"Feel much berrer now," said their late burden; "feel quite-comfurble! Shallgotobed!"
"Well, Gig-lamps," said the first speaker, "and By-by won't be at all a bad move for you. D'ye think you can unrig yourself and get between the sheets, eh, my beauty?"
"Its allri, allri!" was the reply; "limycandle!"
"No, no," said the second gentleman, as he pulled up the window-blind, and let in the moonlight; "here's quite as much light as you want. It's almost morning."
"Sotis," said the gentleman in the evening costume: "anlittlebirds beginsingsoon! Ilike littlebirds sing! jollittlebirds!" The speaker had suddenly fallen upon his bed, and was lying thereon at full length, with his feet on the pillow.
"He'll be best left in this way," said the second speaker, as he removed the pillow to the proper place, and raised the prostrate gentleman's head; "I'll take off his choker and make him easy about the neck, and then we'll shut him up, and leave him. Why the beggar's asleep already!" And so the two gentlemen went away, and left him safe and sleeping.
It is conjectured, however, that he must have got up shortly after this, and finding himself with his clothes on, must have considered that a lighted candle was indispensably necessary to undress by; for when Mrs. Tester came at her usual early hour to light the fires and prepare the sitting-rooms, she discovered him lying on the carpet embracing the coal-skuttle, with a candle by his side. The good woman raised him, and did not leave him until she had, in the most motherly manner, safely tucked him up in bed.
Clink, clank! clink, clank! tingle, tangle! tingle, tangle! Are demons smiting ringing hammers into Mr. Verdant Green's brain, or is the dreadful bell summoning him to rise for morning chapel?