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“Things don’t work quite so smooth as I expected–I’ve moved!”

“What? Not so soon?”

“Yes, sir,” said Perriwinkle; “that house was a nuisance!”

“A nuisance? Why, I thought you were in raptures with it?”

“Had water every wet spell, knee-deep in the cellar; full of rats, bugs, and foul air.”

“You don’t say so?”

“Yes, I do,” said Perriwinkle, mournfully. “Chimneys smoked, paper peeled off the walls, Mrs. P. got the rheumatics, a turner worked all night, next door, the fellow that had previously lived or stayed in the house, ran off, leaving all his bills unpaid, and our door bell was incessantly kept ringing by ugly and impudent duns, and the creditors of the rascal, whom I did not know from a side of sole leather. I lived there in purgatory!”

“Too bad,” said we. “Well, you’ve moved, eh?”

“Moved–and such an infernal job as it was. You know the two vases I received as a present from my brother, at Leghorn; I wouldn’t have taken $100 each, for them–“

“They are worth it; more too.”

“The carman dropped one out of his hands, broke it into a half bushel of flinders, and I hit the centre table upon which the other stood, with a chair, and broke it into forty pieces. But, that wasn’t any thing, sir. My wife packed up the elegant set of china presented her by her sister, in a large clothes basket, and set it out in the hall, and while our Irish girl and the carman were carrying out a heavy trunk, the girl lost her balance and fell bump into the basket. She weighed over two hundred pounds–every article of the china was crushed into powder!”

“This was too bad,” said we, condolingly.

“Our carpets were torn in getting them up, for I had them put down fast and tight, never supposing they’d come up until thread-bare and out of fashion; they were stained and daubed. The veneering of the piano and other furniture is scratched and torn; a hundred small matters are mutilated. Franklin thought a few moves was as bad as a fire; one move convinces me that the old man was right. But, my dear fellow, I won’t bore you with my miseries. We are now moved, and look comfortable again. Call and see us, do. Good bye.”

About a fortnight after meeting Perriwinkle, one evening we went up town to see him and his lady. Mrs. P., before marriage, was an uncommon even-tempered and most amiable woman. She had now been married about six months. Upon entering the parlor we found Mrs. P. laboring under much “excitement,” and poor Peter–he was doing his best to pacify and soothe her–

“Halloo! what’s the trouble?”–we were familiar enough to ask the question–as they were alone, without intruding.

“Take a seat, John,” said Perriwinkle. “Mrs. P. and the cook have had a misunderstanding. A little muss, that’s all.”

“Mr. Humphries,” responded the irritated wife, “you don’t know how one’s temper and good nature are put out, sir, by housekeeping; by the impudence, awkwardness, and wasteful habits of servants, sir.”

“Oh! yes, we do, Mrs. P.; we’ve had our experience,” we replied.

“Well, sir,” she continued, “I have suffered so in ordering, directing, and watching these women and girls–had my feelings so outraged by them, time and again, since we began housekeeping, that I vow I am out of all manner of patience and charity for them. We have had occasion to change our help so often, that I finally concluded to submit to the awkwardness that cost us sets of china, dozens of glasses, stained carpets, soiled paints, smeared walls, rugs upon the top of the piano, and the piano cloths put down for rugs; Mr. P.’s best linen used for mops, and puddings boiled in night-caps. But, sir, when this evening I found the dough-tray filled with the chambermaid’s old clothes, she wiping the lamps with our linen napkins, and the cook washing out her stockings in the dinner pot–I gave way to my angry passions, and cried with vexation!”

And she really did cry, for female blood of Mrs. P.’s pilgrim stock, couldn’t stand that, nohow.

P. S.–Perriwinkle and lady sold off, and took rooms at the Tremont House, in order to preserve their morals and money.