PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 23 



ance upon her, we agreed to postpone our confession for four-and- 

 twenty hours. My newly-made wife returned home, and I spent my 

 wedding-day in strolling about Hampstead-heath, and damning my 

 father-in-law. Of course I went to comfort my dear little wife at 

 night as much as I could, with the assurance that our troubles would 

 soon be over. I opened the garden-gate, of which I had a key, and 

 was shewn by the servant to our old place of meeting a back 

 kitchen, with a stone-floor, and a dresser, upon which, in the absence 

 of chairs, we used to sit, and make love." 



" Make love upon a kitchen-dresser !" interrupted Mr. Watkins 

 Tottle, whose ideas of decorum were greatly outraged. 



" Ah ! on a kitchen-dresser !" replied Parsons. " And let me tell 

 you, old fellow, that, if you were really over head-and-ears in love, 

 and had no other place to make love in, you'd be devilish glad to 

 avail yourself of such an opportunity. However, let me see ; 

 where was I ?" 



" On the dresser," suggested Timson. 



" Oh ah ! Well, here I found poor Fanny quite disconsolate, 

 and uncomfortable. The old boy had been very cross all day, which 

 made her feel still more lonely ; and she was quite out of spirits. So 

 I put a good face upon the matter, and laughed it off, and said we 

 should enjoy the pleasures of a matrimonial life more by contrast ; 

 and, at length, poor Fanny brightened up a little. I stopped there 

 till about eleven o'clock ; and, just as I was taking my leave for the 

 fourteenth time, the girl came running down stairs, without her shoes, 

 in a great fright, to tell us that the old villain God forgive me for 

 calling him so ! for he's dead and gone now prompted I suppose by 

 the prince of darkness, was coming down to draw his own beer for 

 supper a thing he had not done before for six months, to my certain 

 knowledge ; for the cask stood in that very back kitchen. If he dis- 

 covered me there, explanation would have been out of the question ; 

 for he was so outrageously violent, when at all excited, that he never 

 would have listened to me. There was only one thing to be-done. 

 The chimney was a very wide one : it had been originally built for 

 an oven ; went up perpendicularly for a few feet, and then shot 

 backward, and formed a sort of small cavern. My hopes and for- 

 tune the means of our joint existence almost were at stake. I 

 scrambled in like a squirrel ; coiled myself up in this recess-place ; 

 and, as Fanny and the girl replaced the deal chimney-board, I could 

 see the light of the candle which my unconscious father-in-law carried 

 in his hand. I heard him draw the beer ; and I never heard beer 

 run so slowly. He was just leaving the kitchen, and I was preparing 

 to descend, when down came the infernal chimney -board with a tre- 

 mendous crash. He stopped, and put down the candle and the jug 

 of beer on the dresser : he was a nervous old fellow ; and any unex- 

 pected noise annoyed him. He, coolly observed that the fire-place 

 was never used, and sending the frightened servant into the next 

 kitchen for a hammer and nails, actually nailed up the board, and 

 locked the door on the outside. So there was I, on my wedding 

 night, in the light kerseymere trousers, fancy waistcoat, and blue 

 coat, that I had been married in in the morning, in a back-kitchen 



