be too late—­and when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures—­and when you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome—­and when you presented it to me—­and when we were exploring the perfectness of it (collating you called it)—­and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be left till day-break—­was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can those neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in that over-worn suit—­your old corbeau—­for four or five weeks longer than you should have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen—­or sixteen shillings was it?—­a great affair we thought it then—­which you had lavished on the old folio.  Now you can afford to buy any book that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any nice old purchases now.

“When you come home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number of shillings upon that print after Lionardo, which we christened the ‘Lady Blanch;’ when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the money—­and thought of the money, and looked again at the picture—­was there no pleasure in being a poor man?  Now, you have nothing to do but to walk into Colnaghi’s, and buy a wilderness of Lionardos.  Yet do you?

“Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter’s Bar, and Waltham, when we had a holyday—­holydays, and all other fun, are gone, now we are rich—­and the little hand-basket, in which I used to deposit our day’s fare of savory cold lamb and salad—­and how you would pry about at noon-tide for some decent house, where we might go in, and produce our store—­only paying for the ale that you must call for—­and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she was likely to allow us a table-cloth—­and wish for such another honest hostess, as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasant banks of the Lea, when he went a fishing—­and sometimes they would prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon us—­but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat our plain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall?  Now, when we go out a day’s pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, we ride part of the way—­and go into a fine inn, and order the best of dinners, never debating the expense—­which, after all, never has half the relish of those chance country snaps, when we were at the mercy of uncertain usage, and a precarious welcome.