"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."