The Merry Past 



were frankly insolent, like the one who said, " Please, 

 sir, your tailor called this morning and left his compli- 

 ments, and says you'll oblige him by paying his bill, 

 and if not, sir, he says he'll oblige you." 



Those were the days before bachelors prided 

 themselves on the artistic decoration of their rooms, 

 and it was certainly fortunate that the mania for 

 collecting had not yet begun to rage, for most of 

 these maids were wholesale slaughterers of crockery ; 

 they seemed, indeed, to have sworn a war of exter- 

 mination against china. 



/ 



i8i 



