_Mr. Pippy to his friend Mr. Tweak._
My dear Tweak,
How uncertain is everything in this world! I was to have been married
to-day to the loveliest of her sex, but the floods have so risen, that
nothing but the roof of the church is visible. It began yesterday
morning, when the canal banks broke, and increased with such rapidity,
that I was compelled to spend the day on the dining-table, and am now
driven to the second floor, with no provision but a flask of lamp oil
and some tooth powder. The sick paupers of the Union I attend have just
arrived on a barge, which has got aground on the bridge. The
bell-ringers, also, who were practising in the belfry when the irruption
took place, are fast enclosed therein—the doors being under water, and
the windows too small to get out at. They are ringing for help, and the
sound is awfully painful, as it was to have been my bridal peal. A
letter has just been brought by Tom Johnson, in a mash-tub, from my
adored Celia; I hasten to read it.
Yours ever,
PHINEAS PIPPY.
Feb. 23.