"FARM TO LET." 125 



Lecjohn's pecuniary capabilities, or conclusive of 

 some indifference attaching in ioto to the inquiry, 

 has remained dark to the present day. The sub- 

 ject fell, strangled by some larger topic of news- 

 room discussion : and the Chronicle is without a 

 scholiast. 



Two or three days after the appearance of this epi- 

 grammatic announcement in the " Mercury," a thick 

 and weighty-looking pacquet, directed in what may 

 for contradistinction's sake, be called " Square-text," 

 might be seen lying upon the margin of a breakfast- 

 table, on which lay also an admired disorder of 

 newspapers, books, farm accounts, and coffee-cups. 

 The room itself in which the table stood is just 

 worth a moment's notice before any body comes in. 

 Small, oak-paneled, and too square for proportion, 

 it was crammed, in every corner and upon every 

 table, with miscellaneous piles of articles which 

 seemed to have grown together by degrees in spite 

 of original incongruity, and become reconciled at 

 last by lying under the same dust. "Indoor," and 

 " out-o'-door " seemed to contend for the mastery 

 all over the room : if you looked into the corners 

 you might have fancied yourself in a garden-tool- 

 house, if you looked on the mantel-piece you thought 

 of a chemist's shop : four dried lumps of soil as 



