iHE STUnEiNl'S MYSTERIES, 159 



What a queer leg ! (donH start,) it's a table leg. No, it canH be, for 

 it is in the middle of the room. And it is not a chair leg. I'm nearly- 

 sure it is a table leg, made of two or three sticks nailed together. Close 

 by it is a chair without a back. No, it must be a stool, for it has only- 

 three legs. Yet it looks very much like the dilapidated remarins of a 

 superannuated chair. Ah ! now, that is a better light — 1 can see much 

 more distinctly. Just have patience, I'll let you look directly. There, 

 I see him, as I'm alive, sleeping; in broad day-light too, with his moutlr 

 open. Nod, nod, nod — I thought so. He struck his head against tiie 

 book case, and is awake now. He rubs his eyes lazily, looks at his 

 book lying upon the floor, lays his head back to nod again, but recol- 

 lects the book-case and stops. What a funny-looking fellow ! He picks 

 up his book — to study I suppose, and make up for lost time ; he lays it 

 upon the table, and whistles ; commencing on a very high key, which, 

 growing finer and finer — an attenuated whistle — terminates in a yawn. 



There is a confused heap of black-looking things in a corner, and 

 close by, a globe — a miniature world. Boots and the world ! I pre- 

 sume some of those are more than "seven league boots." Ah, now, 

 hush! — just vvhat I want to see. Hs is opening his box; his treasure- 

 box, as it seems ; what wonders ! Three or four piles of scribbled pa- 

 per ; a quantity of what is intended to be "Sketchings," "Pencillings-by- 

 the way," "Dashes at Life," and "Moonshee Documents." He looks 

 upon his progeny with an amiably paternal look. There is a whole 

 port-folio of engravings, interspersed with drawings. What drawings ! 

 A cart load of withered leaves, crushed flowers, pieces of cracked glass, 

 and bits of a little-of-every-thing-under-the-sun. What more is in that 

 box.^ Ah, sir, a great deal more ; but I do not intend to tell you. The 

 mantle-piece. What a mantle-piece ! Tell me what is not on it ! Lamps, 

 bottles, brushes, inkstands, tin-cups, match-safes, boxes, whet-stones — 

 that's a commencement of the inventory for you. On the whole it 

 looks rather dusty and dirty. I worniei how they manage to keep sucli 

 clean faces, and look so trim before the public. It's a mystery. I won- 

 der how they can be sick all day and well in the evening. It's a mys- 

 tery. 1 wonder where they get their appetite and fastidiousness .' It's 

 a mystery. I wonder if they are really descendants of our first parents ; 

 and if so, how it happens that they differ so much from human beings 

 in a great many respects ? It's a mystery. I wonder — but we must get 

 away from this keyhole ; for I perceive, from the brushing of his coat, 

 that he intends to walk out. 



