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“I’ll bring an action against the villain!” ejaculated Miss Philly, as soon as the enemy was driven from her quarters, and her china and her dependants set upon their feet:–“I’ll take the law of him!” And in this spirited resolution did mistress, shopman, and shopwoman, find comfort for the losses, the scratches, and the bruises of the day.

This affray commenced on a Thursday evening towards the latter end of March; and it so happened that we had occasion to send to Miss Philly early the next morning for a cart-load of garden-pots for the use of my geraniums.

Our messenger was, as it chanced, a certain lad byname Dick Barnett, who has lived with us off and on ever since he was the height of the table, and who originally a saucy, lively, merry boy, arch, quick-witted, and amusing, has been indulged in giving vent to all manner of impertinences until he has become a sort of privileged person, and takes, with high or low, a freedom of speech that might become a lady’s page or a king’s jester. Every now and then we feel that this licence, which in a child of ten years old we found so diverting, has become inconvenient in a youth of seventeen, and favour him and ourselves with a lecture accordingly. But such is the force of inveterate habit that our remonstrances upon this subject are usually so much gravity wasted upon him and upon ourselves. He, in the course of a day or two, comes forth with some fresh prank more amusing than before, and we (I grieve to confess such a weakness) resume our laughter.

To do justice, however, to this modern Robin Goodfellow, there was most commonly a fund of goodnature at the bottom of his wildest tricks or his most egregious romances,–for in the matter of a jest he was apt to draw pretty largely from an inventive faculty of remarkable fertility; he was constant in his attachments, whether to man or beast, loyal to his employers, and although idle and uncertain enough in other work, admirable in all that related to the stable or the kennel–the best driver, best rider, best trainer of a greyhound, and best finder of a hare, in all Berkshire.

He was, as usual, accompanied on this errand by one of his four-footed favourites, a delicate snow-white greyhound called Mayfly, of whom Miss Philly flatteringly observed, that “she was as beautiful as china;” and upon the civil lady of the shop proceeding to inquire after the health of his master and mistress, and the general news of Aberleigh, master Ben, who well knew her proficiency in gossiping, and had the dislike of a man and a rival to any female practitioner in that art, checked at once this condescending overture to conversation by answering with more than his usual consequence: “The chief news that I know, Miss Firkin, is, that our geraniums are all pining away for want of fresh earth, and that I am sent in furious haste after a load of your best garden-pots. There’s no time to be lost, I can tell you, if you mean to save their precious lives. Miss Ada is upon her last legs, and master Diomede in a galloping consumption–two of our prime geraniums, ma’am!” quoth Dick, with a condescending nod to Miss Wolfe, as that Lilliputian lady looked up at him with a stare of unspeakable mystification; “queerish names, a’tot they? Well, there are the patterns of the sizes, and there’s the order; so if your little gentleman will but look the pots out, I have left the cart in Jem Tyler’s yard, (I’ve a message to Jem from master,) and we can pack ’em over the paling. I suppose you’ve a ladder for the little man’s use, in loading carts and waggons, if not Jem or I can take them from him. There is not a better-natured fellow in England than Jem Tyler, and he’ll be sure to do me a good turn any day, if it’s only for the love of our Mayfly here. He bred her, poor thing, and is well nigh as fond of her as if she was a child of his own; and so’s Sam. Nay, what’s the matter with you all?” pursued Dick, as at the name of Jem Tyler Miss Wolfe turned up her hands and eyes, Mr. Lamb let fall the pattern pots, and Miss Philly flung the order upon the counter–“What the deuce is come to the people?”