to be, in the boiling, seven-eights of a fifth more
than the loss upon a pound of any other animal sub-
stance whatever. Tripe is more expensive, properly
understood, than the hothouse pineapple. Taking
into account the number of animals slaughtered yearly
within the bills of mortality alone; and forming a
low estimate of the quantity of tripe which the car-
casses of those animals, reasonably well butchered,
would yield; I find that the waste on that amount of
tripe, if boiled, would victual a garrison of five hun-
dred men for five months of thirty-one days each,
and a February over. The Waste, the Waste!'

  Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him.
He seemed to have starved a garrison of five hundred
men with his own hand.

  'Who eats tripe?' said Mr. Filer, warmly. 'Who
eats tripe?'

  Trotty made a miserable bow.

  'You do, do you?' said Mr. Filer. 'Then I'll tell
you something. You snatch your tripe, my friend,
out of the mouths of widows and orphans.'

  'I hope not, sir,' said Trotty, faintly. 'I'd sooner
die of want!'

  'Divide the amount of tripe before mentioned,
Alderman,' said Mr. Filer, 'by the estimated number
of existing widows and orphans, and the result will
be one pennyweight of tripe to each. Not a grain
is left for that man. Consequently, he's a robber.'

  Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no concern
to see the Alderman finish the tripe himself. It was
a relief to get rid of it, anyhow.

  'And what do you say?' asked the Alderman
jocosely, of the red-faced gentleman in the blue coat.
'You have heard friend Filer. What do you say?'

  'What's it possible to say?' returned the gentle-
man. 'What is to be said? Who can take any in-
terest in a fellow like this,' meaning Trotty; 'in such
degenerate times as these? Look at him! What an
object! The good old times, the grand old times,
the great old times! Those were the times for a
bold peasantry, and all that sort of thing. Those
were the times for every sort of thing, in fact. There's
nothing now-a-days. Ah!' sighed the red-faced gen-
tleman. 'The good old times, the good old timesl'

  The gentleman didn't specify what particular times
he alluded to; nor did he say whether he objected
to the present times; from a distinterested conscious-
ness that they had done nothing very remarkable in
producing himself.

  'The good old times, the good old times,' repeated
the gentleman. 'What times they were! They were
the only times. It's no use talking about any other
times, or discussing what the people are in these times
You don't call these, times, do you? I don't. Look
into Strutt's Costumes, and see what a Porter used
to be, in any of the good old English reigns.'

  'He hadn't, in his very best circumstances, a shirt
to his back, or a stocking to his foot; and there was
scarcely a vegetable in all England for him to put
into his mouth,' said Mr. Filer. 'I can prove it,
by tables.'

  But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good
old times, the grand old times, the great old times.
No matter what anybody else said, he still went
turning round and round in one set form of words
concerning them; as a poor squirrel turns and turns
in its revolving cage; touching the mechanism, and
trick of which, it has probably quite as distinct per-
ceptions, as ever this red-faced gentleman had of his
deceased Millennium.

  It is possible that poor Trotty's faith in these very
vague Old Times was not entirely destroyed, for he
felt vague enough, at that moment. One thing, how-
ever, was plain to him, in the midst of his distress;
to wit, that however these gentlemen might differ in
details, his misgivings of that morning, and of many
other mornings, were well founded. 'No, no. We
can't go right or do right,' thought Trotty in despair.
'There is no good in us. We are born bad!'

  But Trotty had a father's heart within him; which
had somehow got into his breast in spite of this de-
cree; and he could not bear that Meg, in the blush of
her brief joy, should have her fortune read by these
wise gentlemen. 'God help her,' thought poor Trotty.
'She will know it soon enough.'