should have told you that AUNT BIGGS wouldn't go in to see the show, because she wanted to enquire at the Registry Office about a new cook, and so we were to meet her at a pastrycook's shop, where old ladies go to eat mulligatawney soup and read the supplement of the Times. Well, we went up to CHARLES's sitting-room, such a dusty place, and so dreadfully untidy, up at the top of a flight of dirty stairs, and with two doors. The one outside had a ticket on it to say that somebody would be back at three o'clock; and when CHARLES went out to get a corkscrew to open some wine (for he had lunch all set out quite nicely), he told us to be quiet, and if anyone knocked not to say "Come in." Now what do you think we did. If you tell anybody about it I'll never speak to you again. We got CHARLES's wig out of a box and I put it on, and covered my dress all over with his great gown (you've no idea how becoming this dress is), and FLoss went to her brother's bed-room and dressed herself in an Inverness cape and an old felt hat that she found there, and then we sat down at the table and pretended to be writing about law.

Wasn't it fun? Well, presently back came CHARLES, as we thought, and to frighten us, gave a great rap at the door, but we made our voices gruff, and both screamed out, "Come in," when who should stumble right into the room but a horrid old man in a brown great coat, and evidently quite blind, for he said he'd called about a case, or something; and then FLOSS was so frightened that she took the wide-awake off, and her hair tumbled down just as the horrid old fright put on his spectacles. And then he went down stairs muttering and mumbling, and met CHARLES coming up with the corkscrew, so that it was all explained. And who do you think it was, dear? Why old MR. GRUMPY, the lawyer, and CHARLES's best client; but he came back afterwards, and was such a delightful old fogey, for he gave us a box to see Africaine. CHARLES says he shall tell a great author all about our dressing up, and that a play shall be written about it.

You dear old thing, I wish you were here with,
NOTICE.-On the 18th of December, price Twopence, being an extra
Number, with numerous illustrations,

THE CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF FUN.
The list of Contributors will be published shortly.
Now ready, printed on TONED PAPER, price Twopence,
"GONE FROM THE HELM."

TOWN TALK.

BY THE SAUNTERER IN SOCIETY.

ORD RUSSELL'S Ministry, as far as it has gone as yet, promises very well. He seems to have discovered that talent is to be found somewhere outside those few select families that have hitherto ruled our destinies. The appointment of MR. GOSCHEN is a good omen-the substitution of anybody for SIR ROBERT PEEL would have been a change for the better, the selection of MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE a singularly good one. I

should like to see STANSFELD back, and should like a place or two on the Treasury benches kept vacant, or held by warming pans, for a few of the youngsters"the untried boys like JOHN STUART MILL and PROFESSOR FAWCETT. THE Bread and Butter Controversy has had one result. The Dons have been trotted out. In the good old days they would have ignored the discussion and treated the undergrads with silent contempt. But even they are compelled now to move a little with the times, and the Times so first one and then another big gun of Dondom opened. But instead of blazing away at the audacious assailants of their cherished abuses, they have been firing at one another. Censors and Canons and ex-Censors have squabbled among themselves, and what is worse have let the enemy see it. So that if they don't get any reform of abuses, the undergrads will have done what clown and pantaloon will be doing in another month's time: they knocked at the door of the Senior Common Room, and then laid down on the threshold. Out came the Dons and tumbled over them, and getting up fell to fighting among themselves. By the way, the undergrads have not only betrayed the old boys into quarreling-but have even induced them to display their English. In a letter to the Times, of the 23rd, the REV. OSBORNE GORDON, late Senior Censor of Christ Church, asks—

"Why is power and purse with us alone to be separated from common interests and sympathy and feeling?"

We repeat, with deep sympathy-"Why is they?" And also, why is tutors of colleges ignorant of the simplest rules of English grammar?

Or American books of "humour "the result of the great success of Artemus Ward-there is enough, and more than enough. People are getting tired of them, and won't take the trouble to read them. I experienced some feeling of repugnance when I took up the Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, but I hadn't read far before I found myself thoroughly enjoying them. I mention this because those, who, surfeited with Americanisms, pass O. C. K. by, will miss a great treat. There is more real humour and less reliance on slang and bad spelling in these pages than in any other Yankee joke-book (bar Biglow) I have ever seen. The author really knows what a joke is, though he doesn't spell it with a "g." If you want a hearty laugh read about the "Gothic steed" and his visit to a Government office-the attack of the Southern Confederacy and the supposed death of JIM SHORTY-and the Cotton Seminary.

THE twopenny Blood and Culture of the Pall Mall Gazette is always amusing. That a staff of professional journalists should assume airs of fashionable superiority is a great joke. But the paper is clever and otherwise a credit to journalism-its theatrical criticism being at times excellent. The notice this department of the Pall Mall has attracted should make its managers more careful in the choice of a deputy when the regular critic is dining with the other noblemen. The deputy who went to notice Society took a pleasant cropper in his review. I don't mind his talking about "our not looking for society in Tottenham-court-road "-though to be sure one might as well do that as expect to find Pall Mall in an obscure street off the Strand. Nor do I wonder-because the present state of the English drama makes young critics morbidly sensitive on that point-that he affects to discover a French origin for a thoroughly English piece because "there is salmons in both." I could pass over his want of a knowledge of what can be done on a stage and what can't, as the author constructs his piece. But really that any one who pretends to have seen Society once should confuse Tom Stylus, the literary hack, with Daryl, the ex-dragoon, is too absurd-at least if he assumes to be

even a deputy critic. The gentlemen employed on the penny press, which the P. M. affects to despise, seem to me to earn their money more honestly than the noblemen who infuse blood and culture into the toned-paper pages of the aristocrat of Salisbury-street. WHAT on earth has become of the Traffic-Regulation Act that empowered the Corporation to assist street circulation? I was ten minutes getting from St. Clement's Church to Temple Bar in a Hansom the other day, and had crawling in front of me all down Fleet-street an empty brick-cart, a PICKFORD's van, and a waggonload of manure-to say nothing of the numbers of empty cabs plying for hire. There ought to be some stop put to this-heavy waggons should be made to go round, empty carts should be turned back, and crawling flies sent to a stand. But there appears to be no one to do this the police stand in the middle of the street apparently for the purpose of exchanging "good-mornings" with the bus-drivers.

THE mystery of" Hatch-ups" is explained-it is Beeton's Christmas Annual. DR. MARIGOLD prescribes for All the Year Round. But what is The Twelfth Finger of the Left Hand but One? Lord Dundreary thinks it must be the big toe of your right foot. I give it up.

A PARTING WISH.

I AM leaving thee in sorrow,

I am leaving thee in tears;
For we cannot meet to-morrow,
And we may not meet for years.
I would ask a trifling token-

Some unheeded, worthless thing-
That may prove thy faith unbroken
(Say a watch, love, or a ring).
Nay, I dare not ask thee, lady,

For thy gem-bedizened hand; Since my future is but shady,

As affairs at present stand. And I feel my paltry earnings (Which are eighty pounds a year), Hardly justify these yearnings For the daughter of a Peer. Yet a moment let me lingerIf 'tis only to remark That the ruby on thy finger

Glistens grandly in the dark. While thine eyes, like sister-spangles, On the cheek of Night appear, As a costly jewel dangles From an Ethiopian's ear.

But a glance at thy repeater

(Which is worth a deal of cash), Says that Time is even fleeter

Than the lightning's vivid flash.
How the toy appears to glitter!

Do you know, it seems to me
That a watch like this is fitter
For a man, love, than for thee.
I would bear thee off, enraptured,
To some soft and sunny clime;
But perhaps we might be captured
In about a fortnight's time.
And however soft and sunny
Such a climate might be found,
We should want a little money-
Were it only fifty pound!

It is better we should part, love,

Though the tear is on my cheek,
And I feel my manly heart, love,
Much too full to let me speak.
'Tis in vain I seek to stifle

Signs of agony like these:-
By the way, I'll take the trifle

That I mentioned, if you please.

SHAKESPEARIAN NOTE. ANOTHER new railway bridge is being built over the river on which Liverpool stands. If SHAKESPEARE were living now he would have to alter a line in his Merchant of Venice, for the quality of Mersey is (s)trained, and rather extensively too, the lines being numerous.

WHY is a workman at MESSRS. PRICE'S manufactory like a sort of chandelier? Because he's a candle-lab'rer.

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

THE hackneyed critic who has spent the greater portion of his literary existence in poring over conventional twentieth-rate novels, and in wading through the sea of sensational fustian with which light literature is flooded, turns with a feeling of genuine unaffected pleasure to such a work as that which forms the subject of the present article. Indigence and Exuberance, or Wealth and Penury, is the title of an original five-act drama, by a MR. FREDERICK AGAR. Originality in dramatic literature resembles, in one respect, the word "paletôt," inasmuch as many have laid claim to it who can make out no title whatever, and consequently the pleasure of the critic is enhanced when he finds himself engaged in reviewing a work which not only professes to be original, but actually is so.

The drama has never, we believe, been produced upon the stage, and MR. FREDERICK AGAR has, no doubt, better reason to complain of the "decline of the drama" than the thousands of playgoers who have never sent a drama to a manager, and had it refused. The play (which, for the most part is written in blank verse) opens with the following dialogue between Mrs. Lydia Elliott (wife somehow or other of Sir Lucius Elliott, a ruined gamester), and her little boy. Lyd. Oh child, child! do not bother so;

Child. But, Ma, dear, when will Pa come home? I am

So very hungry.

Lyd Alas! dear Frederic, when I do not know.

We must wait patiently till he arrives.

Poor child! I wish you had a better Pa,

And I a kinder husband; but, alas!

So it is, the demon drink does hold him there.

In that horrid house-it is a den

For those that are in't are most wicked men.

Child. Oh, yes! Ma, but why do you let him go?
Lyd. My child! my child! do not, I prithee ask
Me hurtful questions; oh, they pierce my heart
To it's inmost, it's deepest place,--it's core.

There is a simple pathos about this that would unman the most battered theatrical hack that ever occupied a stall. The contrast between the gentle love of Mrs. Lydia and the coarse brutality of the dissipated baronet, her husband, is artistically shown in the following dialogue which ensues upon Sir Lucius's entrance :—

Luc. Pshaw, Lydia, tears again, thou art for e'er

Thus trying to leap, fondle, and embrace

In this soft way, 'tis only foolish trash.

No more! you condescend far too much
Already, so no more of your ass-like
Unthoughtful nonsense; really it makes
One feel quite hideous.

Lgd. Oh, Lucius, you once flew thus to me.

If you would do it once again what joy

Should I enclasp; how my fond heart would love;

O, bursting it would be, for joy once true

Would therein reign and fast with pleasure; it
Would beat, and happiness would grant a boon

To thee and me. O what fine radiency

Would reign in wedded life-the honeymoon:
Instead with voice so harsh, what cadency.

The virtue of Mrs, Lydia is assailed by one Sir Thomas Milford, a false friend of Sir Lucius's, and a duel takes place between them in consequence. Just as the gentlemen are about to fight, their friends, Count Ingleford and Judson enter

C. Ing. Well, really, dear Judson, if here is'nt

A duel.

Jud. Ay, so there is; what are we to do, dear Ingleford? Ing. Between Milford and Lucius, too, the

Idea. You go part them, Judson.

Jud. No, I cannot, I happen not to have

My sword or else I quickly would, my dear Ingleford.

C. Ing. Here's mine, my dear fellow.

(Offers sword.

Jud. Ay, yours doesn't hardly fit my hand, my dear,

Sir, therefore, I have th' honour to decline it.

C. Ing. Aha, aha, I see, dear Judson, it

Does not fit, sir, your courage:

Jud. Nor yours, Ingleford:

C. Ing. Well, not exactly;

Jud. Well, never mind, we will look on;

C. Ing. Yes, so we will, and see fair play.

(The combat lasts about four or five minutes, when Lucius is killed; at the final blow enter LYDIA, who rushes and catches LUCIUS in her arms.

A duel, which lasts about four or five minutes, is a sensation which ought to make the fortune of any theatre. Sir Lucius is killed, and his widow and child are reduced to actual beggary. The lady is discovered in the next scene in the act of imploring alms from a pampered menial, who turns out to have been in her employ in happier days.

Footman. You brute, you, go Impostors, or I'll call a policeman,

And have you up, you wretched people, you. Lyd. Sir, dare you flout me? If I recollect Aright, thy name is Thomas Bedford, thou Us'd to be under-footman to my husband Sir Lucius Elliott.

Foot. Well, if it is not that base woman, that Most horrid Mrs. Elliott (apart). I used To be in your employment-th' ideaOh, impudent, most horrid baggage, out Upon you for thus telling lies. Do go

Away; to think-the idea-well did You ever.

(Exit, harshly, shutting the door.)

(Lights a candle.) (Drops candle.)

Oh!

(Exit.)

an

In the third act, Frederick Elliott, the son of Mrs. Lydia, has grown up to be a fine young fellow of fourteen or so, and he loves, and is beloved by one Julia Hazlerigg, the only daughter of a wealthy baronet. The pair are discovered by Sir George Hazlerigg, avaricious aristocrat," and separated. However, the young lady eventually escapes, and joins her lover, and the happy pair elope to America. The fourth act is enriched with witty dialogues (between two clowns, Hungry and Drone) which are in SHAKESPEARE'S happiest style. Here is one of them :

Drone. You can get tired of sleeping as well as eating, can't you? you hungry ool Hung. Now, by my faith, I'll prove that to be a lie.

Drone. Prove it, then.

Hung. Why, to prove it, then, thou art always asleep; therefore, never tired of sleeping.

Drone. Thou liest, Hungry; am I asleep now?

Hung. Thy wit thou indulgest in the soundest sleep; therefore a fool always asleep.

Drone. Well, and what are you?

Hung. I'm a fool

Drone. I'm glad you know that.

Hung. But thou art one of double weight.

Drone. I didn't know it before.

Hung. But you do now.

Drone. No I don't.

Hung. Then why like a fool?

Drone. Because, because

Hung. You can't help it.

In the fifth act we are introduced to the Elliott family, who are residing in New York, where Frederick has, somehow or other, made a large fortune. Sir George and Lady Hazlerigg appear upon the scene. bless the young couple, and their two children:

Lady H. Yes, dearest child, receive our love, and with
True joy help us give it all.

1st Child. O, Freddy, who are they; don't they talk funny.
2nd Child. I don't know who they are; he seems a new
Pa, and she like a new Ma.

Softened by this baby prattle, the family rush into each other's arms, in a gush of universal reconciliation.

Surely, surely, in the present dearth of dramatic talent, the metropolitan managers will rush to MR. FREDERICK AGAR, and lay their cheque-books at his feet.

BONNY young lad with the eyes of blue,
Whose life is a merry-go-round of joy,
Though you have friends both tried and true,
With roses and lilies your path to strew,
Just think of the morrow a bit, my boy.
You love to be tamed with winning wile
Looking under the lids of a maiden coy,
You'll say, perhaps, how a sunny smile
And stolen whisperings time beguile-

But think of the morrow a bit, my boy.
You give them "eyes their own eyes to take,"
You throw off their love like a broken toy;
But women are weak, and hearts may break,
When pillows are wet for a stripling's sake-
So think of the morrow a bit, my boy.
"Fling away care," you sing as you sit.

"Life is all golden. Where's the alloy ?" 'Tis jolly, I know, when the pipes are lit, And the table flashes with jovial wit

Still, think of the morrow a bit, my boy.
In your little world there is sorrow and strife:
HARRY has lost his darling FLOY,

CHARLES has married a heartless wife,
EDITH has entered a loveless life-

There may be a morrow for you, my boy!