Next day a chariot was hired, and Miss Trifle was despatched to find a
lodging. She returned in the afternoon, with an account of a charming
place, to which my husband went in the morning to make the contract.
Being young and unexperienced, he took with him his friend Ned Quick, a
gentleman of great skill in rooms and furniture, who sees, at a single
glance, whatever there is to be commended or censured. Mr. Quick, at the
first view of the house, declared that it could not be inhabited, for
the sun in the afternoon shone with full glare on the windows of the
dining-room.
Miss Trifle went out again, and soon discovered another lodging, which
Mr. Quick went to survey, and found, that, whenever the wind should blow
from the, east, all the smoke of the city would be driven upon it.
A magnificent set of rooms was then found in one of the streets near
Westminster-Bridge, which Miss Trifle preferred to any which she had yet
seen; but Mr. Quick, having mused upon it for a time, concluded that it
would be too much exposed in the morning to the fogs that rise from the
river.
Thus Mr. Quick proceeded to give us every day new testimonies of his
taste and circumspection; sometimes the street was too narrow for a
double range of coaches; sometimes it was an obscure place, not
inhabited by persons of quality.
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