“I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more easily conceived than described.

“I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the morning of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honour of uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the Immortal exciseman nurtured beyond the Tweed.

“The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone enable me to contemplate my fellow- mortal, I shall be known no more. I shall simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, where

“ ‘Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,     The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,’

“—With the plain Inscription,             
“Wilkins Micawber.”