The Merry Past 



humbly but gratefully thanked His Majesty, and begged 

 to be informed what that promotion was. The King, 

 with equal gravity, replied : " My lord, you have 

 made yourself master-general of the dust, and I wish 

 you may live long to enjoy it." The observation, 

 if it was made, contained much truth, as the art of 

 laying the dust in that neighbourhood was not at 

 that time well understood. 



When Lord Apsley began to build this house, he 

 employed people whose carelessness put him into a 

 situation that compelled him to pay a large sum of 

 money. The road, and the wall at the side of the 

 road, were kept in very bad order, and encumbered 

 with rubbish of various kinds, among which an old 

 woman put up a stall or stand to sell fruit. She 

 did this so long without being noticed by any but 

 her customers that, by degrees, she collected a quantity 

 of such materials as enabled her to make a kind of 

 hovel, in which she slept and lived, and having been 

 unmolested for so long a time she regarded the place 

 as her own. When the workmen prepared to build 

 the Chancellor's house, they cleared away this hovel 

 with the other rubbish in order to lay the foundations. 

 The old woman, much upset, would have protested 

 had not a relation, who was clerk to an attorney, 

 advised her to keep quiet till an auspicious moment 

 should occur. Following this advice, she bided her 

 time until the house was raised above the first storey, 

 and proceeding rapidly towards the roof, when she 

 went and enquired, in a formal manner, what had 

 become of her home. Those in charge of the works 



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