[M5] “The Legend of the Coffee Bags,” The Citizen Soldier, June 7, 1843

Original Tales.

Written for the Citizen Soldier.

The Legend of the Coffee Bags.

An Episode in the Life of a Bookworm.

BY GEORGE LIPPARD, ESQ.,

AUTHOR OF "HERBERT TRACY."

“Pah! This twaddle of Mr. Bogton or Mr. Frogton, may be very funny, very amusing, still it is not literature.”—E. A. Poe on Charles O’Malley, etc.

CHAPTER I.

The Students, their characters and their history.

“I tell you, Francis, I am sick of life—sick to the heart’s core!”

“And I tell you, Charles, that I am not sick of life—by no means; nor will I be while wine, women, and fun endure!”

“Francis, you trifle.  Just for a moment look at my circumstances.  Three months ago, I bore off the honors at Harvard College, and life opened before me like a pleasant landscape.  Now look at the dreary change—”

“Change is never dreary, Charles.  Change at all times will procure Champaigne, oysters, and fun.  Always excepting Relief notes, however.—Don’t speak against change, Charles.”

“I returned home, to the pleasant valley, where is fixed the mansion of my patron—I returned home to the pleasant valley of Beechwood, county of Chester, and found the friend of my youth cold hearted, and the object of my first and warmest passion, faithless.”

“And did I not find that same friend of your youth, that is my respected father, in no very agreeable mood with myself—that is I, Mr. Francis Warner?  Did not the old gentleman talk learnedly of the evils of dissipation at college?  Did he not discuss on oyster suppers at Harvard?  Was he not familiar with every little country drive I had taken, every little peccadillo I had committed, every small “dash out” that I had made?  Pah!  Charles! away with those folded arms, that measured step and that frowning brow!  ‘Care killed a cat,’ ‘and I’ll have none of it.’  Here we are in our own chamber, located in an old fashioned house in the good city of Philadelphia.  Our hostess is a queer sort of an old woman, as ancient in manners as her furniture is antique in appearance; our companions are ourselves; and our resources are—”

“A paltry sum which we managed to save out of our college allowance.  Ods! life, Francis, I’m sick of this life!”

With that the grave student walked to the window, and his merry companion whistled the Cracovienne, interspersing this musical entertainment with various effective illustrations of the poetry of motion.

As Charles stands gazing out the window into the narrow street, we will take a peep at his personal appearance.  About the middle height in stature, his figure was well proportioned, his hands were delicate, his feet small, his shoulders bent over with a slight stoop, and he was attired in a frock coat of deep black, buttoned up to the throat, with the ends of a black kerchief that enveloped his neck, disposed in a very neat tie, and permitting small spaces of white shirt collar fresh from the hands of the laundress, to fall in a very careless manner over the dark collar of his coat.  His face was pale in hue, with massive intellectual features, dark and brilliant eyes, forehead high and pale, Roman nose, prominent chin and determined mouth.  His jet black hair fell in thick, and massive curls down on either side of his face, and relieved his pale countenance, with their dark and waving outline.  He was altogether a very student-like person in appearance; his whole manner was embued with the little eccentricities peculiar to the authorial craft, and his character partook largely of the strange mixture of reflection and prejudice, thought and petulance, not unfrequently visible in the demeanour of that class who term themselves men of genius, but who are designated by the world under the general name of scribblers.

His companion, Francis Warner, was a very handsome young fellow, with regard to the advantages of personal beauty.  His well moulded figure was attired in a very finished claret-colored coat, a bulging vest of ‘dusky’ exterior, dark unmentionables varied by innumerable stripes, and his feet were inclosed within fashionable boots of the Lilliputian order.  A wide shirt collar of the Byronic mode, gave free sweep to the motions of his neck, and was very prettily relieved by a blue scarf varied by golden flowers, which was arrayed in voluptuous folds around his neck and over his prominent chest.

Francis Warner was one of your jolly good fellows who sing a good song at a wine party, dance ‘stag’dances in a ball-room, beat the watch-men when returning homeward during the prevalence of the small hours, twist door-bells from their sockets, transpose the shingles from professional shutters, and manage to make a night of it in a general way.  At college, legendary narrative still tells, how Frank Warner gave offense to the faculty, by transferring a haystack from the centre of a green meadow to the middle aisle of the collegiate chapel during the silent hours of the night; how he was wont to disturb the naps of the erudite by unearthly imitations of the quadruped renowned for his firmness and consistency; how he very industriously oiled the bannisters of the chapel stairway, with a compound at once unctuous and odorous, thereby essentially damaging the hands of the Professors; and there is a certain vague legend still extant at Harvard, of the prevalence of a ghost, dressed in white, with eyes of flame and hair of fire, among the cloisters of the college at very unseasonable hours, causing considerable alarm to the faculty, affrighting the students, and turning books, papers, and things in general, upside down, in a manner not at all sanctioned by precedent or supported by learned authority.

The room allotted for the use of the students for the weekly stipend of one dollar, through the kindness of the Widow Smith, was an old fashioned place, with an arching ceiling, heavy with smoky ornaments of wood, a spacious fire-place, surmounted by a massive mantel-piece, grinning with unearthly satyrs and fabulous dragons, all nicely ‘done in wood;’ the uncarpeted floor, was polished to a snowy whiteness, the bed in the corner was arrayed in all the glories of clean coverlid and downy pillow; the huge backed chairs, looking as straight and formal as though they were discussing the merits of the Tariff, seemed made for any other use than for the repose of the most sensitive portion of the human frame; the light was admitted into the chamber, by two extensive windows reaching from the ceiling, nearly down to the floor, with very deep frames, ornamented with carved work; very dingy glasses, set in massive old sashes, and they gave to the vision of the students a very pleasant view of an exceedingly narrow alley, where the cold winter wind was raising a considerable dust, while children were playing, dogs barking, women screaming, all through one another, in a confusion at once picturesque and indiscriminate.

In the centre of the room stood a circular table covered with books and papers, and with an armchair on either side.  Blotted manuscript, half-opened volumes, superannuated pens and a massive inkstand, ornamented with numerous incrustations, varied the appearance of the oil cloth that covered the table, and gave the place quite a literary air, which plainly indicated that a son of the pen prevailed in the immediate vicinity.

“Francis, take a seat, and we’ll discuss the prospect that opens before us.  There now—you know how your father, Mr. Warner, of Chester county, adopted me, when I was quite a lad; you know he gave the orphan a home, how he educated me, how he supported me while at Harvard—”

“Oh, certainly, I know all that,” Francis replied, rolling himself about on the chair.  “And I am also aware of the small bit of love, that was in existence between you and my sister Norah—the black-eyed minx!  How she did rate me for my follies at Harvard!  Need I recall the moment when returning home with me, to my father’s house, you thought proper to be attacked with an exceedingly violent spasm of jealousy, because forsooth, you saw your lady love, my pretty sister, walking arm in arm with a city beau, through the lonely arcades of Beechwood!  And from that moment, the story is as plain, as the scenery around Philadelphia.  You forswear love and women, and hied hither to Phialdelphia—this good city, with the very praiseworthy intention of making your bread by your goose-quill.  My case was exactly opposite—I would not forswear love and women, I would not forswear Champaigne, and so my respected papa, forswore me, gave me the bag to hold, sacked me and turned me out of doors, banished, exiled, outlawed me—that’s all!  Here I am, and what d’ye intend to do, Charley my boy?”

“I am now engaged in the composition of an original work, which I hope shall bring me fame and—”

“Pewter!” suggested Francis, with a grave expression of countenance, quite peculiar.

“Fame and money.  While I am engaged in this work, I hope my good star shall favor me with one blessing—the entire absence of all women and children from this domicile, or any place within a mile.  The old lady, Mrs. Smith, I can bear with, but, as for young women—pah! they are the very essence of insipidity, boiled down to a Compound Extract.  You converse with them and they talk of—matrimony, forsooth!  You jest with them—and they deal in pretty little pieces of wit, descriptive of the various beauties of that drivelling species of insanity termed—love!  Pah!  Francis I would to heaven that I might never look upon one of the sex again!”

“Still, black eye, velvet cheek, and cherry lips, have their charms—” suggested Francis in his meditative way.

“And then to think what I have suffered, during two weeks residence in this city from women and children!  When we first arrived in town, I instituted inquiries for a nice, quiet domestic family, where we might live in uninterrupted felicity.  We obtained such a place—and, good Saint Benedict! d’ye recollect, the first morning we breakfasted in this nice, quiet family?  There was the amiable mamma, grasping with one arm, a big, frowsy baby, its chubby cheeks smeared with molasses, neatly varied by divers crumbs of bread; while the other hand brandished the coffee pot.  Pah! d’ye remember the amiable papa, how fondly he looked upon the budding hope of the family?  How like a heap of galvanized dough he looked?  Pah!  d’ye remember?  Hey! hey!  Hah-ha-ha?  Zounds but it makes me mad—such an annoyance!  Pah, pah!”

“Well, Charles, you are quite a woman-hater!” suggested the mercurial Francis, rolling himself about in the spacious armed-chair.  “What a minx sister Norah was—eh! Charlie?   Those lonely walks, Charlie, those confessions of reciprocal passion—that’s the word—and all before you went to college—oh! changeable Charles!”

“Ods fish!” muttered the literary student as he arose from his chair, for his perusal of the old dramatists, had given him a habit of swearing after their select number of pretty oaths.  “Ods fish, Francis, you vex meI  I hate the very sight of a woman or child!”

CHAPTER II.

The Beautiful Period.  The Mysterious Nurse.  The Fearful Reality.

“That’s a beautiful period!  Ah! Superb! My work entitled, ‘an Inquiry into the theory of Witchcraft, and the unrealities of the spiritual world, together with some disquisitions on the probabilities of Animal Magnetism, &c. &c.’, will bring me fame and money.  Ha-ha!  I shall conquer all difficulties.  A beautiful period!”

Charles leaned back in his armed-chair, and gazed complacently at the scrawled and blotted sheets of his unfinished work.  He had been busily employed on this essay for nearly a week, his “Inquiry” approached completion, and he felt pleased with himself and the world in general.

“What’s all that about?” cried Francis, who stood arranging his cravat at the only mirror in the room.  “Let’s hear that beautiful period as you call it—pro-ceed Charles.”

“Here it is, Francis.  ‘There is, in every human heart, a secret disposition to entertain and believe the relations of supernatural appearances.  We all dream of a bright world beyond the present—we dream of a fairy race, who people the air around us with forms of light, and fill the dome of heaven with mysterious song—we all desire that these visions might be realized; that these dreams might assume a tangible form, and were the very dead to arise from their graves, clad in the cerements of death, clad in all the’—‘Sdeath! Francis, what’s that!”

Had the very dead walked into the room, clad in the cerements of the grave, and robed in shadowy terrors, the student would not have started more hurriedly to his feet, than he did at this moment, when a certain mysterious noise arose in the entry without, and re-echoed through the spacious chambers of the old-fashioned mansion.

Charles rushed to the door, as a fearful suspicion broke upon his mind, he rushed to the door, opened it very slightly, and gazed with an intense expression of mingled fear, alarm and curiosity out into the entry.  One glance sufficed him, he slammed the door shut, walked hurriedly over the floor, and approaching the side of Francis, he looked into his face with an expression of the most overwhelming solemnity.

“Francis!”

“My stars!  Charles, what is the matter?”

“Francis! there’s a live child in this house!  A live child and its mother, Francis!  Ha-ha—I shall go mad!”

“Why Charles?  What is the matter?  I see nothing extraordinary in ‘a live child and its mother’—if it had two mothers you might talk.”

“You see nothing in a live child and its mother?  Don’t ye?  He-he—you don’t, don’t you?  I shall commit suicide—hang—drown myself—cut my throat!  oh!  Heaven!  That child will be spanked over every floor in the house—its mother will cry after it in a woman’s voice—the north wind whistling down the chimney will be nothing to it!  My peace of mind is gone—a young woman and a child lodging in the same house with me!  Ods, life, s’death—pah!”

“Stop, Charlie, stop!  ha!  ha!  ha!  You’ll kill me with laughter!  Oh, that grave face—that expression of woe—that despair!  Do take me out and bury me decently, somebody!  Ha-ha-ha!  Ho-ho-ho!”

“Gentle-men,” said a shrill, sharp voice—“seein’ as your door was jist on the jar, I made bold to walk in.  Hope I see you well to-day, gentle-men—” continued the voice, and the portly form of the landlady, with her small, good-humored face, and bright sparkling grey eyes, stood in the doorway—“I can’t help tellin’ you the good news!  I’ve just got sich a nice widder lady for a lodger—she’s took the front room up stairs, jist over head!  sich a nice young lady, just lost her husband a month or two since, reduced to moderate circumstances and so on—and oh! gentle-men—” continued Mrs. Smith, with an air of the keenest exhileration, as though she was about to add increased zest to her news—“and oh! gentlemen, she’s got three sich nice children, two boys and a little girl; the little gal with blue eyes and curly yaller hair; one of the little boys—such a che-rub! with black hair and charcoal eyes, and ‘tother squints a little and had a red head!  Oh, deary me, sich a nice widder and three such ducky dears of children!”

Charles sank down in his chair.  The iron had entered his soul.  His peace of mind was gone.  Visions of spanked children, with a mamma screaming after them, all over the house, floated before his eyes, and Charles resigned himself to his fate, with all the desperation of a martyred woman-hater, a sacrificed child-despiser.

CHAPTER III.

The Interesting Trio of Innocents—Their Delightful Playfulness—The Widow—“Love at First Sight.”

The next day the trials of Charles began in good earnest.  At first a faint cry was heard overhead, then a prolonged yell, then a general chorus of discordant sounds, and then the voice of an Irish nurse, engaged in spanking the “Widow Lady’s” children, resounded through the mansion.  The uproar was terrible.  Francis was dying with laughter at the strange mixture of sounds, yells, spanks and screams, all jumbled up together, and Charles sat down to write with his teeth on an edge, with low-muttered anathemas.

“I’ll finish my ‘Inquiry’ and not mind the widow, the Irish nurse, and the three babies.  I’ll finish my ‘Inquiry’—I’ll—oh! horror, there it is again!”

However, he sat down to write, and was earnestly engaged in tracing the mysteries of animal magnetism, when he heard the sound of juvenile footsteps on the stairway.  The truth broke upon him—he had left the door ajar!  Ere he could move a hand, or breathe a whisper, the sound of footsteps grew louder, the door was pushed wide open, and a dear little red-head, with a pair of squinting eyes, and a pretty little figure, dressed in a short petticoat, toddled into the room, and approached the chair of the meditative student.

“I say, you man, won’t you draw me a pictur’!” lisped the little dear, suspending its operation on a piece of bread and molasses, which it held in its tiny hand.  “Draw me a pictur’, you man!”

“Oh!  Saray Ann, what a purty book!” cried another infantile voice.  “Now, you Jack, let me see it—you ugly feller!” cried a third cherub, and Charles turned from the red-headed infant and gazed around the room.  It was no dream; but, on the contrary, it was a most fearful reality.

A black-haired boy, in very tight trowsers, was engaged in pulling a miniature edition of Scott’s Poetical works from the table, and a dear little girl with blue eyes and golden hair, was amiably struggling for the prize with her interesting brother, while her tender little hands were neatly gloved in a coating of bread and molasses.

The scene was peculiar.

There was Charles gazing around him with a face lengthened by an expression of blank amazement, there was the delicate red-headed dear, fumbling in his pockets for gingerbread, and there was the black-headed dear, and the golden-headed dear, torturing the miniature edition of Scott; while the back ground of the scene was occupied by Master Francis, whose cheeks were very red, and whose eyes were filled with tears, as he applied a hand to either side of his person.  He was evidently in great pain, was Master Francis.

“Now, you Sarey Ann, gim me that are book—”

“Now, you, Jack, let me a—be—”

“I say, you man draw me a pictur’—”

“Come, my dear little children,” exclaimed Charles, in a voice as sweet as that of a dying convict blessing the hangman, “Just walk this way.  There—there—good little dears,” he continued, in a very ambiguous voice, as he placed one hand to the back of red-haired Peter, and propelled him gently to the door; while the other hand performed a similar office for the interesting John, and his right knee urged the engaging “Sarey Ann” to move forward, with a gentle persuasion, that seemed very beautiful in the eyes of Master Francis, who grew quite crimson in the face.

As Charles led the little innocents from the room, the evil spirit tempted him to make a second Bethlehem of the chamber, and transform himself into another Herod for the time being, but he mastered the temptation, and, reaching the door, he merely applied his thumb and fore finger to the ear of the red-haired “sweet,” in a peculiar way, when he started at the sound of a female footstep.

“I am afraid my children are troublesome, sir,” said a soft, musical voice, and Charles looked up and beheld a very beautiful female figure standing before him, robed in black, with two dark eyes shooting their fascinating glance through the folds of a sable veil, which, gathered to the crown of her head by a silver comb, fell with a graceful sweep over her face and down her neck, involving her face and features in a mysterious darkness that was quite bewitching.  Charles drank in the glance of those beaming black eyes as they gleamed through the veil,—and the children were safe!  He marked the delicious outline of the widow’s bust, he glanced at her tapering waist, he was enchanted by the fair hand and the delicate foot, and all his self-possession forsook him.

“I am afraid my childen are troublesome,” repeated the widow, in the same soft, silvery whisper.  “I am very sorry—”

“Oh! not at all, ma’am,” exclaimed Charles, bowing, and growing very much like a new brick house in the face.  “Not at all, ma’am,—quite a pleasure—sweet childr—not at all, quite on the contrary—in fact, ma’am—delighted—”

All further apologies were prevented by one slight circumstance.  The widow had disappeared, and taken the interesting trio with her.  As Charles closed the door, and approached the table, he observed Master Francis laid along a chair, in a curious position, laboring under a violent attack of spasmodic laughter.

“Ha—ha—ha!  I say, Charles, how’s your heart?  Did the mysterious widow make a conquest of you?  Ha—ha—ha!”

“Francis, you are an ass!” exclaimed the sober student, as, with a solemn sternness and imposing gravity, he resumed his pen.  And he wrote very hard, and very diligently all that day, but every ten minutes a pair of black eyes would glide between Charles and his manuscript, and a budding form, attired in a sable robe, would float before his mental vision, and these annoyances were repeated so often, that before night had sunk upon the city, the young student was earnestly engaged in connecting the phenomenon of “Love at first sight” with some of the mysterious influence of animal magnetism, which he developed at great length in his all engrossing essay. 

“She is very beautiful,” muttered Charles, as he tossed his head on his pillow, late that night; “very beautiful.  How bright are those beaming black orbs!  Tush!  Had Norah been faithful to our early love, I had been saved this temptation!  The widow is certainly beautiful, but—the children!  Ugh!”

CHAPTER IV.

The Increase of the Evil—The Mysterious Request—The Conclusion.

From that eventful day forward, for the space of one week, Charles Hamilton knew no peace, and his essay, to use a peculiar phrase, seemed to make a point of advancing backwards.  He might set down to write, and in an instant he was surrounded by the whole detachment of children, golden-haired, red-haired, black-haired, and all.—He might lock his door, but this merely increased the evil.  The dear little innocents would make a matter of duty of pummeling the panels of the door, with a musical taste, and an eccentric collection of ingenious variations, that would have drawn sympathy from the most callous heart.  In utter desperation, Charles would rush from his seat, throw open the door, raise his hand to punish the interesting sweets, when lo! the vision of the beautiful widow suddenly appeared before him, and he was dumb.  The most mysterious feature of the whole affair was, that Mr. Francis Warner viewed the depredations of the children without a murmur, listened to the muttered imprecations of his friend Charles with a quiet smile, and gave himself not the least imaginable particle of trouble, concerning the widow, the three children, or the squalling Irish nurse.  He seemed to view the affair as a philosopher.  Children—he observed with sententious gravity—would be mischievous, widows would be at once interesting and troublesome—Irish nurses would scream at times, and even swear, in ancient Gaelic or Erse, upon occasions.

One morning Francis observed a singular frown upon the brow of his friend, which seemed to evince some fearful and mysterious determination.  Ere he had time to enquire the meaning of this wonderful solemnity, Charles called him aside, and addressed him in a tone of momentous gravity.

“Francis, do you walk out this morning?”

“I do, Charles.  What’s the fraction?”

“Do you walk near Simpkins’ the grocer?”

“I do, Charles.  Whose crockery’s broke?”

“Francis, as you value my happiness, I charge you to buy me three strong, stout, and well-conditioned coffee-bags, at Simpkins’, the grocer.  Buy me as many spikes—large, substantial spikes, Francis—”

“Oh! yes, Charles.  That’s easily done.  I’ll be back in ten minutes, with coffee-bags and spikes.”

“Now, I’ll—I’ll remedy the evil!” exclaimed Charles, as Francis disappeared.  “I’ll teach the beautiful children to shake the walls of my room with their squalling.  I’ll learn them to tear my papers, to soil my books—the delicate dears!”

In a short time Francis returned with the spikes and coffee-bags, which he handed to his friend, with an anxious enquiry with regard to the purpose for which they were intended to be used.  Charles replied with the words, “Nothing, nothing, Francis—merely a whim of mine,” and his fellow student became tired of waiting to see the issue of the matter, and walked forth to take a stroll along Chestnut street.

Some three hours elapsed, when the landlady, Mrs. Smith, the widow, and the Irish nurse, were all startled by the most curious combination of sounds that ever saluted mortal ears.  The noise shook the whole fabric, resounded along the street, alarmed the inhabitants for the better part of a square, and excited universal attention and inquiry.

“Now the blessed Hivens be our bed,” screamed the Irish nurse, “but the n’ise is all in the book-larnin’ man’s room, jest below us!”

“Oh! laws help me, the house is a-fire!” screamed the landlady.

“Sure, it’s the childer!” continued the nurse, following her mistress, the widow, down the stairs.  “Somebody’s a murderin’ the childer!”

The widow said nothing, but drawing her veil closely over her face, tapped at the student’s door.  In an instant it was opened, and as the mysterious sounds became terrifically loud, the face of Mr. Charles Hamilton appeared through the aperture of the door.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the widow, in her soft, persuasive voice.  “Excuse me, sir, but did you see anything of the children?”

“See anything of the children?” replied Charles, while a hollow laugh came from his lips.  “He—he—he—see anything of the children?  He—he—there, madam, there!”

He threw the door wide open, and quick as a thunder-flash a sight was disclosed that caused the widow to start backward, with a quick nervous start, while the Irish nurse shrieked—“Glory be to the Lard!” and Mrs. Smith desired somebody to hold her directly, or else she would certainly faint.

There, suspended to the wall of the chamber, on three of its several sides, were three coffee-bags, fastened to spikes driven into the plastering, and from the aperture of each coffee-bag appeared a round, red face, with a mouth opened to extreme expansion, with eyes starting from their sockets, and with an expression of the utmost terror and alarm visible on each face, while the apartment echoed and re-echoed with the unanimous yell of the confined infants, who did not at all seem to relish their suspension between heaven and earth, in this pecucliar way.

“Now glory be to the Lord!” exclaimed the Irish nurse, “but he’s hung up my childer, like dried beef, in the coffee-bags!”

“Your children!” shouted Charles.  “Your children?  Hey, hey?  What’s that?”

A laugh, wild and musical, burst from the folds of the dark veil that encircled the widow’s features.  Charles started, as if a sky-rocket had burst at his foot.  The veil was thrown back, and he beheld the laughing face and dark eyes of his old-time sweetheart, Miss Norah Warner.

“Good Heaven!” shouted the student, starting back, “what do I see?  And you are not a widow, then, with three children?”

Miss Norah glanced at the coffee-bags and their screaming occupants, and replied by another burst of laughter.

“I’m all amazement!” continued Charles—“I’m thunder-struck—”

“And so you should be, you young scoundrel,” interrupted a bluff, good humored voice.  “How dare you run off from your home, you vagabond?  Hey?  Answer me that?  Hey?”

Charles looked around, and beheld standing in the doorway the portly form of his early patron, whose good-humored smile and hearty laugh belied the severity of his words.  At the same instant that Charles beheld the form of his patron, and ere he had time to vent his amazement in words, Master Francis bounced into the room, making the walls re-echo with repeated bursts of laughter.

“Look here, Master Charlie—(ha, ha! those coffee-bags; that’s right, my good Irish woman, take your children down, or I shall die a-laughing!)  Don’t look so thunder-struck, Master Charles.  It’s all my doings.  Ha—ha—ha!—Them coffee-bags!  I met sister Norah walking in Chestnut street with father, there, about a week ago—couldn’t withstand his daughter’s entreaties—forgave me, received the prodigal son to his arms, and all that.  The next point was to win you back to Beechwood again.  I managed the whole affair—proposed that Norah, there, should act the widow—lodge in Mrs. Smith’s house—torture your life out of you with the good woman’s children, there—(do remove the delicate dears,)—and finally force you into matrimony, and with a widow, too!  Ha—ha—ha!  D’ye take, Charlie?  That’s right, Charlie—embrace the dear girl!—Norah, what’s the use of blushing so?  Whoop!  It’s quite a scene—ain’t it, father?  Ha—ha—ha!—them coffee-bags!”

And so ends our Episode in the life of Mr. Charles Hamilton.