indifferently in all, that the best position in the firm was too
evidently Co.'s; Co., as a bodiless creation, being untroubled with
the vulgar inconveniences of hunger and thirst, being chargeable
neither to the poor's-rates nor the assessed taxes, and having no
young family to provide for.

Tetterby himself, however, in his little parlour, as already
mentioned, having the presence of a young family impressed upon his
mind in a manner too clamorous to be disregarded, or to comport
with the quiet perusal of a newspaper, laid down his paper,
wheeled, in his distraction, a few times round the parlour, like an
undecided carrier-pigeon, made an ineffectual rush at one or two
flying little figures in bed-gowns that skimmed past him, and then,
bearing suddenly down upon the only unoffending member of the
family, boxed the ears of little Moloch's nurse.

"You bad boy!" said Mr. Tetterby, "haven't you any feeling for your
poor father after the fatigues and anxieties of a hard winter's
day, since five o'clock in the morning, but must you wither his
rest, and corrode his latest intelligence, with YOUR wicious
tricks? Isn't it enough, sir, that your brother 'Dolphus is
toiling and moiling in the fog and cold, and you rolling in the lap
of luxury with a--with a baby, and everything you can wish for,"
said Mr. Tetterby, heaping this up as a great climax of blessings,
"but must you make a wilderness of home, and maniacs of your
parents? Must you, Johnny? Hey?" At each interrogation, Mr.
Tetterby made a feint of boxing his ears again, but thought better
of it, and held his hand.

"Oh, father!" whimpered Johnny, "when I wasn't doing anything, I'm