earth-worm, instead of the gorgeous fly; where they bet prizes for butter and cheese, and rag-carpets executed by ladies more than seventy years of age; where whey wear dress-coats before dinner, and cock their hats on one side when they feel conspicuous and distinshed; where they say—­Sir to you in their common talk and have other Arcadian and bucolic ways which are highly unobjectionable, but are not so much admired in cities, where the people are said to be not half so virtuous.

There is with us a boy of modest dimensions, not otherwise especially entitled to the epithet, who ought be six or seven years old, to judge by the gap left by his front milk teeth, these having resigned in favor of their successors, who have not yet presented their credentials.  He is rather old for an enfant terrible, and quite too young to have grown into the bashfulness of adolescence; but he has some of the qualities of both these engaging periods of development, The member of the Haouse calls him “Bub,” invariably, such term I take to be an abbreviation of “Beelzeb,” as “bus” is the short form of “omnibus.”  Many eminently genteel persons, whose manners make them at home anywhere, being evidently unaware of true derivation of this word, are in the habit of addressing all unknown children by one of the two terms, “bub” and “sis,” which they consider endears them greatly to the young people, and recommends them to the acquaintance of their honored parents, if these happen to accompany them.  The other boarders commonly call our diminutive companion That Boy.  He is a sort of expletive at the table, serving to stop gaps, taking the same place a washer does that makes a loose screw fit, and contriving to get driven in like a wedge between any two chairs where there is a crevice.  I shall not call that boy by the monosyllable referred to, because, though he has many impish traits at present, he may become civilized and humanized by being in good company.  Besides, it is a term which I understand is considered vulgar by the nobility and gentry of the Mother Country, and it is not to be found in Mr. Worcester’s Dictionary, on which, as is well known, the literary men of this metropolis are by special statute allowed to be sworn in place of the Bible.  I know one, certainly, who never takes his oath on any other dictionary, any advertising fiction to the contrary, notwithstanding.

I wanted to write out my account of some of the other boarders, but a domestic occurrence—­a somewhat prolonged visit from the landlady, who is rather too anxious that I should be comfortable broke in upon the continuity of my thoughts, and occasioned—­in short, I gave up writing for that day.

—­I wonder if anything like this ever happened.  Author writing, jacks?”

    “To be, or not to be:  that is the question
     Whether ’t is nobl—­”

—­“William, shall we have pudding to-day, or flapjacks?”

—­“Flapjacks, an’ it please thee, Anne, or a pudding, for that matter; or what thou wilt, good woman, so thou come not betwixt me and my thought.”