Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848 edition. Excerpt: ... In his elbow chair, by the side of the fire, with the newspaper in one hand and the bell-rope in the other, sat Mr. Yellowly, a gentleman just so far advanced in life as to make the suspicion reasonable that the remainder of the journey was not likely to prove so pleasant as that which he had gone through; and who, accordingly, if such a thing might have been, would willingly have walked back two or three stages. And yet, neither the aspect, speech, nor manners of Mr. Yellowly were such as to lead one to the conclusion that he had been particularly well-treated on the road. On the contrary, to judge from these, it might have been supposed that wherever he had put up he had been " put upand that he had not so much been taken in to bait, as taken in to be baited. He was very morose, impatient, and crusty; laughing, however, a good deal, (if a short, dry, husky chuckle may be called a laugh, ) but ever at wrong times and seasons; as though the man were bound by a covenant to laugh during his lifetime as much as his neighbours; with a special proviso in his own favour, or rather for his own satisfaction, that he might make up his allotted quantity of laughter on occasions upon which none of his neighbours would have dreamt of moving a muscle. A word concerning his person. He was very tall; but an ugly stoop of the shoulders lessened his height. He was exceedingly thin, --so thin, that he must have inherited the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to in right of his bones, which even now were large and strong enough to maintain any right belonging to him. He was terribly pitted with the small- pox, and was of an adust complexion; and he had large ears, which no audible sound could escape, and small eyes, from which no visible object was...