CHAPTER VI. 



MANURES. 



I OPENED noiselessly the other morning, that I might enjoy 

 a father's gladness, the door of a room in which my little 

 boy, "six off," was at his play. He was evidently enter- 

 taining an illustrious visitor, a beloved and honoured guest. 

 The table, surrounded by every available chair, with a fire- 

 screen for the front-door, and a music-stool, inverted atop 

 to represent the main stack of chimneys, was transformed 

 into a palace of art. The banquet had just commenced, and 

 the courteous host was recommending to his distinguished 

 guest (a very large and handsome black retriever, by name 

 "Colonel") the viands before him. These viands, upon a 

 cursory glance through the chair-legs, did not strike me as 

 of an appetising or digestible character — the two pieces de 

 resistance consisting of a leg-rest and a small coal-scuttle, 

 and the side dishes being specimens of the first Atlantic 



