My dinner is indeed solitary, yet not quite so neither; for though Andrew waits, Janet--or, as she is to all the world but her master and certain old Highland gossips, Mrs.MacEvoy--attends, bustles about, and desires to see everything is in first-rate order, and to tell me, Cot pless us, the wonderful news of the palace for the day.

When the cloth is removed, and I light my cigar, and begin to husband a pint of port, or a glass of old whisky and water, it is the rule of the house that Janet takes a chair at some distance, and nods or works her stocking, as she may be disposed--ready to speak, if I am in the talking humour, and sitting quiet as a mouse if I am rather inclined to study a book or the newspaper.

At six precisely she makes my tea, and leaves me to drink it; and then occurs an interval of time which most old bachelors find heavy on their hands.

The theatre is a good occasional resource, especially if Will Murray acts, or a bright star of eminence shines forth; but it is distant, and so are one or two public societies to which I belong.
Besides, these evening walks are all incompatible with the elbow-chair feeling, which desires some employment that may divert the mind without fatiguing the body.
Under the influence of these impressions, I have sometimes thought of this literary undertaking.

I must have been the Bonassus himself to have mistaken myself for a genius; yet I have leisure and reflections like my neighbours.