soft, and being relieved of my heavy boots, I put off with double quick time, and seeing the creek about half a mile off, I ventured to look over my shoulder to see what kind of a chance there was to hold up and load. The red skin was coming jogging along pretty well blowed out, about five hundred yards in the rear. Thinks I, here goes to load any how. So at it I went-in went the powder, and putting on my patch, down went the ball about half-way, and off snapped my ram

rod!"

"Thunder and lightning!" shouted the old woodsman, who was worked up to the top-notch in the "member's" story.

"Good gracious! wasn't I in a pickle! There was the red whelp within two hundred yards of me, pacing along and loading up his rifle as he came! I jerked out the broken ramrod, dashed it away and started on, priming up as I cantered off, determined to turn and give the red skin a blast any how, as soon as I reached the creek.

"I was now within a hundred yards of the creek, could see the smoke from the settlement chimneys; a few more jumps and I was by the creek. The Indian was close upon me-he gave a whoop, and I raised my rifle; on he came, knowing that I had broken my ramrod and my load not down; another whoop! whoop! and he was within fifty yards of me! I pulled trigger and—”

putting the question to keep his eyes open.

"I didn't say it was good, I reckon.”
"Sir!" said Fiery faces, "Sir-r! upon
your oath-mind, upon your oath, you say
that Blinkins is a rogue, villain, and a
thief!"

"You say so," was Pip's reply.
"Haven't you said so."

"Why, you've said it," said Pipkins, "what's the use of my repeating it?”

"Sir-r!" thundered Fiery faces, the Demosthenean thunderer of Thumbtown, "Sir-r! I charge you, upon your sworn oath, do you or do you not say-Blinkins stole things?

"No, sir," was the cautious reply of Pipkins. I never said Blinkins stole things, but I do say-he's got a way of finding things that nobody lost!"

"Sir-r," said Fiery faces, "you can retire," and the court adjourned.

NOT CLASSICAL.

I KNEW an old lady in Liverpool once who kept an alehouse, not for profit, for she had plenty of money, but in order to enjoy the conversation of a select few. For a bar there was her little front parlour, and, but for a beer-engine in one corner, and a row of bottles and glasses on a shelf, you might have imagined the room to be a boudoir. A stranger, say, would enter, and call for a "gill o' ale "And killed him?" chuckled Riley. in a tone which, somehow, displeased the "No, sir! I missed fire!" old lady. "Yill!" she would thunder, "And the red skin-" shouted the old "Thee gits na' yill heer! Thee's nit claswoodsman in a phrenzy of excitement-sical. I'se nowt but classical foak here. Git "Fired and killed me!"

oot wi' thee!" If you were classical the gill of ale was brought to you by one of her pretty daughters, and the old lady did not much care whether you paid for it or not. Indeed, there was one specially ragged and unclean person a frequenter of the little ale-house in Button Street, who went, if I remember right, by the name of "Lily-white Muffins," who was incurably drunken and dissipated, but who was a famous Latin and Greek scholar, had been a fellow of a college at Oxford, and whose conversation was still charming. Lily-white Muffins,” the old lady would cry, thee's gude for nowt; but thee's classical. Sally, gi' t'auld wretch a gill o' yill." And many a gill of Welsh ale did that deboshed scholar consume at the old lady's expense.

66

GEO. AUGUSta Sala.

Now let them drink till they nod and wink | So with love at our hearts-ecstatic boon!
Even as good fellows should do;
They shall not miss to have the bliss
Good ale doth bring men to.

At dusk the squalid toad was seen,
Hopping and crawling o'er the green;
The whirling wind the dust obeys,
And in the rapid eddy plays;

The frog has changed his yellow vest,
And in a russet coat is drest.

Though June, the air is cold and still;
The yellow blackbird's voice is shrill.
My dog, so alter'd in his taste,
Quits mutton bones, on grass to feast;
And see, yon rooks, how odd their flight,
They imitate the gliding kite,
And seem precipitate to fall—
As if they felt the piercing ball.
"Twill surely rain, I see with sorrow;
Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow.

THE BEGGAR'S SOLILOQUY. Now, this, to my notion, is pleasant cheer, To lie alone on a ragged heath,

Where your nose isn't sniffing for bones or teer,

But a peat-fire smells like a garden beneath.

The cottagers bustle about the door,

And the girl at the window ties her strings. She's a dish for a man who's a mind to be poor;

Lord! women are such expensive things.

We don't marry beggars, said she: why,

no;

It seems that to make 'em is what you do;

And as I can cook, and scour, and sew,

I needn't pay half my victuals for you.
A man for himself should be able to scratch,
But tickling's a luxury :-love, indeed!
Love burns as long as a lucifer match,

Wedlock's the candle! Now, that's my
creed.

The church-bells sound water-like over the wheat;

His smoke, at least, don't smell so sweet.
I'm not a low Radical, hating the laws,
Who'd the aristocracy rebuke.

I talk o' the Lord Mayor o' London because
I once was on intimate terms with his
cook.

I served him a turn, and got pensioned on
scraps,

And, Lord, sir! didn't I envy his place, And up the long path troop pair after Till Death knock'd him down with the softest pair.

The man's well brushed, and the woman looks

neat:

It's man and woman everywhere! Unless, like me, you lie here flat,

With a donkey for friend, you must have a wife :

She pulls out your hair, but she brushes your hat.

Appearances make the best half of life.

You nice little madam! you know you're nice.

I remember hearing a parson say You're a plateful of vanity pepper'd with vice;

of taps,

And I knew what was meant by a tallowy face!

On the contrary, I'm a Conservative quite ;
There's beggars in Scripture 'mongst Gen-
tiles and Jews:

It's nonsense trying to set things right,
For if people will give, why, who'll re-
fuse?

That stopping old custom wakes my spleen :

The poor and the rich both in giving agree: Your tight-fisted shopman's the Radical

mean:

There's nothing in common 'twixt him and

me.