Wilkinson's to be repaired,) to see
Ponto point a place where once a partridge had pruned himself--now home
again, at the waving of John's red sleeve, to receive a coach-full of
country cousins, come in the capacity of forenoon callers--endless
talkers all--sharp and blunt noses alike--and grinning voraciously in
hopes of a lunch--now away to dress for dinner, which will not be for
two long, long hours to come--now dozing, or daized on the drawing-room
sofa, wondering if the bell is ever to be rung--now grimly gazing on a
bit of bloody beef which your impatience has forced the blaspheming cook
to draw from the spit ere the outer folds of fat were well melted at the
fire--now, after a disappointed dinner, discovering that the old port is
corked, and the filberts all pluffing with bitter snuff, except such as
enclose a worm--now an unwholesome sleep of interrupted snores, your
bobbing head ever and anon smiting your breast-bone--now burnt-beans
palmed off on the family for Turkish coffee--now a game at cards, with a
dead partner, and the ace of spades missing--now no supper--you have no
appetite for supper--and now into bed tumbles the son of Genius,
complaining to the moon of the shortness of human life, and the
fleetness of time!
_Blackwood's Magazine_.
* * * * *
SLEEPING AFTER DINNER.
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