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A HOME COMPANION. INTELLECT, of the march of which we hear so much, is making its way into the most neglected corners: it is catching up everybody in its progress. The modern housewife must transmogrify herself in obedience to the all-pervading spirit. Science, under the auspices of Mr. Mechi, is revolutionizing the farm-yards and stirring the clods; now, under the guidance of M. Alexis Soyer,* it is clearing the kitchen and rattling the stewpans. The cook-maid must no longer be the cook-maid of old; she must give up the traditions of a long line of the rulers of the spit. Conservatism here as elsewhere is going out of fashion, and Reform makes its appearance, heralded, as is fitting, by the renowned cook of the Reform Club. Mary is not to be allowed for the future to burn the outside of huge joints in the vain hope of getting the inside passably done, nor to boil the family mutton into rags, nor to throw in what somebody called "the grievances' by guess-work. No, no; she is to become a chemist, knowing all about osmazome, and fibrine, and albumen; she is to learn how to preserve the aroma of the odoriferons roots and herbs; and she is to begin to practise weighing out ounces and half-ounces as scrupulously as the chemist does with his drugs, substituting proportion, which school-boys call rule-of-three, for the customary rule of thumb. She is to become acquainted, too, with some smattering of polite literature, the poetry of domestic happiness, and the logic of economy, by perusing the correspondence with which two fabulous ladies-Eloise and Hortense-usher M. Soyer's culinary maxims into the world.

All we

We do not pretend to any great knowledge of cookery: it is not exactly in our line. We are more familiar with sonnets than sauces, and can turn a stanza with greater facility than we can compound a stew. Our gastronomic researches seldom begin until after the cook's have ceased. We might manage boiling eggs, and venture on potatoes with some misgivings; but that is the ultima thule. It may be guessed, therefore, how bewildered we should get among the pièces de résistance, entrées, entremets, and a multitude of other dishes which M. Soyer prescuts us with in the nearly thousand receipts applicable to the tables of rich and middling-rich families. can say is, that they look very nice on paper, as we have no doubt they would on dishes. But to us, the most valuable and interesting part of the work is the addition of receipts for cottage cookery and charitable cookery. The first tells the wives of poor men how to make nice hot dinners out of next to nothing, and the latter shows how those who are charitably disposed can furnish the destitute with nourishing and savoury soup, at the infinitesimal price of threepence a gallon. To our minds, it does not matter so much about the rich; they can always engage accomplished cooks,-"professed cooks" we think they call them, and find them plenty of material to operate upon; but the scanty food of the poor has been not only badly prepared but half wasted in the preparation. difficulty is, to get the poor, as an Irishman would say, "insensed" with the philosophy of M. Soyer. They can neither buy a dear book, nor settle themselves to read a large one; and it would be a work of real good to publish the latter part in such a form, and at such a price, as would gain for the household reformer an introduction into the cottages of the humble.

The

The Modern Housewife or Ménagère, &c. By Alexis Soyer. Thirtieth Thousand. London: Simpkin and Co. 1853.

THE SILENT HUNTER.* SHORTLY before the American War of Independence, there arrived in New England an orphan boy called Bill Smith. Some friends of his parents took an interest in him, and apprenticed him-though only eight years of age to an old farmer in North Carolina. The indentures stipulated that he was to have, besides sufficient food and clothing, reasonable opportunities for education; but Saunders, the yeoman, thought this folly, and all that Bill learned was in spite of his prejudices. There was a| little daughter of the old farmer's, however,-Mattie, a blue-eyed child, with gold ringlets and dimpled face, who took a fancy to instruct the young alien that had come under her father's roof. He learned to read and to write, and soon became so proficient in both, that he began, in turn, to teach his tutor.

This pleasant exchange of mutual kindness went on until the children grew up, and Mattie was a blooming girl, unconsciously betrothed in the spring-time of her life to the orphan youth who had been perpetually by her side. The farmer discovered this, and immediately began to punish Smith by a series of petty and abominable persecutions. He made him sleep in a barn, on a pile of hay, with only one tattered blanket to cover him, and cut him off from all the consolations of little Mattie's love. He was rich, and hated any one who appeared to aim at being the heir to his fortune. He jealously watched his daughter, and tortured poor Bill by every kind of cruelty until his behaviour became notorious, and some humane persons resolved to summon him before a court of justice for barbarity and neglect of duty.

Before this was known, however, the orphan boy had formed a plan of running away. He made up his little bundle, and one night, creeping into Mattie's room through the window, bade her a gentle good-by. He embraced her, and kissed her, and told her he would come back a great man, and make her his wife; and she said, "I'll wait for you." He ran all night along the highway, and came next morning to the settlement of Raleigh. There he lived for some time. He prowled about the kitchens of the gentry by day, subsisting on the scraps which some kind-hearted slaves bestowed on him, and when it was dark crawled into some shed to sleep.

It happened that a Judge Campbell,-a very humane man, was then presiding in the circuit court. He found Bill Smith one morning among his cattle and horses, half dead with hunger and cold. He took him into his house, fed him, clothed him, learned his story, and began to consider how his inhuman master might be punished. Great, therefore, was his delight when on looking over the list of causes to be tried before him in that circuit, the very first was "Commonwealth, versus Samuel Saunders, for abducting, murdering, or otherwise unlawfully making away with an indentured male child, known as William Smith."

The trial came on. Judge Campbell compelled the strictest scrutiny into the facts. His charge to the jury was stern and dead against the accused. It sounded like a sentence of death. The prisoner stood pale and shivering. His counsel was startled, cowed, almost hopeless. The winding-up was near. All felt the verdict must be "guilty."

Suddenly there was a commotion in the court. Carriage wheels were heard rapidly nearing the place. The sheriff came in, and with him was the boy, still attenuated from suffering, but neatly clothed, and with the bloom of life reviving on his cheek. Old Saunders was carried from the dock in convulsions, his shrieks being heard until the prison doors were closed upon him. He was acquitted, but compelled to give security for the main

*This Narrative is historical, and forms one of the strangest episodes in the annals of real romance.

tenance and education of Bill Smith until the age of eighteen.

That was the first public scene in Bill Smith's career. The next was when, as an eloquent, vivacious, bold young lawyer, he pleaded his first cause at the bar. He gained it, and gained many after it, and gradually rose to great honours, wealth, and prosperity. Mattie became his wife, and their home was blessed by sons and daughters, until, when the Declaration of Independence was made, men knew no happier family than that of William Smith. He was generous and he was charitable, but nevertheless one of the most opulent men in the province, for he was pru dent and economical. When, however, the war of liberty broke out, his treasures flowed like water to support Washington in his tremendous campaigns. Mattie did not repine when she saw their riches melting away in the fervour of that glorious cause. Let the gold go," she said; and the gold did go, and when America was free, it was all gone, and William Smith found himself a beggar! But he was not sorrowful; for over the Alleghanie mountains was the country of Kantuckee-beautiful land, with fertile soil and timber, and water and game abounding. There they might settle, and thither were many going who had lost their possessions in the terrible but sacred war. In the spring of 1784, fifty emigrants assembled in Powell's Valley, on the frontiers of the old colony. They were to journey in company over the mountains, for mutual defence, for the swarthy tribes of Indians still hovered over the regions, revenging on the white men that long Iliad of calamities which had fallen on their

race.

The caravan went forward. It passed through a wild territory, among mountains and defiles, with the shaggy forests still throwing their primeval shadows over the slopes. At a distance there was known to be a settlement where provisions might be obtained. Smith, with a small party, went in advance to bring back supplies for the rest. He was six days away. The remainder had promised to await his return in a sequestered little valley. To that he came with his companions. There were traces of the camp, and marks of conflict, but no living being stirred there, -no voice could be heard, no welcome of the dear ones he had left. A confused and broken trail showed that the emigrants were in full retreat for the Clinch river, to regain the more populous district they had quitted. Smith hurried after them. "Where is my wife-where are my children?" he asked of the first straggler he came up to.

"You will find them where you left them. Ask the Shawances; they can tell you the rest."

You have neglected your trust-they are murdered," said Smith, in a stern and deliberate, yet trembling voice. And yet you are retreating, you cowards," he added, and struck the man to the ground. Then he turned back, rode alone to the abandoned camp in the valley, and there in the evening he was found, looking with tearless eyes, but a countenance more mournful than weeping could make it, on the lost and the loved-Mattie and her children.

Smith with his own hands dug their graves-with his own hand he laid them side by side: his first born on the mother's right hand, his youngest on her bosom, where it had been nursed and nestled so long. And then he stood for a few moments looking upon this last couch made for their earthly rest, and filled the grave, and piled stones to mark the spot, and bade adieu for ever to the love in which his heart had made its home. His comrades were standing around in silence. They expected that when he had finished he would follow them. But he walked about the site of the camp, end found where the Indians had come and gone. Then he shouldered his rifle, waved his haud solemnly, and speaking no farewell, disappeared on the trail of the Shawanees.

From that hour a strange mystery sprang up among

those mountains. There was known to dwell on them a lonely hunter-a white man-who was seen occasionally by the Indians, or by some solitary trapper, always with a rifle in his hand, but perpetually silent, never speaking one word to any. If he was addressed he turned and retreated into the woods. Gradually he was lost sight of altogether, except to David Boone, that far-famed hunter whose name is familiar over the whole continent of America. David Boone was believed to have frequent interviews with him, and to supply him with powder and ball, but he never spoke of him, and only replied to questions by shaking his head and touching his brow with his finger.

This went on for two years, and men had almost forgotten Bill Smith. But at the end of that time a Shawanee Indian was taken prisoner by the people of Boone's fort, and he once more revived the excitement as to the mystery of the Silent Hunter. He said that a terrible spirit had for two years haunted the war-path of the Shawanees,-an evil demon, whose sight was appalling to their nation. More than thirty of their best braves had already fallen under his hand. This fearful Medicine Man was sent, they believed, to punish them for some portentous sin. So dreaded had he become, that the tribe had met, and were nearly determined to quit for ever their ancient hunting-grounds in Kantuckee. When asked whether they ever saw this demon, they said they had never seen it distinctly, though their young men had pursued it often, and always came back with one, at least, of their number missing. At length none dared to follow the terrible apparition.

After this story had been rumoured abroad, men began again to speak of Bill Smith. They spoke of him, however, with an unaccountable dread, and always in a low voice. The Shawanees had been formerly one of the most formidable and best organized of the Red nations. They now became timid, and carried on the most desultory warfare. They were beaten by every hostile tribe, for whenever a battle took place, the Silent Hunter made his appearance suddenly, fighting with their enemies. If they attacked a fort, he was always among the defenders; if they defended a stronghold, he was never away, but regularly headed the assailants. But he came and went without speaking. He never greeted any man, and no man ever said farewell to him. The Border people looked on him with respect and fear; the Indians shuddered at his name, and the Shawanees especially looked upon him as a curse sent from the Great Spirit to exterminate their

race.

At last they became so terrified by this phantom of the Silent Hunter perpetually haunting their paths, that they all collected and fled across the great stream of Kantuckee. But he followed them over, and was ever on their hunting-grounds. So they fled again, and passed the Green River. He passed it too, and never crossed it again. Still the Indians were appalled by hearing of the braves slain in the forest and at their camp fires, by an arm which they now so fully believed to be the arm of some avenging spirit, that they never dreamed of a conflict. The Silent Hunter never lost their trail. Then they once more burned their wigwams, and went away for ever from that country. And when the last of the Shawanees had launched his canoe upon the Ohio, Bill Smith rose from amid the bushes on the shore, and fired after the little bark.

Revenge was his monomania. When he buried his wife and children, a rash and bloody resolution fixed itself in his mind. It became madness. He never more spoke to man, but silently and remorselessly haunted the trail of the Shawanees to slay every one that came within the range of his far-famed rifle. Then, after that Indian tribe had gone from its ancient hunting-grounds, he retired, mute and alone, to the most inaccessible part of the Green

River Hills. There, in a shady cleft, remote from the habitations of men, he built himself a hut, where, in solitary quiet, he passed the remainder of his days. He hunted to supply himself with food, and skins enough to exchange for powder and shot, which an old man at an out-settlement down on the Green River was accustomed

to supply him with. His life was protracted to the age of eighty-eight.

One day the old man at the settlement was heard to say that something must have happened to the Silent Hunter, for he had not come as usual to fill his shot-bag, and his powder-pouch. Bidding no one follow him, he went away to the Green River Mountains, and when he came back, though many questioned, he said nothing of where he had been. From that day, however, no man ever saw the Silent Hunter. No one heard of his fate, but it became a dim tradition in that country that his spirit was still among the mountains of the Green River. Not many years ago, however, Webber, the hunternaturalist, started with a companion in search of game the Green River Hills. After wandering for among many days among their solitudes, they came to the dwelling of an old trapper, living alone with the dogs, -an eremite of the forest, full of its traditions, and familiar with all the spots they haunted. He said that near that place lay, under a black oak, the grave of a mighty hunter. He had been a mysterious inhabitant of those mountains, and his resting-bed was marked by a stone. He had chosen it himself years before he died. It was near a spring of which he had drunk, and an old man had buried him, though no one had since visited the grave. Webber offered the trapper some money if he would lead them to the spot; but he shuddered, and refused, though at length, with visible trepidation, he consented to guide them within sight of it.

He walked before them for some time, among cliff's and trees, and over streams, and through hollows, until, from a bluff eminence, they looked down on a narrow wild plain. Over the surface of this lay sprinkled what seemed a number of flat rocks, but were in reality stone sarcophagi, or graves, which are to be found in thousands, sometimes covering miles of ground in the southern part of Kantuckee and portions of Tenessee. The people who used this curious mode of sepulture are now extinct. They existed long before the Indian nation-long before the Red Skins hunted through those woods and savannahs. Their burial-grounds are all that remain of them. They were, apparently, pigmies, for the graves are not, on an average, more than three feet in length. Some have imagined that these were only the tombs of their children, but the children of the Aztec nation, in this case, must have died by thousands when they were just about three feet high, and the older people must have been burned or secretly interred.

In one of these curious sepulchres the body of Bill Smith was discovered. It was a sarcophagus sunk in the earth, almost eighteen inches deep, by the same in width. The bottom and sides were lined with flat unhewn stones, and one of a similar kind was laid over the top. No cement of any kind had been used. The explorers examined the grave, they even disturbed the remains, but they laid them again in their place of rest, and left once more to his solitary repose the Silent Hunter of the Green River Hills.

What a dark and mournful story! How strange and chequered a life. It was the faith of this man to his early love, and the affection of his heart to her children, that made the terrible, silent, remorseless being he afterwards became. But he was not in his nature wicked. During the latter part of his life his mind was shaken by remembrance of that melancholy day, when Mattie and her little ones had been buried by his hands in the "Vale of Pines."

THE POSY.

HERE, I have brought thee, sweet, a bunch of flowers,
Such as the woodland yields;

Wet with the dewdrops of the dewy showers,
Which bathe the woodland fields.

The sun was scarcely up when I went out,
To pluck these sweets for thee;
And thou wert tossing on thy bed about,
Nor thought of them, nor me.

But I, whose soul is of thine image full,
Whether by night or day,

Dreamed such sweet dreams of thee, my beautiful !
This morning as I lay,-

That waking, I arose, intent to bring

Sweets to thy beauty home;

And here they are, the firstlings of the Spring!
But wherefore did I roam?

Why seek for nature's lovely things abroad,
When loveliness is here?

And in thy face, as at an angel's board,
All sweetness doth appear.

JANUARY SEARLE,

LIFE WITHOUT AN AIM.

We would now speak of the aimless existence-that strange anomaly in creation, a human being with nothing to do. Most miserable, worthy of most profound pity, is such a being. The most insignificant object in nature becomes a source of envy; the birds warble on every spray, in ecstasy of joy; the tiny flower, hidden from all eyes, sends forth its fragrance of full happiness; the mountain stream dashes along with a sparkle and murmur of pure delight. The object of their creation is accomplished, and their life gushes forth in harmonic work. Oh, plant! oh, stream!-worthy of admiration, of worship, to the wretched idler! Here are powers ye never dreamed of, faculties divine, eternal; a head to think, but nothing to concentrate the thoughts; a heart to love, but no object to bathe with the living tide of affection; a hand to do, but no work to be done; talents unexercised, capacities undeveloped; a human life thrown away, wasted as water poured forth in the desert. Oh, birds and flowers, ye are gods to such a mockery of life! Who can describe the fearful void of such an existence, the yearning for an object, the self-reproach for wasted powers, the weariness of daily life, the loathing of pleasure, of frivolity, and the fearful consciousness of deadening life-of a spiritual paralysis, which hinders all response to human interests when enthusiasm ceases to arouse, and noble deeds no longer call forth the tear of joy; when the world becomes a blank, humanity a far-off sound, and no life is left but the heavy, benumbing weight of personal helplessness and desolation. Oh! happier far is the toiling drudge who coins body and soul into the few poor shillings that can only keep his family in a long starvation; he has a hope unceasingly to light him, a duty to perform, a spark of love within that cannot die; and wretched, weary, unhuman, as his life may be, it is of royal worth--it is separated by the immeasurable distance of life and death from the poor, perhaps pampered wretch, who is cursed for having no work to do.-Elizabeth Blackwell.

Printed by Cox (Brothers) & WYMAN, 74-75, Great Queen Street, London; and published by CHARLES Cоok, at the Office of the Journal, 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street.

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"BURNING ONE'S FINGERS."

Ir is strange how strong a partiality for anything dangerous is implanted in our minds from the earliest years of our existence. What is there that a child fears, as long as any semblance of pleasure or amusement presents itself? The cat-that fearful, clawed, whiskered, spitting, hissing, tail-stiffening representative of the tiger in these growth-stunting lands of the North-who shall say that we, from our tenderest years, ever dreaded seizing on the cat,-armed though she were with all those terrors, -whether by her tail, the nape of her neck, her hind legs, or by any amount of fur which our juvenile fist could embrace.

Had we any dread of falling downstairs? Was not the little wicket on the third-pair landing worse than a fiction? and did we not wipe our tears away, and think that piece of bread and jam cheaply gained by half a dozen such tumbles? Were we afraid of looking out of the top-attic window? Did we flinch or move a juvenile muscle when the servant stood us on the parapet of the bridge over the Serpentine; or were we afraid of the man in red to whom she was talking? No, we can look back to the days of our babyhood, and say, conscientiously, that we never feared anything-that we ought to have feared.

[PRICE 14d.

could have followed: in a word, our admiration was gradually transferred to the poker, not, however, in the slightest degree detracting from our love for the fire; no, we looked upon them as two partners in one firm of comfort and unity, each having an interest in the wellbeing of the other.

But above all other delights of our early years, the fire had an especial charm. It looked so good-natured, as it burned, flickered, grew bright, and then dull, and then burned out again into triumphant brilliancy; it was so comfortable to sit by it, on nurse's knee, in a state of juvenile undress-warming our diminutive toes, which would instinctively curl up under the deep sense of an overpowering luxury. Even our very clothes seemed dependent on it for comfort. Our socks would have been harsh lamb's-wool crudities had they not just come fresh from the top of the fender; and, without going into unnecessary details, we believe we should have had no faith in a single article of our costume that had not undergone its preliminary seasoning at this our pet household goddess of the hearth.

Did I ever dream that the poker could have proved my enemy? Oh no; it was treason, even in babyhood, to have dreamt of such a thing.

One day the poker had dwelt composedly in the fire for some time, when nurse suddenly took it out, and displayed it, with its bright, gleaming, half-delicate, half-brazen complexion, to my astonished and delighted gaze. Never had I seen my old friend look so handsome before. I lisped unutterable ejaculations of approbation, and from that moment, nurse was never at a loss for the means of wiping away my tears, and-dare I confess it-appeasing a sudden fit of squalling. The red-hot poker did it all.

But there was another favourite of ours. We often wondered at the effect produced by poking the fire, and felt delighted and comforted to see the brilliant red coal appear in lieu of a mass of half-spent, dusty-looking cinders, or the sparkling, crackling, mischievous-looking, dancing blaze, start off as if out of nothing, and commence business on its own account, throwing up a thousand architectural forms of pinnacle that no Pugin

But the sweetest visions of this life will dissipate, and the most cherished objects of our affection will melt into vain chimeras of our fancy,-perhaps degenerate into open and unquestionable foes. Nurse had turned her back for a moment, leaving the tall fender away from the fire (she had been scrupulously sweeping the hearth); in that moment I was in front of the fire, the poker was seized with greedy delight, and, ere nurse could turn round-I had burnt my fingers.

Oftentimes in life do those burnt fingers come back to my memory. Alas! we are, all of us, daily burning our fingers in some fire, or with some poker or other. And, alas! the burn is too often such as neither cold water, sliced potatoes, turpentine, nor any other household remedy, will heal.

When I see Sir Rackshandy Scuttlewits buying shares in the Horseleydown and Serampoora Junction Railway with borrowed money, and selling them to his young friend, Charles O'Downshire, of Muddle Hall, for ready money, I cannot help thinking that Charles O'Downshire has burnt his fingers, and that Sir Rackshandy Scuttlewits is one of the social pokers, who will stir up a fire out of nothing, invite people to make themselves warm, andburn their fingers.

When I know that the same Sir Rackshandy pays everything in promissory notes, I cannot help believing that when people come to get them cashed, they will find them turned to ashes, and that they will suck their fingers with a vacant expression of pain.

When Arundel de Montmorency, the young condé (Araminta always would call him so), came from the great court of Baddest schnaps, it was surprising how he was the rage. Lady Pentweasle was absolutely jealous of her own daughter, Araminta Pentweasle, and the young condé was so gallant that he positively preferred playing écarté with the mamma to dancing with the daughter. Yet did he persuade Araminta that it was only to gain access to her that he humoured her mamma's partiality; earnestly did he declare, solemnly did he swear, that his angélique Araminta should wreath coronets of love beneath the clustering vines of the Rhine, and that dancing peasantry should welcome their arrival at the baronial halls of his ancestors. Alas! poor Araminta had next to nothing. 'It was all settled upon mamma."

66

One evening, the condé-perhaps we should rather say Herr Graff-returned in a splendid wedding-dress, and Lady Pentweasle in another. Araminta shrieked, and finding nothing else at hand to faint upon, fell lifeless upon the count. A " scene" took place, the dénouement of which proved that Lady Pentweasle's property consisted of a life annuity, and that the count's baronial halls were situated in a third floor in Street, Leicester Square.

Both parties had burnt their fingers.

In fact, what are half our grand undertakings but struggles after warmth-ostensibly of heart and feeling, but really, of pocket? What pains do societies take to starve us on board an ill-appointed emigrant ship, to prevent our being starved at home! How nobly do a company of gentlemen invite us to invest only ONE SHILLING, with the certainty of a free passage and a complete outfit, -knife, fork, and spoon, all in one, included! How nobly do the same philanthropists cancel the narrow obligations of rent and taxes, and migrate to another quarter, solely to extend their sphere of usefulness! Oh, it is painful to think how poorly patriotism is rewarded, and that these sufferers for their country's good are not only branded as thieves and impostors, but charged with "burning the fingers" of their neighbours.

66

remem

Are we to disbelieve our dear friend Mnggins, who "docs" the sporting department of the weekly "Yoicks?" Alas! we must. It is of no use his bidding us ber" 1673, when Taffril beat Bowsprit, or 1825, when Sawdust beat Hopscotch. Race-prophets, my dear Dick, are only pokers, and very hot ones sometimes; therefore, keep your hand out of your master's till,-at all events, till you can find a better reason for visiting the colonics.

"Fly away pretty moth." A pretty, nice old song, but rather a sad moral, as you will find, my dear Polly Lillywhite, if you prefer that six feet three of dyed rabbitskin, red cloth, and pipeclay, which has billetted at the Blackbird and Boots for the last ten days, to honest Roger Beans, whom you have known since you knew anything. My dear Polly, believe me, red cloth and pipeclay are very nice things, and look very well "all of a row" (as you have seen in a sixpenny chip-box of toys), but soldiers have an uncertainty of affection that too often breaks hearts and ruins souls as well as burns fingers.

And so, young gentleman, you wish to leave this situation?

"Yes, sir."

"May I ask your reason?"

"I have always had a taste for theatricals, and some practice at the Gaffington Saloon leads me to believe that my histrionic efforts will be crowned with success and profit."

Such-only not quite so modestly expressed-are the reasons which turn many a decent pen-mender or creditable tape-measurer into a grovelling, half-starved vampire, living on shillings wrung from " ticket-night" victims, from shaking the green-baize sea in a burlesque, or "giving a back" to the clown. My dear young friends,you, I say, whose understanding is about as fit to appreciate Shakspere's poetry as his would be to applaud your acting, do remember this :-lamp-oil will burn your fingers, if you go too near it.

We pass on to our friend Mr. Ebenezer Israel, the great money-lender, in Maddox Street. Two youthful. gentlemen, dressed in the extreme style of university fashion, are urging some point, as they leave the door. A voice proceeding from something within, of which the nose only strikes our vision, says, in a voice of profound respect. "Dis eve-ning, shentlemen, dis eve-ning; cannot do bushinessh now, cos o'the Shabbath." Can they fall into harm in such conscientious hands?

The evening is come, and the honourable Spiff Curley, and "Charles, his friend," are in the first-floor drawingroom of Mr. Ebenezer Israel. What a museum it is! Stuffed owls and alligators, fossils, tandem-whips, cannon, dressing-cases, "genuine Claudes," sets of studs, antique furniture, Indian idols, Chinese temples, cases of butterflies, cornice-poles, "first appeals,' by Frank Stone, pianofortes, Delphin classics, French clocks, asparaguseaters, embossed coal-scuttles-but description is hopeless, especially as the "accommodating" gentleman has just entered.

To hear the conversation, you would suppose that the most perfect good-humour and confidence reigned among the whole party. The honourable Spiff does not eare what he puts his name to, and "Charles, his friend," wants a little ready money to pay his last bet on Devilshoof. It is a pity to draw a bill for such a trifle, and, as he himself is " dayvilish hard up," he doubles the amount; but even then, Mr. Ebenezer Israel is not satisfied. He likes a larger and more liberal scale of dealing.

Having affixed their names to a promissory note, " six months after date, for value received," our two geniuses pocket thirty pounds each, and go off to "dine somewhere," wondering what on earth they shall do with the Nineveh sculptures, Chinese joss, and stuffed ostrich, which, with the help of interest, have made the bill up to two hundred pounds odd! Inwardly, they vow that old Israel's an incarnate sinner, but there's no doing without those thieves."

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The six months come round. "Charles, his friend," of course has not laid by a farthing towards meeting his share of the bill, and, by a strange coincidence, the honourable Spiff Curley is just in the same predicament. Neither upbraids the other, because each wants the other to be further security for a further loan. Ebenezer never crushes a bill too early in the growth, so he is perfectly willing to increase our young gentlemen's credit and curiosities at the same time. By the way, Spiff has sent the ostrich to his aunt, from whom he has expectations, and the old lady has been very nearly frightened into a state calculated to realize them. If he knew her indigna- | tion, he would feel uncomfortable.

Another six months, and another six, and the honourable Spiff and "Charles, his friend," are on the continent together, living as they can, and not daring to approach the Israelitish furnace at which they have burnt their fingers to an extent that years only can make good. Meanwhile, Spiff's agent is cutting down timber; and when Spiff comes to be a man in mind as well as years (if such a thing ever can be), he will weep over the bit of paper, that, like the heated halfpence thrown. from college windows, burnt his fingers so cruelly, and with such lasting results.

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