Harry,  partly  grieved  at  perceiving  the  accustomed  sun-
shine in  his  wife's  pretty  face  overcast,  partly  irritated  at  what
he  imagined  to  be  the  sulkiness  of  her  manner;  annoyed  at
his  friend's  egotistic  chatter,  which  he  felt  was  disgusting  Alice,
and  which  he  could  not  contrive  to  check  (seeing  that  the
obtuseness  of  Tom  Rattleworth's  faculties  rendered  him  totally
impervious  to  a  hint) ;  and  generally  provoked  by  the  change
from  his  usual  state  of  careless,  light-hearted  happiness  to  his
present  uncomfortable  frame  of  mind — a  change  which  he
rightly  enough  attributed  in  a  great  measure  to  his  own  hasti-
ness and  mismanagement,  almost  lost  his  temper. This  he
displayed  by  rating  the  lad  who  assisted  Wilkins,  until  he
reduced  that  unhappy  juvenile  to  such  a  pitch  of  nervousness
and  general  mental  debility,  that,  having  inveigled  his  mistress
into  sugaring  instead  of  peppering  a  broiled  turkey's  leg,  and
replenished  the  Champagne  glasses  from  a  bottle  of  bitter  ale,
he  was  sent  out  of  the  room  in  disgrace. 