A small man sat in a small parlour, partitioned off from a small shop by a small screen,pasted all over with small scraps of newspapers. In company with the small man, wasalmost any amount of small children you may please to name-at least it seemed so; theymade, in that very limited sphere of action, such an imposing effect, in point of numbers.Of these small fry, two had, by some strong machinery, been got into bed in a corner, wherethey might have reposed snugly enough in the sleep of innocence, but for a constitutionalpropensity to keep awake, and also to scuffle in and out of bed. The immediate occasion ofthese predatory dashes at the waking world, was the construction of an oyster-shell wall ina corner, by two other youths of tender age; on which fortification the two in bed madeharassing descents (like those accursed Picts and Scots who beleaguer the early historicalstudies of most young Britons), and then withdrew to their own territory.In addition to the stir attendant on these inroads, and the retorts of the invaded, whopursued hotly, and made lunges at the bed-clothes under which the marauders took refuge,another little boy, in another little bed, contributed his mite of confusion to the familystock, by casting his boots upon the waters; in other words, by launching these and severalsmall objects, inoffensive in themselves, though of a hard substance considered as missiles,at the disturbers of his repose,-who were not slow to return these compliments.Besides which, another little boy-the biggest there, but still little-was tottering to andfro, bent on one side, and considerably affected in his knees by the weight of a large baby,which he was supposed by a fiction that obtains sometimes in sanguine families, to behushing to sleep. But oh! the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and watchfulness intowhich this baby's eyes were then only beginning to compose themselves to stare, over hisunconscious shoulder!
