Mr. Robert Bolton - Page 2

you thinks of another.'

'Now,' said the undertaker, bowing amicably to the hairdresser, 'I
THINK, I says I THINK--you'll excuse me, Mr. Clip, I THINK, you
see, that won't go down with the present company--unfortunately, my
master had the honour of making the coffin of that ere Lord's
housemaid, not no more nor twenty year ago. Don't think I'm proud
on it, gentlemen; others might be; but I hate rank of any sort.
I've no more respect for a Lord's footman than I have for any
respectable tradesman in this room. I may say no more nor I have
for Mr. Clip! (bowing). Therefore, that ere Lord must have been
born long after Pope died. And it's a logical interference to
defer, that they neither of them lived at the same time. So what I
mean is this here, that Pope never had no book, never seed, felt,
never smelt no book (triumphantly) as belonged to that ere Lord.
And, gentlemen, when I consider how patiently you have 'eared the
ideas what I have expressed, I feel bound, as the best way to
reward you for the kindness you have exhibited, to sit down without
saying anything more--partickler as I perceive a worthier visitor
nor myself is just entered. I am not in the habit of paying
compliments, gentlemen; when I do, therefore, I hope I strikes with
double force.'

'Ah, Mr. Murgatroyd! what's all this about striking with double
force?' said the object of the above remark, as he entered. 'I
never excuse a man's getting into a rage during winter, even when
he's seated so close to the fire as you are. It is very
injudicious to put yourself into such a perspiration. What is the
cause of this extreme physical and mental excitement, sir?'

Such was the very philosophical address of Mr. Robert Bolton, a
shorthand-writer, as he termed himself--a bit of equivoque passing
current among his fraternity, which must give the uninitiated a
vast idea of the establishment of the ministerial organ, while to
the initiated it signifies that no one paper can lay claim to the
enjoyment of their services. Mr. Bolton was a young man, with a
somewhat sickly and very dissipated expression of countenance. His
habiliments were composed of an exquisite union of gentility,
slovenliness, assumption, simplicity, NEWNESS, and old age. Half
of him was dressed for the winter, the other half for the summer.
His hat was of the newest cut, the D'Orsay; his trousers had been
white, but the inroads of mud and ink, etc., had given them a pie-
bald appearance; round his throat he wore a very high black cravat,
of the most tyrannical stiffness; while his tout ensemble was
hidden beneath the enormous folds of an old brown poodle-collared
great-coat, which was closely buttoned up to the aforesaid cravat.
His fingers peeped through the