brag of that I may perhaps be allowed to mention 

 my comparative superiority in the trifling article of driving " a orie- 

 horse shay." 



On my return, Maria was in bed ; but so successful had been my 

 depletion, that she was now quite composed, and had even admitted 

 our managing clerk to a consultation, literally over the counterpane, 

 on some urgent topic. I dined alone and undisturbed ; but just 

 after my filberts and parmesan had come in (I always marry them 

 in my mouth) I heard a faint feeble irresolute tapping at the door. 

 I dictatorially shouted the usual shibboleth, and he who managed the 

 official regions below stairs slowly sneaked in. His name was Gruel. 

 He stood about five feet six, and might be forty ; but there was no 

 telling how his account stood with time to any certainty. He wore a 

 wig smooth, brown, and oily as the plumage of a duck. He fought 

 in armour, for no adversary ever saw his eyes. They were protected 



