102 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FAEM. 



read them at in the windows, so as to command the 

 news inside and outside, are sufficiently visible to all 

 average minds'-eyes without more specification. 



Now it happened that at the top of a column in the 

 advertisement-page of the * Wetland Mercury,' which 

 was lying fresh and damp from the press, and casting 

 a hazy pattern of itself upon the polish of one of 

 those same mahoganies, there appeared one Saturday 

 morning in the autumn of the year Eighteen-hun- 

 dred-and-thirty something, a short dab of an adver- 

 tisement in the following spasmodic phraseology : 



' WETLANDSHIRE. Farm to let ; on Lease. 250 

 acres. One third Meadow and Pasture. Has been 

 drained and otherwise improved in the hands of the 

 proprietor. Capital required, 107. to the acre. Ap- 

 plication, to Messrs. Penn and Debbitt, Bogmoor, 

 Wetlandshire.' 



' I say, Mr. Bowles, have you seen this Farm 

 that's advertised here ? ' 



said a gentleman sitting in the window, to 

 another gentleman, in deep perusal at the fireplace, 

 of which he had taken sole seisin, holding it by the 

 hobs with his feet. 



