I remained with Mr Drummond about eight months, when at last the new clerk made his appearance—a little fat fellow, about twenty, with a face as round as a full moon, thick lips, and red cheeks. During this time I frequently had the pleasure of meeting with old and young Tom, who appeared very anxious that I should rejoin them; and I must say that I was equally willing to return to the . Still Mr Drummond put his veto on it, and Mrs Drummond was also constantly pointing out the very desirable situation I might have on shore as a clerk in the office; but I could not bear it—seated nearly the whole day—perched up on a high stool—turning over , contra , and only occasionally interrupted by the head clerk, with his attempt to make rhymes. The new clerk came, I expected my release, but I was disappointed. Mr Drummond discovered him to be so awkward, and the head clerk declared that the time was so busy, that he could not spare me. This was true; Mr Drummond had just come to a final arrangement, which had been some time , by which he purchased a and large , with a house adjoining, in Lower Thames Street—a very large concern, for which he had paid a considerable sum of money. What with the valuations, up of the Brentford concern on the old account, etcetera, there was much to do, and I at the desk until the removal took place; and when the family were removed, I was still detained, as there was no warehouseman to superintend the unloading and up of goods. Mr Tomkins, the head clerk, who had been many years a faithful servant to Mr Drummond, was admitted a partner, and had charge of the Brentford wharf, a species of which he and his wife resolved to celebrate with a party. After a long debate, it was resolved that they should give a ball, and Mrs Tomkins exerted all her taste and on the occasion. My friend Tomkins lived at a short distance from the , in a small house, surrounded with half an acre of garden, chiefly filled with gooseberry-bushes, and perambulated by means of four straight walks. Mr and Mrs Drummond were invited, and accepted the invitation, which was considered by the Tomkinses as a great mark of . As a of Mr Tomkins’s talents, I shall give his invitation to Mr Drummond, written in the very best German text:—  
    “Mr and Mrs T—
 
    Sincerely hope to see
 
    Mr and Mrs Drum-
 
    Mond, to a very hum-
 
    Ble party that they in-
 
    Tend to ask their
 
    To, on the Saturday
 
    Of the week ensuing:
 
    When they will play,
 
    And other things be doing.”
 
 
 
Vue House.
 
To which jeu d’esprit Mr Drummond answered with a pencil on a card—
 
    “Mr and Mrs Drum-
 
    Mond intend to come.”
 
“Here, give Tomkins that, Jacob; it will please him better than any formal acceptation.” Mr and Mrs Turnbull were also asked; the former accepted, but the latter indignantly refused.
 
When I arrived with Mr and Mrs Drummond many of the company were there; the garden was what they called , that is, every gooseberry-bush had one lamp suspended above the centre; and, as Mr Tomkins told me afterwards, the lamps were red and yellow, according to the fruit they bore. It was a cold, frosty, clear night, and the lamps twinkled as brightly among the bare of the gooseberry trees as the stars did in the heavens. The company in general were quite charmed with the novelty. “Quite a Wauxhall,” cried one lady, whose of fat kept her warm enough to allow her to stare about in the open air. The entrance porch had a dozen little lamps, backed with laurel , and looked very . Mrs Tomkins received her company upon the steps outside, that she might have the pleasure of hearing their praises of her external arrangements; still it was freezing, and she shivered not a little. The drawing-room, fourteen feet by ten, was fitted up as a , with two fiddlers and a fifer sitting in a corner and a country-dance was performing when we arrived. Over the mantle-piece was a square of laurel twigs, inclosing as a frame this couplet from the poetical brain of the master of the house, cut out in red paper, and bespangled with blue and yellow tinsel—
 
“Here we are to dance so gay,
 
While the fiddlers play away.”
 
Other appropriate distichs, which I have now forgotten, were framed in the same way on each of the other . But the dining-room was the chef d’oeuvre. It was formed into a , with , and on the boughs were stuck real apples and oranges in all directions, so that you could help yourself.
 
“Vell, I do declare, this is a paradise!” exclaimed the fat lady who entered with me.
 
“In all but one thing, ma’am,” replied Mr Turnbull, who, with his coat off, was squeezing lemons for the punch—“there’s no forbidden fruit. You may help yourself.”
 
The bon-mot was repeated by Mr Tomkins to the end of his existence, not only for its own sake, but because it gave him an opportunity of entering into a detail of the whole fête—the first he had ever given in his life. “Ah, Jacob, my boy, glad to see you—come and help here—they’ll soon be thirsty, I’ll warrant,” said Mr Turnbull, who was in his glory. The company, although not so very select, were very happy; they danced, drank punch, laughed, and danced again; and it was not till a late hour, long after Mr and Mrs Drummond had gone home, that I quitted the “festive scene;” Mr Turnbull, who walked away with me, declaring that it was worth a dozen of his party, although they had not such grand people as Mrs Tagliabue, or the Right Lord Viscount Babbleton. I thought so too; every one was happy, and every one at their ease; and I do believe they would have stayed much longer, but the musicians took so much punch that one fiddler broke his , the other broke his head in going down the steps into the garden, and the fifer swore he could blow no longer; so, as there was an end to the music, , pattens, and lanterns were called for, the shawls were brought out of the kitchen, and every one went away. Nothing could go off better. Mrs Tomkins had a cold and the next day; but that was not surprising, a minor Wauxhall not being seasonable in the month of December.
 
A week after this party we removed to Thames Street, and I performed the duty of warehouseman. Our quantity of was now much increased, and employed in carrying dry goods, etcetera. One morning old Tom came under the crane to discharge his lighter, and wishing to see me, when the fall had been down to heave up the casks with which the lighter was , instead of hooking on a cask, held on by his hands, crying, “ away,” intending to be hoisting himself up to the door of the where I was presiding. Now, there was nothing unusual in this of old Tom’s, but still he ran a very narrow chance, in consequence of an extra whim of young Tom’s, who, as soon as his father was suspended in the air, caught hold of his two wooden , to be up also; and as he caught hold of them, on tiptoe, they both swung clear of the lighter, which could not approach to within five feet of the buildings. The crane was on the third story of the warehouse, and very high up. “Tom, Tom, you , what the devil are you about?” cried the old man, when he felt the weight of his son’s body hanging to him.
 
“Going up along with you, father—hope we shall go to heaven the same way.”
 
“More likely to go to the devil together, you little fool; I never can bear your weight. Hoist away, there, quick.”
 
Hearing the voices, I looked out of the door, and perceiving their situation, ordered the men to hoist as fast as they could, before old Tom’s strength should be ; but it was a compound moving crane, and we could not hoist very fast, although we could hoist very great weights. At last, as they were wound up higher and higher, old Tom’s strength was going fast. “O Tom, Tom, what must be done? I can’t—I can’t hold on but a little longer, and we shall be both dashed to pieces. My poor boy?”
 
“Well, then, I’ll let go, father; it was all my , and I’ll be the sufferer.”
 
“Let go!” cried old Tom; “no, no, Tom—don’t let go, my boy; I’ll try a little longer. Don’t let go, my dear boy—don’t let go!”
 
“Well, father, how much longer can you hold on?”
 
“A little—very little longer,” replied the old man, struggling. “Well, hold fast now,” cried young Tom, who, raising his head above his arms, with great shifted one of his hands to his father’s , then the other; raising himself as before, he then caught at the seat of his father’s trousers with his teeth; old Tom , for his son had taken hold of more than the garments; he then shifted his hands round his father’s body—from thence he gained the collar of his jacket—from the collar he climbed on his father’s shoulders, from thence he seized hold of the fall above, and relieved his father of the weight. “Now, father, are you all right?” cried Tom, panting as he clung to the fall above him.
 
“I can’t hold on ten seconds more, Tom—no longer—my clutch is going now.”
 
“Hang on by your , father, if you love me,” cried young Tom, in agony.
 
It was indeed an awful moment; they were now at least sixty feet above the lighter, suspended in the air; the men whirled round the wheel, and I had at last the pleasure of hauling them both in on the floor of the warehouse; the old man so exhausted that he could not speak for more than a minute. Young Tom, as soon as all was safe, laughed immoderately. Old Tom sat upright. “It might have been no laughing matter, Mr Tom,” said he, looking at his son.
 
“What’s done can’t be helped, father, as Jacob says. After all, you’re more frightened than hurt.”
 
“I don’t know that, you young scamp,” replied the old man, putting his hand behind him, and rubbing softly; “you’ve bit a piece clean out of my starn. Now, let this be a warning to you, Tom. Jacob, my boy, couldn’t you say that I’ve met with an accident, and get a drop of something from Mr Drummond?”
 
I thought, after his last observation, I might honestly say that he had met with an accident, and I soon returned with a ............