The difficulties of this arrangement are very perplexing to your servant, if you have one, as in my case.  First you put out every conceivable article on the bed or floor, and then with an air of self-denial you say, “There, that will be enough;” and when you find an additional portmanteau lugged out, you ask with an air of astonishment (which may well astonish the servant), “What on earth are you going to do with that?” “To put your things into it, sir,” is the very natural, reply; so, after a good deal of “Confound it, what a bore,” &c., it ends in everything being again unpacked, a fresh lot thrown aside, and a new packing commenced; and believe me, reader, the oftener you repeat this discarding operation, the more pleasantly you will travel.  I speak from experience, having, during my wanderings, lost everything by shipwreck, and thus been forced to pass through all the stages of quantity, till I once more burdened myself as unnecessarily as at starting.

It was a lovely September morning in 1852, when, having put my traps through the purging process twice, and still having enough for half-a-dozen people, I took my place in the early train from Euston-square for Liverpool, where I was soon housed in the Adelphi.  A young American friend, who was going out in the same steamer on the following morning, proposed a little walk before the shades of evening closed in, as he had seen nothing of the city.  Off we started, full of intentions never to be realized:  I stepped into a cutler’s shop to buy a knife; a nice-looking girl in the middle of her teens, placed one or two before me; I felt a nudge behind, and a voice whispered in my ear, “By George, what a pretty hand!” It was perfectly true; and so convinced was my friend of the fact, that he kept repeating it in my ear.  When my purchase was completed, and the pretty hand retired, my friend exhibited symptoms of a strong internal struggle:  it was too much for him.  At last he burst out with, “Have you any scissors?”—­Aside to me, “What a pretty little hand!”—­Then came a demand for bodkins, then for needles, then for knives, lastly for thimbles, which my friend observed were too large, and begged might be tried on her taper fingers.  He had become so enthusiastic, and his asides to me were so rapid, that I believe he would have bought anything which those dear little hands had touched.

Paterfamilias, who, while poring over his ledger, had evidently had his ears open, now became alarmed at the reduction that was going on in his stock, and consequently came forward to scrutinize the mysterious purchaser.  I heard a voice muttering “Confound that old fellow!” as the dutiful daughter modestly gave place to papa; a Bank of England tenner passed from my friend’s smallclothes to the cutler’s small till, and a half-crown vice versa.  When we got to the door it was pitch dark; and thus ended our lionizing of the public buildings of Liverpool.