come back for another, the day after to-morrow, as brazen as alabaster.’

The matron expressed her entire concurrence in this intelligible simile; and the beadle went on.

‘I never,’ said Mr. Bumble, ‘see anything like the pitch it’s got to. The day afore yesterday, a man — you have been a married woman, ma’am, and I may mention it to you — a man, with hardly a rag upon his back (here Mrs. Corney looked at the floor), goes to our overseer’s door when he has got company coming to dinner; and says, he must be relieved, Mrs. Corney. As he wouldn’t go away, and shocked the company very much, our overseer sent him out a pound of potatoes and half a pint of oatmeal. “My heart!” says the ungrateful villain, “what’s