THE HOARDING-HOUSE. 48? 



" Ah," said Mr. Calton, filling his glass, (< Tom Moore is my 

 poet." 



"And mine," said Mrs. Maplesone. 



" And mine/' said Miss Julia. 



" And mine/' added Mr. Simpson. 



" Look at his compositions," resumed the knocker. 



" To be sure/' said Simpson, with confidence. 



" Look at Don Juan/' replied Mr. Septimus Hicks. 



" Julia's letter," suggested Miss Matilda. 



Can any thing be grander than The Fire Worshippers?" in- 

 qu red Miss Julia, 



To be sure," said Simpson. 



Or Paradise and the Peri," suggested the old beau. 

 Yes ; or Paradise and the Peer/' repeated the deeply-read 

 Simpson, who thought he was getting through it capitally. 



" It's all very well," replied Mr. Septimus Hicks, who, as we have 

 before hinted, had never read anything but Don Juan. Where will 

 you find anything finer than the description of the siege, at the com- 

 mencement of the seventh canto ?" 



" Talking of a siege," said Tibbs, with a mouth full of bread, 

 " when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and six, 

 our commanding officer was Sir Charles Rampart; and one day, 

 when we were exercising on the ground on which the London Uni- 

 versity now stands, he says, says he, Tibbs (calling me from the 

 ranks), Tibbs " 



" Tell your master, James," interrupted Mrs. Tibbs, in an awfully 

 distinct tone, " tell your master if he won't carve those fowls, to send 

 them to me." The discomfited volunteer instantly set to work, and 

 carved the fowls almost as expeditiously as his wife operated on the 

 haunch of mutton. Whether he ever finished that story, is not 

 exactly known. 



As the ice was now broken, and the new inmates more at home, 

 every member of the company felt more at ease. Tibbs himself most 

 certainly did, because he went to sleep immediately after dinner. 

 Mr. Hicks and the ladies discoursed most eloquently about poetry, 

 and the theatres, and Lord Chesterfield's Letters ; and Mr. Calton 

 followed up what everybody said, with continuous double knocks. 

 Mrs. Tibbs highly approved of every observation that fell from Mrs. 

 Maplesone ; and as Mr. Simpson sat with a smile upon his face and 

 said " Yes," or " Certainly/' at intervals of about four minutes each, 

 he received full credit for understanding what was going forward. 

 The gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room very shortly 

 after they had left the dining-parlour. Mrs. Maplesone and Mr. 

 Calton played cribbage, and " the young people" amused themselves 

 with music and conversation. The Miss Maplesones sang the most 

 fascinating duets, and accompanied themselves on guitars, orna- 

 mented with bits of etherial blue ribbon. Mr. Simpson put on a 

 pink waistcoat, and said he was in raptures ; and Mr. Hicks felt in 

 the seventh heaven of poetry, or the seventh canto of Don Juan, it 

 was the same thing to him. Mrs. Tibbs was quite charmed with the 

 new comers, and Mr. Tibbs spent the evening in his usual way he 



