SOME GENTLEMAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



SAMPLE THE THIRD. 



IT is painful for me to apologise and yet I feel that it is my duty 

 to give some sort of an explanation for having left Mr. Gruel so long 

 perched on the corner of a chair. The fact then is and nobody can 

 be more sorry for it than myself that I am so completely the slave 

 of circumstances, so much a martyr to passing events, as scarcely ever 

 to be under my own command. The last sample of my checquered 

 autobiography was broken off at an interesting point by a most astound- 

 ing and sudden piece of intelligence, the consequences of which have 

 scarcely left me my own master for a moment since, with the excep- 

 tion of the past fortnight or so. At that period I was lodging and 

 boarding with a highly respectable lady, the widow of a stockbroker 

 and bargemaster, in the most retired part of South Minis ; where I 

 had no more idea of being suddenly called upon to take an active 

 part in the great drama of life again, than I have at this moment of 

 being hurried from my desk by a troop of Alguazils (circumstances 

 have posited me at Madrid, where we have had a great influx of 

 strangers to witness the recent festivities) on a charge of Don Carlism, 

 or any other equally absurd accusation and yet before I shall have 

 had time enough to dismiss Mr. Gruel (his Christian name was 

 Erasmus) such a thing, preposterous as it appears, may actually 

 occur ; for, as I have frequently noticed, it ever has been, and I sup- 

 pose ever will be my fate to be the victim of ex parte impressions of 

 statements made behind my back, by persons acquainted only with 

 one side of the case. My name has often been mixed up with trans- 

 actions at which any gentleman of nice feelings would shudder ; but 

 the extreme difficulty and personal inconvenience necessarily attendant 

 on the business of extricating it from the imbroglio of warp and woof, 

 have in most instances deterred me from the attempt, and I have said 

 pettishly and indignantly " World, do your worst !" In fact, I fully, 

 agree with that eminent French judge, who would never accept evi- 

 dence of an attempt to evade the consequences of an accusation by 

 flight as any proof of guilt : " for," said he, " so much do I know of 

 human nature and human jurisprudence, that were I charged with 

 having purloined the tallest steeple in Paris, the first thing I should 

 do would be to get out of the way." I regret that the name of this 

 admirable man has escaped my memory. I have some idea it was the 

 President Harlay but now for Gruel. 



His humility was appalling it struck me as resembling the horrid 

 dead dull calm that precedes an earthquake. My feelings were not 

 agreeable ; and while he sipped the glass of wine, and nibbled the 

 biscuit to which I helped him, I took a rapid mental survey of my posi- 

 tion. The lovely Maria, my quondam chere amie, heaven knows how, 

 became the husband of old Garnet the attorney : this gentleman had 

 evidently died in fact, though not in law, the blooming relict having 

 taking out his annual certificate, and, keeping his connexion together, 

 gone on practising by the instrumentality of the sleek managing 

 clerk, Mr. Erasmus Gruel, as though nothing had happened. Doubts 



