POKING THE FIRE. NOTHING can be more irritating than the feeble, incomplete way in which some people poke their fires. I cannot bear to look at them. But I don't know which is worse, the indecisive 'potter,' or the ignorant, inartistic smash' which batters down the pregnant covering of caked coal into a black confusion, letting the precious materials of a blaze escape unignited up the chimney. To stir a fire perfectly, requires the touch of a sculptor, the eye of an architect, and the wrist of a dentist. I never saw it done thoroughly well above a dozen times in my life; and though there are approximations, more or less distant, within the reach of ordinary men, do not suppose that the process is a simple one, capable of being performed in a single operation. There is the tap, when the fire has eaten into the heart of a big, upper boulder-coal, and its opening chinks require but a slight shock to part, and let the imprisoned flame spring forth. There is the lift, when the poker acts as a lever to the crust, and lets the rich loosened fragments drop into the red-hot cavern. There is the stir universal, when the mass has been left too long, and requires a thorough mixing. There is the ventilating poke, when the roof of the fabric has fallen heavily in, and the struggling flame has hardly power enough to overcome the incumbent mass. In this case, the poker must be moved slowly, and left for a minute between the bars after the movement has been made. In contrast to all this is the procedure of the fairer part of creation-the varium et mutabile-as epitomised in the noted definition of an Irish archbishop: woman, a creature who does not reason, and who pokes the fire from the top.' A truth, no doubt, but a partial one; for, reader, have you not seen male animals also commit this fearful outrage on the lares of the hearth? PRICE 11d. way he is often treated after months of closest intimacy. You have sat by his side; you have talked with him by the hour together; you have held your hands over him, as if you blessed him; you have looked into his heart through all the dull dead winter, and found it ever warm; and then, when fickle, gaudy summer comes, and the sun peers into the room, catching the fire's eye with an insulting stare, is it to be wondered at if he sometimes slips out in the sulks ? You should have humoured him a little-drawn down the blind, and not left him alone to eat his heart up in neglect. A. Putting on coals, too, is a delicate process. good healthy fire does not much mind a heavy meal, but a dyspeptic requires to be fed with caution. The surest way, though a slow one, is to take up a lump at a time, in the tongs, and build a loose cairn above the feeble blaze. How quickly the flames search the black interstices, and change the dead mass into a pyramid of life! It is marvellous how soon a coy spark may be thus coaxed into a steady unequivocal fire. Coals ought not to be very big, but about the size of potatoes-the smaller ones choke and stunt the natural progress of the flame. I do not wonder at the freedom of the grate being made a test of friendship. You cannot trust an acquaintance to touch your fire. It is not only impertinent, but often unfeeling in him to attempt it. A hearth is a sacred place. Nothing accounts more easily for the absence of domesticity among many foreigners, than their want of open grates. That can hardly be a home which is warmed by an invisible fire in the bowels of a great deadlooking stove. It is not worth protecting. would die fighting for an Arnott? No, no-the successive and contradictory advertisements of patent stoves, assure me that the Briton has not yet accommodated himself to so unconstitutional a machine. He cannot find any to suit him, and I humbly trust he never will. Wood-fires are better than stoves; they can be poked-indeed, properly managed, they emit an excellent warmth, and crackle well. Who Then there are side-pokes, and indeed many varieties of treatment adapted to the state of the patient: for a fire is a living friend, though a capricious one, and must be managed with respect and affection. A But about the right way of burning logs. Piling friend, ay! Does he not glance a bright welcome when them up is simple enough, and a right genial hearty you enter your room of a morning? Is he not glad act it is; but many miss the power of a wood-fire and merry when you come home? Does he not wink by having the ashes frequently cleared away. Leave at you out of the window, when you mount the door- them there-let them accumulate for a week; then, step? Is he not quiet and considerate in your study if you will, keep them within bounds; but let there or sick-chamber? If you are dreamy, and sit with be always a mound or bed on which the log may lie. feet on fender, does he not sympathise with you, They warm a room well; indeed, they never go quite building fairy grottos, and peopling them with fan-out, though they look white and cold by early daytastic shapes, to suit and soothe your mood? A friend! I should think so. He is kind even when you turn your back upon him. But I grieve to see the unfeeling light. Some time ago, when staying at Rome, the frost was very sharp, and we had large wood-fires. Dominico, our man, never cleared the ashes away. The first thing in the morning, he used to stick a number of canes into the ash-heap, and, lo! in a few minutes there was a bright blaze. All the associations, too, of a wood-fire are pleasant: there is the riving of logs with wedges-work for the brain of a mathematician, as well as exercise for his body; there is the picking up of odd bits of sticks in the plantation, saying, "There, that will do for the fire,' and then coming in and feeding it yourself. There is a prosperous look about a woodstack, and well-stored basket of sawn billets in the corner of the room. These materials, indeed, are more pleasing than the best double-screened Wallsend. There is nothing hearty in the appearance of a coal-hole. and liberally endowed colleges, of which that of Toronto is an especially noble example. He finds also in that city the central office of a most efficient system of juvenile education, on non-sectarian principles, which makes him sigh to think that no such institution can yet be realised at home; and if he mingles in society in these remote regions, he discovers that the elegances, the culture, and the enjoyments to which he may have been accustomed at home, are not wanting. Foremost among the wonders of Canada must be reckoned the great public work the name of which I cannot bear polished fire-irons. Polished grates stands at the head of this paper. There have been may sometimes add to the effect of a well-built, well- many eighth wonders of the world, but none, it may kept fire, but the ends of the tools should be black. deliberately be said, at all comparable to this. SpanNever stuff up the grate with ornaments; hang some- ning the St Lawrence at Montreal, the Victoria Bridge thing in front, if you will, but have the fire always forms a necessary part of the main line of railway laid. Then, on a wet, chilly, July evening, you can communication by which the produce of the interior is indulge the sudden hunger for a blaze, by the aid of a brought to the ports of the Atlantic. The need was lucifer, at once. But the poker itself what an apt, multifarious piece of furniture! Not only has it a readily to be seen and admitted; if there was to be a normal sphere and use of its own, for which, by the railway communication at all—and the frozen state of way, it should not be made too blunt at the point, but the water-communications for half the year made this it is a test of physical power and manual dexterity. sufficiently desirable-then a viaduct over that grand Such and such a man, we hear, can break a poker on river became clearly indispensable. But the St Lawhis arm, or bend it round his neck. In this there is rence is a rapid stream, twenty feet deep, and above a not only the appeal to common experience, for who-mile in width, whose channel becomes so choked with what Englishman at least-is ignorant of a poker? but a pleasant vision of the feat. We behold the fire round which the athletes sit, over their wine; we hear the conversation stray to deeds of prowess; we see the ready means of illustration present on the spot the extemporised performance. Then, too, what a ready weapon of offence or defence is supplied in the poker! What more handy? It is a national instrument the British poker. When the Yorkshire jury The writer has seldom been so impressed by any acquitted the man who knocked down his wife with it, giving in their verdict, 'Sarved her right!' depend outward thing, as by the first sight he obtained of upon it, he would have been hanged if he had done it this bridge from the hill behind Montreal, in October with the tongs. I wonder whether he was the man 1860. He visited and inspected it next day, in comwho quarrelled with his spouse about the right way of pany with several gentlemen of the district, and stirring the fire. They had been separated on this found his impressions only deepened by the near account by mutual consent; their friends, however, view. It is not that there is anything picturesque or having brought them together again, they began talk-fine in the structure: its features are, on the contrary, ing, as they sat by their hearth, on the first evening after their reconciliation, about the folly of falling out on so small a matter, when the lady said: 'Foolish, indeed, my dear, especially as I was right all the time!' THE VICTORIA BRIDGE. FEW home-staying Britons are aware, that they possess in North America a territory amounting to nearly a ninth part of the land-surface of the globe, permeated by the finest system of natural water-communication that exists; or that in Canada, one of the provinces of this great region, and the seat of a new immigrant population of only three millions, there is a system of canals equally unexampled, with one railway twelve hundred miles long, besides about eight hundred miles of other railways, being, in all, equal to a fourth part of the whole railway communication of wealthy and busy England herself. So rapid, indeed, has been the progress of Canada, that when an Englishman happens to visit her shores, he is usually in no small degree surprised by what meets his gaze. He sees with equal wonder and gratification such goodly cities as Montreal and Toronto. He finds justice housed in halls far exceeding those of Westminster both as to space and elegance. He finds learning cultivated with dignity as well as diligence in superb ice in winter, as to seem to make engineering works impossible. To contemplate such an undertaking required a scope and hardihood of imagination beyond all parallel. Nevertheless, the idea was formed by a citizen of Montreal so long ago as 1846,* and in December 1859 the first train passed over the actual structure. of a simply mechanical character. It is the size and purpose of the work which create a sense of sublimity. One has to drive upwards of a mile out of Montreal to the station, whence proceeds in one direction the Great Trunk Railway of Canada, while in the other appears the Victoria Bridge, by which the continued line is carried on to Portland in Maine. The fabric consists of twenty-four piers, rising sixty feet above the water, with intervals of 242 feet in all instances but one in the centre, which is 330 feet; the upper end of each pier being in a sloping form, to meet the dangerous masses of ice which pour down the stream in winter. Along the tops of the piers is laid a quadrangular tube of plate-iron, 16 feet in breadth, and rising from 18 feet 6 inches at the extremities, to 22 feet in the centre in height; this tube, of course, containing the carriage-track. Such-with abutments at the extrebut when we walk into the tube, we find that this is mities are the simple elements of the structure; composed of pieces, one of which crosses the great central span, while each of the others crosses through two of the other intervals, a small vacant space being left at the extremity of each, to allow of the expansion and contraction arising from variations of temperature. On arriving at the opening of the tube from the The Hon. John Young, a native of Ayrshire, a notable example of a group of men of vigorous native faculty, who come prominently out in the British colonies, in consequence of the exigencies of a new country, and the extreme liberality of the popular institutions. Montreal side of the river, one finds it masked with stonework of Egyptian massiveness, including a lintel, on which is inscribed- ERECTED A.D. MDCCCLIX: ROBERT STEPHENSON AND ALEXANDER M. Ross, ENGINEERS.' It was melancholy to reflect that already the first of these men was no more, while the second was represented as so thoroughly broken down in health, as to be, for the present, sequestered from the world. We walked in to about the centre, where an opening and a ladder enabled us to get upon the top, so as to survey freely this marvellous fabric, and its surroundings. Everything seemed severely simple, yet perfectly adapted to its purpose. A sideopening, in like manner, enabled us to observe the form and structure of the piers. Then the word was given that a train was approaching from the south end, and it was necessary to stand aside, and allow it to pass. Our party followed the example set by a few workmen near us, and ranged themselves close to the plates forming the side of the tube, between which and the rail-track only a space of about two feet intervenes. On came the huge noisy object, looking as if it would sweep us all into destruction-it was impossible, with the utmost faith in what we were told of safety, to repress some little tremors. Certainly any sudden faintness at such a moment might have been attended with fatal results, for nothing but an erect position could save us. The blinding and deafening mass passed in its undefined lineaments close to our faces, and I experienced, though I did not express, a feeling of relief when we again saw the empty tube before us, and observed the train wheeling quietly out into the light at the north end. As to the imperfect light within, this is obtained through round holes pierced at intervals in the side plates, at the places where their weakening effect is least felt. It having been determined, in 1852, that the St Lawrence should be bridged by a metal tube after the style of the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait, it was but right and fitting that the aid of Mr Robert Stephenson should be called in by the projectors; and this eminent man, accordingly, visited the spot in the ensuing year. It is admitted, however, on all hands, that the hardest part of the business of engineering was borne by Mr Ross. On the plan being perfected, a prodigious system of labour for its working out was organised by Mr James Hodges, as representing the contractors, for whom he had executed several of the most extensive works in England. It comprised 450 quarrymen, shipping to the extent of 12,000 tons, manned by 500 sailors, and 2090 workmen of other descriptions, exclusive of those required for the preparation of the tube, which was executed piecemeal in England. The work was commenced in January 1854, when the surface of the river was composed of a deep pack of ice fragments, thickly coated over, as usual, by a newly frozen sheet. On this firm surface, a peculiar piece of wooden framework, called a crib, was formed and sunk, such being a necessary preparative to the forming of a coffer-dam in which to lay the foundations of the first pier. In the course of the summer and autumn, two coffer-dams had been formed, and in one of them a pier had been built. Great fears were entertained as to the effects of the winter's ice on these fabrics; and the two dams did actually give way on the 4th of January 1855, when the pack of ice broke up. The accumulation had been going on for four days, until the river had risen high above its usual level, and lay in a widely extended sheet over the adjacent country. 'At length,' to pursue a narration which we owe to Mr Hodges, some slight symptoms of motion were visible. The universal stillness which prevailed was interrupted by an occasional creaking, and every one breathlessly awaited the result, straining every nerve to ascertain if the movement was general. The uncertainty lasted but a short period; for in a few minutes the uproar arising from the rushing waters, the cracking, grinding, and shoving of the fields of ice, burst on our ears. The sight of twenty square miles (over 120,000,000 tons) of packed ice (which but a few minutes before seemed as a lake of solid rock), all in motion, presented a scene grand beyond description. The traveller-frames, and No. 2 dam, glided for a distance of some hundred yards without having a joint of their framework broken. But as the movement of the ice became more rapid, and the fearful noises increased, these tall frameworks appeared to become animate; and after performing some three or four evolutions like huge giants in a waltz, they were swallowed up, and reduced to a shapeless mass of crushed fragments. After gazing at this marvellous scene in silence, till it was evident that the heaviest of the shoving was over, all those in the transit tower, from which it had been witnessed, began to inquire how the solitary pier No. 1, which had been battling alone amid this chaos, had escaped. Although some affected to entertain no fear, the author confesses, for his own part, to have felt infinitely relieved when, upon looking through the transit instrument, he discovered that the pier had not been disturbed.'* It was against difficulties and dangers like these, and in the narrow intervals of time when the nature of the climate permitted men to work, that the masonry of the Victoria Bridge proceeded. Meanwhile, the preparation of the plates required for the tubes proceeded at the Canada Works in Birkenhead. This branch of the work was one of great nicety, for every part of the tube required its own degree of strength, according to the strain and the compression which it was called upon to bear. A plan or map of each tube was made, upon which was shewn each plate, T-bar, angle-iron, keelson, and cover-plate, required in the different situations, with the position of each marked by a distinctive character or figure. As the work advanced, 'every piece of iron as it was punched and finished for shipment, was stamped with the identical mark corresponding with that on the plan; so that when being erected in Canada, although each tube was composed of 4926 pieces, or 9852 for a pair, the workmen, being provided with a plan of the work, were enabled to lay down piece by piece with unerring certainty till the tube was complete.'+ In the business of the masonry, great praise was due by the sub-contractor, Mr Chaffey, for certain remarkable contrivances by which the transport of the stones was greatly facilitated. At St Lambert, a stock of material, amounting to at least 10,000 tons, was to be accumulated and placed in such position in the stone-field, prior to the commencement of the masonry, as to admit of each distinct course being kept separate, and readily accessible when required. To effect this, a steam-traveller sixty-six feet in length, placed on a ghanty-frame raised twenty feet from the ground, and extending about six hundred feet in length, was constructed. The boiler and engine were attached to the jennie, and traversed laterally along the traveller, being provided at the same time with a gearing to admit of a motion being communicated to the traveller, driving it from one end of the staging to the other. With this machinery, worked by one intelligent boy, a train of cars, loaded with the heaviest blocks of stone, could be moved on the railway-track, underneath, backwards and forwards, as required, and the stones taken up and deposited together, according to the courses they were intended for. We have frequently seen this extraordinary automaton at work, with three of its six distinct movements going on at one time. Thus, a block of limestone, weighing perhaps eight tons, would be taken from a car, and while in the process of being Hodges's Construction of the Victoria Bridge. London, 1860. instruction of the profession. This is a superbly illustrated work, mainly designed for the † Hodges. festooned to right or left; while into his countenance was thrown as vivid an expression of self-admiration as his sense of the lowness of the temperature and the falseness of his own position would permit the elevated to the height necessary for placing it on the top of a pile some distance further on, and at the side of the field, the lateral motion was carrying it sideways, and the whole machine moving in the direction of the pile at the rate of four miles an hour; which point reached, and the stone safely deposited, the three motions were instantaneously reversed, and the traveller brought back to the car for a second load, to be conveyed perhaps in an entirely different direc-not so much as that, though; thank you. Don't tion."* The work was completed at the close of 1859, and tested in the most unmerciful manner by the passing of a train of platform cars, five hundred and twenty feet in length, loaded with stone to the utmost, when even the central and longest tube was found to be deflected to an extent of less than two inches. It needed but this fact to perfect the glory of a work which promises to be an enduring monument of British skill, enterprise, and perseverance. THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. CHAPTER XV.-A MODEL TO BE AVOIDED. lad to assume. 'A little more forward, if you please, Narcissus,' observed Mr Jones, who was in charge of the camera: laugh, whatever you do, or you'll be a dreadful object. Good Heavens! what are you scratching your ear for? Pooh, pooh, a model must never itch! Couldn't you stand on one leg for a little, in order to give a lightness to the attitude?' Not without tumbling into the basin,' rejoined Dick; I couldn't, indeed.' 'Ah, well, we will try that afterwards, then; it will not look ill as a specimen of an instantaneous I I say, you mustn't wink your eyes, Narcissus; you must stare steadily and fondly upon the water, please That's not a bad notion, though, I was going to say, for Sappho throwing herself off the Lesbian rock into the sea. Mrs T.-Mrs Jones, I mean-shall be Sappho, only it will spoil her clothes AFTER breakfast, Lucidora was despatched to a good deal, unless she does it in a bathing-gown; Mr Sunstroke, to acquaint him of the treasure that and you shall be Phaon. Now, you must not move awaited his inspection at his photographic roomsa hairsbreadth, Dick, for the photograph is just for the apartments occupied by Mr and Mrs Jones going to be taken; but don't hold your breath so were his, and had been fitted up, as we have seen, much, or you will be purple, and there is no with an eye to art purposes rather than to domestic knowing what queer colour that may turn to in the photograph. convenience. Better, however, is any unfurnished In a couple of minutes, Narcissus the original was residence, gratis, than the most stately dwelling-permitted to re-assume his less classical garments, place and rent therewith; and the two models lived and Narcissus the copy was lying in the dark chamcheaply and contentedly in their glass-house-ber, steeped in an offensive preparation. throwing no stones at others, we will hope-and were even enabled to accommodate a young friend in addition, as we have seen. Their home and their place of business were thus conveniently amalgamated. From sunset until after breakfast, all was domesticity and private life; but in the daytime, the nuptialchamber was devoted to collodion and the black art, and the larger room became a theatre for tableaux. Those outdoor picnics, so redolent of the leafy summer-time, with which the stereoscope has made us so familiar, all had their origin in that art-attic over the Haymarket. There, couched at ease upon green baize, and under the shade of canvas woods, those July revellers held their pasteboard feasts, no matter what the weather or the season. There, too, was temporarily reared the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault of that well-known cathedral-which has drawn many a tear from the impressionable medieval eye, stereoscopically deceived-wherein those white-robed choristers (at one-and-six) are swinging censers, with bowed head, before their bishop. And there, above all, those classical statues, with which we are so well acquainted, more lifelike than the greatest triumphs of Grecian art, reversed the miracle of Pygmalion, and turned from flesh and blood to marble. In such a very slight flesh-coloured garment, that the wearer felt excessively alarmed lest Mrs Jones should re-enter the apartment before he changed it, the compliant Dick was now regarding himself in the big basin. Around his brow was a wreath of waterlilies made of green and white cotton, which bobbed about his face, and tickled him like a night-cap with a too luxuriant crop of tassels. A piece of blue calico was looped about him, much as a window-curtain is * Legge's Glance at the Victoria Bridge. Montreal, 1860 (p. 133). You did it capitally,' observed Mr Jones with triumph, and now it only remains to name your reward. Shall it be beer and tobacco, or shall we to the Zoological Gardens?' I go For a moment, the photographee looked a little humour, observed: With all my heart, lad, for you annoyed, but immediately recovering his goodare sure to know it some day, sooner or later. Come and sit down by the fire, and listen to the history of one who has been neglected by his age; and draw the corks of that couple of bottles before we begin, Dick, for I hate to be interrupted by noise. When I went about the country with a couple of big candles and a Shakspeare, giving that admirable, course of readings from the immortal bard, of which it was justly remarked by the Land's End Thunderer— But there, I daresay, you never heard of them. Well, when I went about elevating the masses by the lever of Dramatic Elocution, I always began the entertainment by a dissertation against noise.' By this time the beer was drawn and emptied into a huge pewter,' into which the Classical Model, having dipped his features, and emerged from the foam thereof after the manner of Cytherean Venus, commenced as follows: 'If Locke's theory be untenable, and one baby be really brought into the world with instincts and characteristics differing from those of another baby, it is certain that the individual who now addresses you was born a gentleman. I was a precious high chap in my notions from my very cradle, and I shall always be a precious high chap until I die. It was thus endowed me with qualities only befitting an therefore monstrously inconsistent of Nature, having exalted station, to permit my father to be the proprietor of an inconsiderable eating-house in Whitechapel; and whatever griefs I have since come to-and they have been numerous-I have attributed, and, I think, with justice, to Nature only. It may be easily imagined that my poor parent-a good enough man in his line, which was, however, mainly confined to mutton-pies and sheep's trotters, with a sprinkling of a singular viand denominated Chitterlings, the origin and nature of which are shrouded in mystery-was quite unable to appreciate the boon which had been conferred upon him in an offspring such as myself. But my mother-ah, my mother! [here Mr Jones appeared to be overcome with emotion, and once more buried his face for an extraordinary length of time in the pewter] that old lady was a regular trump, and that's all about it.' Ah,' murmured Dick in a sympathetic voice, 'that's just like my mother.' 'Well, I cut away from the tripe business, and my mother brought me back again, and then I cut away again. Then I went to school, and cut away from that. Then I was bound apprentice to a sign-painter —for I had always a yearning towards the Fine Arts -and I cut away from him. And at last, when I had made trial, in short, of most things that a lad might try on terra firma, I cut away from that, and went to sea. My connections, generally, were of a narrow order of mind, and didn't appreciate me. When I was quite young, they only shook their heads, and remarked, that, "after all, I was nobody's enemy but my own." But when I grew older, and wanted a little money from them now and then to start afresh, then I became their enemy, and they shut their doors against me coincidently with their pockets. When I returned home to Whitechapel from my first voyage, my father was very far from killing a fatted calf in honour of that event: if it hadn't been for my mother, in fact, I should have had nothing for supper that night except cold chitterlings. He even expressed himself as owing Nature a grudge for having presented him with such a son, whereas, as I have demonstrated, the grievance lay precisely the other way; while, in conclusion, he gave it as his opinion that I was nothing less than a "black sheep"-his very metaphors, you perceive, being drawn from those shambles whence he procured the raw material for the carrying on of his ignoble profession. In England, said he, there was no pasturage, he thanked Heaven, proper for cattle of that sort, but there was a portion of the globe recently discovered, especially adapted, and, as it seemed to some, providentially designed, for the accommodation and sustenance of Black Sheep -namely, Australia. If I was content to be exported thither, he would pay my passage; if I was not There was a certain choleric vulgarity, in short, about my respectable parent-attributable, in some degree, as I have always endeavoured to hope, to his over-attachment to pigs' puddings-that led him into language which, from respect to his memory, I will not repeat. Wishing, however, to act a dutiful part, and being also entirely unprovided with the means for carrying on a domestic war, I acceded to the parental terms. I embarked for the Antipodes, and was accompanied on board the Betsey Jane by my father himself, impelled to that step by ardent affection, doubtless, and the desire of bidding me farewell, but also by the lingering suspicion that I might otherwise spend my passage-money more agreeably than in maritime travel. The ship was but a small one for so long a voyage, and not well officered; the watches, particularly at night, being very ill kept. My berth was so small, that when we reached the Tropics it grew unbearable, and when it was fair, I used to lie on deck instead of below, with only the stars above me. One particularly still and solemn night, when I chanced to take up my quarters close beside the steersman, I felt as disinclined for sleep as for exertion. I lay in a torpid state with my eyes open, but with my senses partially shut, and with my thoughts occupied indeed, yet not under my control, but wandering at their own wondrous will in the past and in the future, to the annihilation of time and space. The only sounds that broke the universal silence which reigned over sky and sea, were the turning of the wheel beside me, and the clanking of the rudder-chains, at first at irregular intervals, and with more or less of violence, but presently becoming quite monotonous; for the helmsman had fallen asleep, and left that indifferent vessel, the Betsey Jane, entirely to her own devices. Then the heavens grew cloudy, and the stars dimmer and dimmer, and the wind began to rise; and still I lay with my face skyward, conscious but unconcerned. All of a sudden, there loomed something monstrous far above my face, shutting out the clouds from my sight, and I heard a noise other than that of the rippling of the waves about our stern-it was the sound which the cut-water of a vessel makes in a freshening breeze. In half a second, I became fully conscious that the bowsprit of some huge ship was passing over us, and that in another half-second the Betsey Jane would be run down with all her crew complete. Casting my cloak from off me, I leaped at the rigging which hung about the mighty beam, and thereby managed to climb up on it, and thence, with cautious trepidation, like a cat in walnut shells upon the ice, on to the forecastle of the stranger. When I had reached so far, the Betsey Jane was not to be seen. She had not been run down, for I had not felt the slightest shock, but had escaped by the skin of her teeth, and with the loss of one of her most respectable passengers. I was not at all surprised, after what had happened, to find the look-out man of the stranger also asleep at his post; but it did disgust me, when I woke him for the purpose of explaining the circumstances, to see him throw up his arms with a great shriek, and run below, exclaiming that the devil was on the forecastle; though, if the thing had happened in these stereoscopic days, there might have been some foundation for the libel. As it chanced, I had got on board an Australian vessel bound for the London Docks, where I presently arrived, after a six months' sea-voyage almost unprecedented in the barrenness of its results. My reception in Whitechapel, as may be easily imagined, was not enthusiastic; but, on the other hand, I arrived just in time to receive the bequest of the travelling wild-beast show from my maternal uncle; it goes about the country under my name until this day; but as you are aware, I did not long remain its proprietor. The position was not, perhaps, of a sufficiently gentlemanlike character to suit my aspiring nature. You would have liked it, would you, Dick? Perhaps so: I have often regretted, myself, that I should have been born so precious high. The very same thing occurred when I subsequently took up the dog-trade. A puppy's tail, Dick, take my word for it, is not a mouthful for a gentleman; and yet, unless they are bitten off, "the Fancy" will not have them at any price. I daresay I had eaten many a one in my respected papa's pies; but then the cooking makes such a deal of difference. That good man died at the very period when I failed in dogs-a circumstance which redounds to his credit as a man and a fatherand paid the debt of nature just in time to enable me to settle with my creditors. My poor mother was not left quite so well provided for as might have been expected-for my father's will, it seems, had always been in my favour, although his way had sometimes been so unpleasant and she therefore very wisely determined to take a situation as-as-as housekeeper in a gentleman's family; and I am bound to say that she has been of considerable use to me while in that position.' 'Is it Mrs Trimming?' asked Dick with some hesitation. That is the very party,' observed Mr Jones,' and a very nice old party she is. It was thought that |