The Dobson Family. 595 



the schonste gable ind of an ould house that ever ye set yer zwei augen 

 on." Juliana looked a little puzzled, and then said, *' It must be 

 beautiful ; are the German ladies, Count, very handsome ?" The 

 count replied, " Faix they wouldn't be any how, if you were among 

 urn." He had forgotten his German in his eagerness to pay a com- 

 pliment. Emily simpered. " Talking of German, Count,'' inter- 

 rupted Mr. Dobson, " my respected friend Mr. Higginsbottom is 

 just come back from the Rhine, where he has been for nearly six 

 weeks occupied in thoroughly investigating the state of the Germans, 

 both morally and politically. He says they are a clever people, a 

 very clever people in some respects ; and he, Mr. Higginsbottom, is 

 a man not likely to be deceived in those respects. He is, I think I 

 may safely state, he is the head man of the Worshipful Company of 

 Ironmongers. You have, perhaps, heard of Mr. Higginsbottom ?" 



" la wohl, to be sure 5 Ich haben." 



" I have some idea of going to examine the matter myself/' con- 

 tinued Mr. Dobson, " and if we were so very near, it would not 

 matter very much just to take a trip to Rome/' " How delightful," 

 sighed Juliana, "it would be to stand beneath the Colosseum's wall." 

 " Oh, and there are such very very nice balls at the Duke of Por- 

 lonia's," added Emily ; " Mr. Jenks gave me such a description of 

 them, and such numbers of dukes, counts, and marquisses, and " 

 " Nonsense," said Mr. Dobson, " but I really will think about it ; 

 and I hear, count, that you can nearly live for nothing there." The 

 count was all this time looking very blank he had completely over- 

 shot himself, and he now perceived it ; he was very near forgetting 

 himself, but luckily did not. " Nein; it is in Rome vlel deurer als 

 here," was at length his reply. " Yes, so I imagined," said Mr. Dob- 

 son/' The count looked perplexed. " You won't be able to travel at 

 all at all under a couple of thousand a year." " Ah, yes," said Mr. Dob- 

 son, " a couple of thousand what-do-ye-call-ums francs, and a franc, 

 Mr. Higginsbottom tells me, is ten-pence British." The count saw 

 that it was hopeless, and so rose to take his leave, making quite sure 

 that when undeceived, he would give up the idea altogether ; and 

 resolving to come early on the morrow, he departed, and the family 

 shortly after retired. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Dobson were much 

 given to dreaming : the young ladies, however, dreamt the one of 

 the gay balls of Italy, and the conquests she was about to make ; the 

 other of being attacked by banditti and rescued by Count Vande- 

 neski, who valiantly charges the whole band, mounted, in the most 

 approved hero fashion, on a~milk-white horse. 



Night passed away, and morning dawned ; dawned, as it had 

 dawned many hundred times before on the purlieus of Bloomsbury, 

 muddy, murky, and miserable. Flowers opened not their fragrance 

 it is true, but dung heaps did, and scented sewers exhaled their 

 sweets to the balmy air ; while " the buzzy call of incense-breathing 

 morn," if not announced by swallow " twittering from the straw- 

 built shed," was not less effectively proclaimed by the sooty shiver- 

 ing sweep, and the more ambitious tintinnabulory notes of the dust- 

 man. But to descend from the sublime to the ridiculous. 



The Dobsons were up early ; old Dobson went out to make his 



2 Q2 



