I ascended to my rooms, of which I discovered I had a brace; but I was in some dudgeon to find them in the third story. "Very odd," said I to myself, "that I should be a fashionable man and a dandy, and live in a third story!" My instincts had gone nigh, as I climbed the stairs, to carry me into a chamber on the first floor; but, "Arrah, now, hinny," said Nora, "you'd be after forgetting you agreed to give up the best chambers till yer uncle comes to town—bad luck to him for keeping me so long out iv my tin dollars!"
"This uncle of mine," thought I, "will settle all pothers." But who he was, or what sort of claim I had upon him, I knew no more than the man in the moon. My associations acted but slowly and imperfectly, and when I strove to look back upon the past history of my new body, I felt like a man who has clapped upon his nose his grandmother's spectacles, through which he can behold objects indeed, but all so confused, distorted, and mystified, that they serve only to bewilder his vision. Thus I beheld, when I made the effort, a jumble of events and persons crowded together on my memory, but without being able to seize upon any one and examine it to my satisfaction. I had an uncle, it seemed, but I could not recall any thing like a recollection of having ever seen him. "But time," thought I, "will set these things right."
[CHAPTER V.]
AN INVENTORY OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN'S EFFECTS, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF MR. SNIGGLES, HIS LANDLORD.
My chambers were but meanly furnished, and this—But it needs not I should acquaint the reader with the divers proofs that rose every moment to convince me Mr. I. D. Dawkins, though a dandy, was not a rich one. Before I had rummaged an hour among his chattels, I discovered enough to set me into a cold shiver, and almost make me repent having taken possession of his body. I found lying upon his table no less than thirty-seven folded papers—the tribute doubtless of the two days of his absence—of which, eight were either billetsdoux or mere cards of invitation to ladies' parties, and twenty-nine were letters from tailors, shoemakers, &c., all of them requesting payment of money owed, and most of them as ferocious in spirit as they were original in style and grammar. In an old trunk, which I ransacked, as well as every chest of drawers and closet in the rooms (the keys were ready at hand in my pocket), I discovered a bushel or two of bills—I suppose there may have been a thousand of them, for they were of all dates—not one of which had a receipt to it.
But, to make amends for this evil, I found Mr. I. D. Dawkins's wardrobe in pretty good condition, except in the article of shirts; of which I discovered but six, and those none of the best. However, there were three dozen good dickeys, and a great abundance of loose collars and wristbands; with which, I perceived, I might do without shirts altogether.
But what gave me most pleasure, and indeed quite consoled me under the feelings of disappointment and doubt that had begun to rise, was a marvellous great quantity of love-letters, locks of hair, finger-rings, odd gloves, &c., that I found scattered about; each, as was apparent, the tribute or spoil of some admiring fair. "Aha!" said I, "I am a devil of a fellow among the girls: who can resist me?" The idea of being a favourite among the women, and the prospect I had of shooting conquests among them, right and left, were infinitely agreeable. "Ged and demmee," said I, "I will look about me now, and fix for life. I will pick out the finest creature I can find who has a fortune, and marry her; and then, I say, demm all tailors and other people. I will marry a wife, eged!"
It was doubly remarkable I should make such a resolution, having had but lately such a lesson of the joys of matrimony. But I found myself fast growing another man. I still retained a lively recollection of Mrs. Higginson, but fancy pictured an angel in the anticipated Mrs. Dawkins. Dim visions—which seemed to be made up as much of crude recollections as of half-formed anticipations—dim visions of lovely eyes and noses floated over my brain; I sank into a soft, elysium-like revery; when I suddenly heard a voice, somewhat tremulous and feeble, but rude as the screech of a strawberry-woman in spring, saying,