Surety, who exclaimed against the folly of expending money in the purchase of articles of no intrinsic value, calculated only to gratify the curiosity of those inquisitive idlers who affect their admiration of every uninteresting production of Nature, and neglect the pursuit of the main chance, so necessary in realizing the comforts of life.
~13~~ These sordid ideas were opposed by Dashall and the 'Squire, to whom they seemed particularly directed.

Mrs.Tabitha smiled a gracious acquiescence in the sentiments of the two strangers, and Jasper expressed his regret that Nuncle was not gifted and fated as Midas of ancient times, who transformed every thing that he touched into gold! The Egyptian and Etruscan antiquities next attracted the attention of the visitors.

Over a doorway in this room is a fine portrait of Sir William Hamilton, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Dashall and Tallyho remarked with enthusiasm on these beautiful relics of the sculpture of former ages, several of which were mutilated and disfigured by the dilapidations of time and accident.

Of the company present, there stood on the left a diminutive elderly gentleman in the act of contemplating the fragment of a statue in a posterior position, and which certainly exhibited somewhat of a ludicrous appearance; on the right, the exquisite Jasper pointed out, with the self-sufficiency of an amateur, the masculine symmetry of a Colossian statue to his Aunt of antiquated virginity, whose maiden purity recoiling from the view of nudation, seemed to say, "Jaz, wrap an apron round him!" while in the foreground stood the rotunditive form of Timothy Surety, who declared, after a cursory and contemptuous glance at the venerable representatives of mythology, "That with the exception of the portrait of Sir William Hamilton, there was not in the room an object worth looking at; and as for them there ancient statutes," (such was his vernacular idiom and Bearbinder barbarism) "I would not give twopence for the whole of this here collection, if it was never for nothing else than to set them up as scare-crows in the garden of my country house at Edmonton!" Jasper whispered his aunt, that nuncks was a vile bore; and the sacrilegious declaration gave great offence to the diminutive gentleman aforesaid, who hesitated not in pronouncing Timothy Surety destitute of taste and vertu; to which accusation Timothy, rearing his squat form to its utmost altitude, indignantly replied, "that there was not an alderman in the City of London of better taste than himself in the qualities of callipash and callipee, and that if the little gemmen presumed again to asperse his vartue, he would bring an action against him tor slander and defamation of character." The minikin man gave Timothy a glance of ineffable disdain, and left the room.