The days, which before seemed like weeks, were now turned to minutes:  scarcely had I swallowed my breakfast before I was in my justice-room; and before I had mittimused half a dozen paupers for beggary, I was called away to luncheon; this barely over, in comes a deputation or a dispatch, and so on till dinner, which was barely ended before supper was announced.  We all became enchanted with the Mansion House; my girls grew graceful by the confidence their high station gave them; Maria refused a good offer because her lover chanced to have an ill sounding name; we had all got settled in our rooms, the establishment had begun to know and appreciate us; we had just become in fact easy in our dignity and happy in our position, when lo and behold! the ninth of November came again—­the anniversary of my exaltation, the consummation of my downfall.

Again did we go in state to Guildhall, again were we toasted and addressed, again were we handed in, and led out, again flirted with cabinet ministers and danced with ambassadors, and at two o’clock in the morning drove home from the scene of gaiety to our old residence in Budge Row.—­Never in this world did pickled herrings and turpentine smell so powerfully as on that night when we entered the house; and although my wife and the young ones stuck to the drinkables at Guildhall, their natural feelings would have way, and a sort of shuddering disgust seemed to fill their minds on their return home—­the passage looked so narrow—­the drawing-rooms looked so small—­the staircase seemed so dark—­our apartments appeared so low—­however, being tired, we all slept well, at least I did, for I was in no humour to talk to Sally, and the only topic I could think upon before I dropped into my slumber, was a calculation of the amount of expense which I had incurred during the just expired year of my greatness.

In the morning we assembled at breakfast—­a note lay on the table, addressed—­“Mrs. Scropps, Budge Row.”  The girls, one after the other, took it up, read the superscription, and laid it down again.  A visiter was announced—­a neighbour and kind friend, a man of wealth and importance—­what were his first words?—­they were the first I had heard from a stranger since my job,—­“How are you, Scropps, done up, eh?”

Scropps! no obsequiousness, no deference, no respect;—­no “my lord, I hope your lordship passed an agreeable night—­and how is her ladyship and your lordship’s amiable daughters?”—­not a bit of it—­“How’s Mrs. S. and the gals?” This was quite natural, all as it had been, all perhaps as it should be—­but how unlike what it was, only one day before!  The very servants, who, when amidst the strapping, stall-fed, gold-laced lacqueys of the Mansion House, (transferred with the chairs and tables from one Lord Mayor to another) dared not speak nor look, nor say their lives were their own, strutted about the house, and banged the doors, and talked of their “Missis,” as if she had been an apple woman.