MAY. 139 
rather to cheer and comfort him; and he so far regained his animal 
spirits as to wink, when she finished, to an attendant robin (presiding, 
like an Kmperor, over his Diet of Worms, hard by), and pointing with 
his thumb to her retreating form, to murmur, “ Poor old runt.” 
They are good friends, nevertheless, these two fellow-servants ; and 
Sleet and Sunshine, as Miss Mary calls them, enjoy together life’s 
April day. “‘ When the old gal is on the hig,” says Grundy,—irre- 
verently alluding to those seasons in which the lady’s temper is especially 
acetose, her observations of the pointed order, and her enunciation so 
exceedingly nimble, ‘ that,’’ as Schiller said of Madame de Stael, ‘a 
man must be all ear to follow her,” ‘‘ when the old gal is on the hig, I 
never counterdix nothink. Beautiful, says I, as if I were admiring of a 
pin-wheel ; and off she goes, just like one, a blazing, and fizzing, and 
spluttering, till all her gunpowder and brimstone ’s burnt out, and she 
stops as still as a hyster.” Artful Joseph! shrewd in thy reticence, as 
the monk Eustace with Elspeth Glendinning, when he remembered that 
a woman of the good dame’s condition was like. a top, which, if you let 
it spin untouched, must at last come to a pause; but, if you interrupt 
it by flogging, there is. no end to its gyrations ! 
At an earlier period of their acquaintance, Joseph had essayed by 
various demonstrations to intimate to Mrs. V. that her monologues were 
a little tedious, yawning with extended arms, and consulting his watch 
from time to time in a very anxious and ostentatious manner. Such a 
watch! After an entire derangement of the owner’s vest, a liberal 
display of brace and button, and some powerful tuggings at a steel 
chain, out it came from its well, like the diving-bell at the Polytechnic. 
Mr. Chiswick pretended to covet the case, as. ‘“‘a sweet tank for the 
Victoria Lily,” and affirmed that when Grundy travelled on the rail, 
his timepiece was charged as extra luggage. But the exhibition of this 
huge chronometer, displayed and brandished as some intimation that 
Time was on the wing and precious, by no means produced. the effect 
proposed. ‘‘The old mare” (you must really excuse Joseph’s stable 
mind) ‘began to rear and plunge like anythink; and says I to 
mysen, this here’s a hanimal, which she'll stand no ticklings by whips 
nor straps, and if you don’t give her her ’ed, Joe Grundy, you'll be 
having her heels through your splashboard! ” 
If evidence were required to show the prudence of these reflections, 
and I wished to demonstrate the happy consequences of allowing the 
old mare her head, I should point triumphantly to the scarlet “‘ Com- 
forter,’ which, coming through foul weather to the “Six of Spades,” 
Mr. Grundy is wont to wear, and which was wrought expressly for him 
by the swift needles of Verjuice. Mr. Oldacres never beholds this 
neckerchief without addressing an inquiry to the Curate (of whom 
anon, my readers) “‘ whether he is aware that one of the Society has 
serious thoughts of petitioning Parliament to legalise marriage with 
grandmothers ;” and then he will address the brother in question, and 
promise him a dish of ‘the Duke's Potatoes,’’ whenever they are 
needed for the wedding feast. 
But what does he mean by ‘‘ the Duke’s Potatoes We A good many 
years ago, when J oseph Grundy first came among us, with horticultural 
