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London, in 1851.

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MANCHESTER in 1851.

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shift in that until such time as they could meet with anything better, why it was at their service for five shillings a night. The young lady and the female servant Mrs. Fokesell might perhaps accommodate in her bed, and if the footman wouldn't mind lying on the knife-board, and the young gentleman thought he could pass the night comfortably on the top of the grand piano, why she would do everything in her power to make them comfortable.

Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys said that, under the circumstances, they must consent to avail themselves of whatever they could get; whereupon the landlady politely informed them, that if they would follow her down stairs, she would show them the only apartment she had to spare.

But, as she was about to descend, a loud single knock was given at the street door, and, begging their indulgence for a minute, she returned to the passage to ascertain the business of the new-comer. On answering the knock, she found that it was merely the coal-merchant, who wished to be informed when she would like to have in "them there coals as she ordered."

Mrs. Fokesell hastily told the man, that if they weren't delivered the first thing in the morning, there wouldn't be a bit of fire to "bile the dozen pots of shaving-water as was wanted by eight o'clock for her lodgers."

On closing the door, and rejoining Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys, who still stood on the top of the kitchen stairs, Mrs. Fokesell led the way to the basement, and, opening the kitchen door, stepped across the area. Stopping in front of one of the two doors that led to what the landlady was pleased to dignify by the name of a humble apartment on the basement floor, she unfastened the padlock, and revealed the interior of a cellar, from the arched roof of which was slung a sailor's hammock, while on the floor was spread a small square of dingy carpet. In one corner, on top of a beer-barrel, stood an apparatus that did duty for a toilet-table. Against the whitewashed wall hung a small sixpenny shaving-glass; while, immediately beneath it, there was placed a dilapidated chair.

Mrs. Sandboys, who until that moment had never set eyes on that peculiar kind of naval contrivance for obtaining a night's rest under difficulties, could not refrain from expressing her firm conviction that it was utterly impossible for any woman of her size to deposit herself safely in the interior of that thing, which people were pleased to call a bed.

Mrs. Fokesell, however, begged to assure her that she had passed many—many very pleasant nights in that very hammock, and with the aid of the trestle which she had placed on the floor, and an assisting hand from her husband, she was sure the lady would be able to manage very well.

Mr. Sandboys himself was anything but pleased with the arrangements of the proposed dormitory, and, secretly in his own mind, he was inquiring of himself how, when he had lent the said assisting hand to his better half, and safely lodged her within the depths of the

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suspended hammock, he himself was ever to join her there, for who, he wanted to know, was there to perform the same kind office for him?

However, even if they had to take the bed down, and spread it on the carpet, it would, thought Mr. Sandboys, be far preferable to none at all, so he told Mrs. Fokesell that he and his good lady would avail themselves of the accommodation, at least for that one night.

"It's all I have, ma'am," said the landlady; "I have just let the last tent on the tiles to a foreign nobleman, and seven shillings a night is what I has from him. I assure you it's a fact, ma'am. There is not a foot in a respectable house that is not worth its length in sovereigns, ma'am. Why, if you'll believe me, ma'am, there's my next-door neighbour, she's put a feather bed into her warm bath, and let it off to a young East Injun at a guinea a week, for a month certain.

Mr. Sandboys, exhausted with his journey, made no more ado, but closed the bargain with Mrs. Fokesell; and, having partaken of some fried chops, by way of supper, in the kitchen, he and his beloved Aggy withdrew to the privacy of the cellar which was to constitute their bed-chamber for the night.

After a brief consultation, it was agreed that, to prevent all chance of taking cold in so damp a dormitory, they should retire to rest in their clothes; and Mrs. Sandboys having disengaged herself of her hood and cloak, prepared to make the perilous ascent.

By the aid of her Cursty's hand she mounted the little trestle of the beer-barrel, which she previously placed immediately under the hammock, and then, turning her back towards the suspended bed she managed, with a slight jump, to seat herself on the extreme edge of the sacking. Her figure, however, being rather corpulent, the weight of her whole body no sooner rested on one side of the oscillating couch, than the whole apparatus slid from under her, and she was suddenly plunged down on to the corner of the temporary toilet-table. Fortunately for the good lady, the top of the artificial wash-hand-stand consisted of a board merely laid across the head of a barrel; so that immediately she touched the ricketty arrangement, the board, basin, and pitcher were all tilted forward, and the entire contents of the water-jug emptied full into her face, as she fell to the ground.

What with the crash of the crockery, the splashing of the water, and the bumping of poor dear Mrs. Sandboys on the carpet, Cursty was almost paralyzed with fright. He was afraid even to raise his darling Aggy from the ground, for he felt that something serious must have happened to her.

But Mrs. Sandboys luckily was sound in her bones, though severely bruised in her flesh; and as Cursty helped her up from the floor, she shook the water from her hair, and vowed that she would rather sleep on the carpet all night than make another attempt to enter that nasty, deceitful, swinging, unsteady thing of a bed.

Mr. Sandboys used all the endearing arts of which he was master to induce the partner of his bosom to make a second attempt,

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but his entreaties were in vain; for Mrs. Sandboys, whose body still tingled with the failure of her previous essay, was in no way inclined to listen to his solicitations.

But the persevering Cursty pleaded so hard that at last he got her to consent, that provided he would first get into the hammock himself, and would lift her into it after him, she wouldn't mind obliging him in that way—for she could see no other plan by which she was ever to be safely deposited within it.

Accordingly, Mr. Sandboys, when, after a few unsuccessful but harmless endeavours, he had managed to get his entire body fairly into the sailor's bed, leant over the side in order to assist his better-half to join him within it. But on his putting out his arms to lift the lady up to the required height, the delusive, bendable bedstead turned inside out, and shot him, mattrass, blankets, and counterpane, together with his Aggy, plump on to the ground.

The fall shook Mr. Sandboys almost as much as when the pig had laid on his back in the brook, and it was long before he could bring himself even to propose to his wife to make another attempt to enter the wretched wabbling, swingy substitute for the substantial security of a four-post.

At length Mrs. Sandboys, who two or three times had just saved herself from falling almost flat on her nose while dozing in the dilapidated chair, began to be fairly tired out; and Cursty, who had sat on the top of the beer-barrel till his legs were nearly cut through with the sharp edge of the hoop, found that it was impossible to continue his slumbers in so inconvenient a posture, so he took his fat and dozing little wife in his arms, and standing once more on the trestle, fairly lifted her into the hammock; after which, seizing the chain that hung from the iron plate in the pavement above, he with one desperate bound swung himself by her side into the hammock.

In a few minutes they were both fast locked in slumber; but Cursty's repose was destined to be of short duration; for soon Mrs. Sandboys, shaking him violently, roused him from his rest.

"Up wi'thee!—up wi'thee! thar be summet beastes a-crawling ower my face, Cursty. Ah, these Lon'on beds! We'll be beath yeeten up, aleyve, if thee staps here, Cursty!"

And so saying, she gave her lord and master so stout a thrust in his back, that drove his weight to the edge of the hammock, and again brought him rapidly to the floor.

Mrs. Sandboys in her fright soon followed her husband; and then nothing would satisfy her but she must have the whole of the bedding and clothes turned out on the ground, and minutely examined by the light of the rushlight.

But Mr. Sandboys, already deprived of the half of his night's rest, was in no way fit for the performance desired by his wife; and, in order to satisfy her qualms, he proposed that the mattrass alone should be replaced in the hammock, and then she need have no fear.

Mrs. Sandboys was herself in no humour to hold out against so apparently rational a proposal; and, having consented to the compro--

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• mise, there began the same series of arduous and almost perilous

struggles to ensconce their two selves once more in the interior of the hammock.

After several heavy tumbles on both sides, and breaking the rusty iron chain which served to hold down the circular trap in the pavement above, the worthy couple did ultimately manage to succeed again in their courageous undertaking; and then, fairly exhausted with their labours, they closed their eyes just as the blue light of day was showing through the cracks of the coal-cellar door.

The Cumberland couple had continued their rest undisturbed some few hours, when Mrs. Sandboys was aroused by hearing the circular iron trap moved above her head. She woke her husband with a violent shake, telling him, as soon as she could make him understand, that she was sure some of her friends, the London thieves, were preparing to make a descent through the pavement into their subterranean bed-chamber.

Mr. Sandboys was no sooner got to comprehend the cause of her alarm, than he saw the end of the chain lifted up, and the trap removed from the pavement above them.

Instinctively the couple rose up in their bed, and leant their heads forward to ascertain the precise nature of the impending danger. Suddenly they were startled by a gruff voice from above, shouting "Bee-elow," and immediately there descended through the round hole at the top of the cellar a shower of large and small coals, the noise of which completely drowned their cries, and beneath which they were almost buried alive.

Before they could extricate themselves from the black mass, that nearly filled their hammock, a second shower of Walls' End was poured down upon them; and had it not been for the landlady observing from the kitchen that the coal-porter was about to shoot the half ton she had ordered on the previous evening to be delivered early that morning into Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys' hammock, that worthy couple assuredly must have perished in the dusty, grimy avalanche.

Mrs. Fokesell rushed into the area, cried out loudly to the man to hold back the third sack, which he had just poised over the hole on his shoulder, previous to discharging its contents on the bodies of the unhappy Sandboys, and tearing open the door, delivered the blackened and the bruised couple from the perils of their wretched situation.

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CHAPTER VII.

"But if we wullent be content
Wi' th' blessings sec as heav'n has sent,
But obstinately wad prevent
                       Wise fate's decree,
See fwoak mun just pursue the bent
                       I' their own bree.

"What if the hand of fate, unkind,
Has us'd fremtly, need we peyne?
Tho' you've lost your sight an' me meyne,
                       We cannot mend it.
Let us be glad the powers deveyne
                       Nae war' extendit.

"Let us—sen leyfe is but a span—
Still be as canty as we can,
Rememb'ring Heaven has ordered Man
                      To practise patience,
An' not to murmur 'neath his han',
                      Leyke feckless gations."

John Stagg.

Now, it so happened, that in the house where the Sandboys had taken up their residence, there was located on the second floor one of those malades imaginaires, in a white robe-de-chambre, who are so popular and pretty at the present day.

Mrs. Blanche Quinine certainly dressed the part of the invalid to the life—or, rather, to the death. Robed from head to foot in the purest white, she managed to look extremely well and ill at one and the same time. She was got up with the greatest possible regard to medical effect; for, although Mrs. Quinine was naturally a plump and strong-built woman, she was costumed so artistically, and looked, as she languished on the couch, so perilously delicate, that one could not help fancying but that, with the least shock or jar to her nerves, every bone in her body would fall asunder, like the skeleton in the Fantoccini, at the sudden "bomb" of the drum.

Her complexion—which could not have been called florid even at her healthiest moments—was rendered still more pale by the "bloom" of "babies" powder, with which she never failed to indue it, previous to leaving her chamber. Her eyes—they were of the Irish grey kind—she always kept half-closed, as if from long want of rest—but then Nature had blessed Mrs. Quinine with long, dark, sweeping eye-*lashes, and these were never seen to such perfection as when brought into contrast with her white skin. Her upper lip was drawn up slightly, as if in continual pain—but then Mrs. Quinine was gifted with a "remarkably fine set of teeth," and was sufficient "woman of the world" to know that there was no use in her having such things unless she showed them. Moreover, the favourite, because the most touching, posture, of Mrs. Quinine, was with her head slightly drooping,

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and her cheek resting on her hand—but then the lady prided herself on the smallness of her extremities (the tips of toes could be just seen at the end of the couch, peeping from beneath her robe); and, with her arms raised, she knew that the blood could not circulate so freely in her fingers, and, consequently, that she would be saved the trouble of continually rubbing them, in order to improve their whiteness.

And, truth to say, the illness of Mrs. Quinine was as agreeable to herself as it was interesting to her doctor and acquaintances, and inconvenient to her husband. Mrs. Blanche's prevailing belief was, that she was suffering from extreme debility, and that if she had not the very best of food to live upon, accompanied with continual change of air and scene, she felt satisfied she had but a short time to remain in this world.

In this conviction Mrs. Quinine was fully borne out by the profound opinion, most gravely delivered, with the lady's pulse in one hand, and his gold repeater in the other, by her medical adviser—that "dear, loveable old man," Doctor Twaddles—who added, that unless she would keep herself quiet, and refrain from making the least exertion, and could at the same time be secured perfect peace of mind at home, without being thwarted in the slightest wish—as he said this, the doctor knitted the grey, bushy brows which hung down about his eyes like a Skye terrier's, and looked death-warrants at the husband of the lady—he would not take it upon himself to answer for the consequences.

Now, Doctor Twaddles was a gentleman who had fortunately been blest with a remarkably imposing appearance.

Nature had been most bountiful to the Doctor. He had an intensely "fine bald head of his own"—round and hairless as an ostrich's egg; and this attractive exterior had been worth a thousandfold more to him than the interior ever could have been, even had it been as full of brains as every egg is said to be full of meat. Had the Doctor depended for his advancement in life on his skill, he might have remained without a patient and without a crust; but, so to speak, standing on his bald head, he had been able to drink his wine daily, although he certainly was "no conjuror."

The head, to which Doctor Twaddles owed so much, and which had won for him such a number of hatbands from departed patients, was fringed with silver, for the little hair that still lingered round it was white as driven snow. His features were prominent and statuesque. His coat, which was always scrupulously clean and dustless, was black and glossy as that of a mourning-coach horse; and he so far clung to the manners of the old school, as to allow his nether garments to descend only to his knees, where they were fastened by a pair of small gold buckles. His legs, which—to do Doctor Twaddles justice—were exceedingly well shaped, and perhaps accounted for the Doctor's still clinging to the obsolete fashion of exhibiting them, were veiled by a pair of very thin gossamer-like black-silk stockings, through which the flesh showed with a pinky hue; so that

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the medical gentleman's calves, as he sat with them crossed one over the other, so as to give the foremost an extra plumpness, bore a strong resemblance in colour to black currant jam.

The only ornaments that the Doctor wore, were a diamond pin "set transparent," and so pellucid as to be scarcely visible on the white neckcloth that it fastened; and a series of mourning rings on his third and little fingers, as ostentatious marks of respect from some of the most illustrious and wealthy patients he had buried; while from below his waistcoat there dangled a bunch of gold seals, almost as big as the tassel at the end of a bell-rope, and these the Doctor delighted, as he leant back in his chair, to swing up and down, like a muffin-bell, while delivering his opinion.

Doctor Twaddles was wont to increase the importance of his opinion by multiplying himself into many, and substituting, in his discourse, for the plain, humble, and honest I, the pompous, imposing and presumptuous We,—the special prerogative of monarchs and editors. Certainly this style of discourse was fraught with some few attendant advantages, even beyond that of leading the hearer to believe that the verdict pronounced was not the judgment of one solitary individual, but the unanimous opinion of an indefinite number; for when the Doctor, after due feeling of pulse and knitting of brows, said to his patients that we must take a blue pill and black dose, it appeared to the invalid as if the generous Physician intended to swallow half his own medicine.

But, on the other hand, some of the Doctor's plural edicts had a particularly singular sound with them; for when he told his lady-patients that we must put our feet in hot water, it seemed as if he intended indulging in a joint foot-bath with them. Equally strange and startling did it sound when he said, that "we really must go out of town;" or, stranger still, when in a mysterious manner he declared, that "we really must go to bed as quick as possible."

Dr. Twaddles was a great favourite with the ladies, by whom he was invariably described as a "loveable old man." His manner was gentle and polite as a well-fee'd pew-opener. His voice he always subdued to a complimentary sympathy, and he was especially tender in his handling of his fair patients' pulses. He was, moreover, "remarkably fond of children," for whom he generally carried in his pockets a small canister filled either with acidulated drops, "refined liquorice," or "black currant lozenges." In his habits, too, he was quite a family man, and never failed, if in his visits he found the more healthy members of the family at a "hot lunch," of seating himself good-humouredly at the table, and declaring that he must really have a bit of the pudding, for he was happy to say that he was still quite a boy in his "love of sweets."

Nor was the "advice" usually given by Dr. Twaddles of a less attractive character.

The Doctor invariably acted upon the apparently disinterested plan of objecting to the use of physic—excepting of course in the most urgent cases. Formerly, according to the old fable, curriers were

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prone to insist there was nothing like leather, but of late the contrary, and far more lucrative, practice has sprung up among us; and now-a-days lawyers counsel their clients on no account to "go to law,"—with the greatest possible success; and physicians rail at the exhibition of physic—to equal advantage.

With Doctor Twaddles, "diet was everything"—all maladies proceeding, according to his popular pathology, from the stomach; for patients, he had long ago discovered, never objected to being fed into good health, however strong an aversion they might have to being dosed into convalescence.

Another mode of insinuation that the Doctor adopted was to explain to the invalids, in language that they could not possibly understand, the cause of the malady for which he was prescribing, and the reason for the remedies be adopted: this he did in short family physiological lectures, which he loved to illustrate by the most ordinary objects. He would tell the astonished and half-affrighted patients how the greater part of the food taken into the system acted simply as coals to the vital fire,—how the lungs were, if he might be allowed the expression, nothing more than the grate in which the alimentary fuel was being consumed, and keeping up a continued supply of caloric for the human frame, for, that the selfsame operation was going on in the human chest as in the stove beside him.

As he said this, the bald-headed Doctor would lean back with evident self-satisfaction in the easy chair, and swing his watch-seals round and round like a watchman's rattle. Then he usually proceeded to explain how every human creature was burning away, in the process of respiration, at the least one pound of charcoal per diem; that every meal was, when viewed with the philosophic eye, nothing more than throwing another shovelful or two of coals on to the ever-consuming fire; and that for himself, he did not care in what form the charcoal was introduced into the system, but one pound of it he must really insist upon being swallowed daily.

Mrs. Quinine—who, by-the-bye, never lost an opportunity of impressing upon strangers that her name was pronounced Keneen, even as the Beauvoirs, the Cholmondeleys, the Majoribanks, and the Cockburns, insist upon being called Beavers, Chumleys, Marchbanks, and Coburns—Mrs. Quinine, we repeat, agreed with the rest of the female world in her estimation of the dear old Doctor Twaddles. Nor was it to be wondered at, for the Doctor certainly did his best to make the lady's indisposition as pleasant and profitable as possible to her.

True to his dietetic discipline, the loveable old Physician gave the lady to understand that all she required was nourishing food, and accordingly his prescriptions consisted of a succession of the most agreeable and toothsome delicacies; so that the fair invalid having merely to submit to a course of high feeding, gave herself up to the care of the dear Doctor with the most exemplary patience.,

At six in the morning, Mrs. Quinine began her dietetic course with a cup of homœopathic cocoa, that was kept simmering through the night

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in a small teapot, resting (heaven knows why!) on the turrets of a china castle, in the porcelain donjon of which burnt a melancholy spirit lamp. This it was her husband's duty to give the lady immediately her eyes were opened. Her breakfast, which was mostly taken in bed, consisted of coffee, procured, according to the express injunctions of the Doctor, from a house where analysis had proved it to be unadulterated, and made, after Doctor Twaddles' own receipt, entirely with milk, obtained from an establishment where the Doctor could vouch for its being genuine. The coffee was sometimes accompanied with the lean of a mutton-chop, "cut thick," and "done with the gravy in it;" sometimes with a rasher or two of "Dr. Gardner's digestive bacon," and sometimes with the wing of a cold chicken; while the bread of which she partook was of the unfermented kind, had fresh every day from the Doctor's own man in the City. At twelve the invalid rose, and descended to a light lunch of either oysters, a small custard pudding, or some calf's-foot jelly made palateable and strengthening with wine; and with this, and an egg or two beaten up with milk, and flavoured with a glass of Madeira, the delicate lady was enabled to linger on till the more substantial meal of the day.

Mrs. Quinine's dinner, for the most part, was made up of a "little bit" of fish and a "mouthful or two" of game; for the lady condescended but seldom to partake of butcher's meat, and, when she did so, it was solely of the more delicate and expensive kinds, known as Southdown or Welsh mutton; while the digestion of these was assisted either with "Rumford ale," or "India pale," or "Guinness'," or some other agreeable and stimulating form of dietetic medicine, procured from establishments which were noted for supplying only the very best articles.

Her supper was usually eaten in bed, for the invalid was strictly enjoined to retire to rest at an early hour; and long before she did so, a fire was lighted in her bed-room, so that she might not suffer from the shock of going into a cold apartment: for the same reason, the lady's bed was well warmed previous to her entering it; and when she had been comfortably tucked up by her maid, a hot water bottle swathed in flannel was placed at her feet. Here the invalid was consoled either with a glass of warm white-wine-whey, or a posset, or arrowroot bought expressly for her at Apothecaries' Hall; and thus the poor delicate lady was enabled to keep body and soul together until the morrow.

But the course of diet followed by the lady was far from settled, for Doctor Twaddles paid great attention to what he termed "the voice of Nature," and consequently gave strict orders that whatever his patient fancied she was to have. Accordingly, Mrs. Quinine continually felt convinced that her system required change, and that she needed some most expensive and agreeable article of diet. Now her mouth was parched, and nothing but strawberries, though they cost a guinea a pint, or a bunch or two of hot-house grapes, could relieve her; then she would give the world for just a taste of spring lamb and

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new potatoes; and then nothing would satisfy her but a mouthful or two of turbot, even though it were impossible to buy less than a whole one.

All these little fancies Doctor Twaddles dignified by the name of "instincts," and declared that they were simply the out-speakings of exhausted Nature.

Mrs. Quinine was, of course, too weak to walk abroad, so Doctor Twaddles enjoined a daily airing in the park, when the weather was mild, in an open carriage; or, if the lady preferred it, he would advise a little horse exercise; and as Mrs. Quinine thought she looked extremely well in a habit and "wide-awake," she seldom stirred out unless mounted on a "palfrey" from the neighbouring livery stables.

Now these and other similar prescriptions of Doctor Twaddles made illness so pleasant, that, coupled with the interesting character of the invalid costume (Mrs. Quinine wore the prettiest of nightcaps, trimmed with the most expensive of lace, when she received visitors in her bedroom), the lady naturally felt disposed to feel indisposed. And it was odd how the several complaints to which she professed herself subject, came and went with the fashionable seasons. In winter she was "peculiarly susceptible" to bronchitis, so that this necessitated her being in town at the gayest period of the metropolis. Doctor Twaddles would not take upon himself to answer for the consequences if Mrs. Quinine passed a winter in the provinces: and—what was a severe calamity—the poor lady could go nowhere in the summer for change of air, but to the fashionable and lively watering-places, for she was always affected with the hay fever if she visited the more retired and consequently duller parts of the country.

The prevailing afflictions of Mrs. Quinine, however, were neuralgia, and "a general debility of the system"—indeed, she was always suffering from her "poor poor nerves;" and though subject to the greatest depression of spirits in the presence of her husband, (for that gentleman seldom remonstrated with her, but she burst into a flood of tears, and declared he was "throwing her back,") still, before company, she was always lively enough, excepting when the visitors made tender inquiries after her health, and then no one certainly could be more severely afflicted.

Nor was the "debility" under which the lady laboured less eccentric in its nature, for though it prevented her taking any exercise in the open air—but in a carriage or on horseback—still, when an invitation came to a dance, it in no way interfered with her polking in an "extremely low" dress half the night through.

Mr. Quinine was an eminent painter of "still-life;" and though his braces of partridges on canvas, and his dead hares, and his grapes and pine-apples "in oil" were highly admired, and fetched large sums, it was nevertheless as much as he could do to pay the physician's fees by his game and fruit pieces. While his wife was breakfasting or supping off her dainties in bed, or "doing" the elegant and interesting invalid in white cambric on the sofa in the front room, or riding out

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in the Park, he, (poor man!) was painting away for dear life in his studio at the back of the house. This the clever little artist (for he stood but five foot five in his high-heeled Wellingtons) did without a murmur; for, truth to say, he doated on his dear Blanche, and strove, by making "studies" of the "birds" prescribed by Doctor Twaddles before they were cooked for his wife's dinner, somehow or other to lessen the expenses of "the housekeeping;" for not one of the Doctor's delectable dietetic prescriptions was ever sent to Covent Garden or Leadenhall Market to be "dispensed," but the economic Quinine was sure to use it as a model before administering it to the patient.

But even if the little man had felt inclined to raise his voice against the course pursued, he would immediately have had the united battery of Twaddles and Blanche opened against him; and while the lady overpowered him with tears, the Doctor would have impressed upon him, in the most solemn manner, that unless Mrs. Quinine could be allowed to enjoy the greatest tranquillity of both mind and body, and be assured the gratification of her slightest wish, it was beyond the highest talent in the kingdom to undertake to say what distressing event might happen.

 

The opening of the Great Exhibition had operated almost as magically upon the nerves of the susceptible Mrs. Quinine, as an invitation to a Thé Dansante. Her bronchitis, and the "short hacking cough" which accompanied it, had almost disappeared under the influence of the delicious pâte de Guimauve, prescribed by Doctor Twaddles; the lady's neuralgia had been dissipated by her steel medicine (and she had swallowed enough of that metal in her time to have admitted of being cut up into "magnum bonum" pens for the million); the "weak state of her nerves" no longer required the carriage-*way in front of her house to be strewn with straw, nor the iron-hand of the street-door knocker to be embellished with a white kid glove; for the lady had grown suddenly "so much better," that on requesting permission of Doctor Twaddles to visit the Exhibition, she declared that she felt herself quite equal to the task of exploring even its "five miles of galleries."

Doctor Twaddles did not hesitate to confess himself delighted at the favourable change that had so evidently set in, saying it was due solely to the wonderful constitution of Mrs. Quinine; but, like a prudent man, he wished to "see how matters went on" for a short time, before he became a consenting party to her walking out—a thousand little things as he said might happen to throw her back again.

The consequence was that the lady made up her mind to take the Doctor by surprise at his next visit, and not only to be ready in the sitting-room to receive him when he called, but to be able to say that she had breakfasted down stairs, and felt herself in no way fatigued with the exertion.

Accordingly, Mrs. Quinine, for the first time since the coronation of

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Her Majesty Queen Victoria—when she had been obliged to be down in Parliament-street by six in the morning—had risen at daybreak. She had dressed herself with great care, so that she might be able to make the most favourable impression upon Twaddles. She had put on a clean white cambric robe-de-chambre, and left off applying the baby's powder to her complexion; she had, moreover, such a delicate tinge of pink upon her cheeks, that it was difficult to say how the colour had got there in so short a space of time. Yesterday, she was as pale as if she had been white-washed—to-day, her cheeks were as pinky as the inner lining of a shell. Whether the change arose from the contrast of her white dress, or from the absence of the wonted "violet powder," or whether from the faintest touch of the hare's-foot that her prying maid had once discovered secreted in the lower tray of her dressing-case, must for ever remain one of those mysteries of the toilet that it is base presumption in Man to seek to unravel. Suffice it, Mrs. Quinine, even in her severest illness, never looked better; and as she left her bed-room, and gave a parting glance at herself in the long cheval-glass, she smiled with inward satisfaction at the appearance she made on her sudden restoration to health.

Now as the lady was slowly descending the stairs on her way to the breakfast room, Mr. Christopher Sandboys was rapidly mounting to an upper apartment, whither he had been directed by Mrs. Fokesell as the only convenient place where he could cleanse his face, hands, and clothes, from the dust of the "half-ton" of coals, in which he and the partner of his bosom had been almost smothered.

The more "particular" Mrs. Sandboys bad retired to the nearest "baths and washhouses," convinced that nothing but a warm-bath could ever restore her to her pristine purity.

The less fastidious Cursty, however, as we said before, was hastening up the stairs, two at a time, with a jug of warm water in his hand, intent upon a good wash and effecting that physical impossibility of scrubbing the blackamoor white; for, so intensely sable with adhering coal-dust was the complexion of Mr. Sandboys, that, truth to say, the most experienced ethnologist would, at the first glance, have mistaken that gentleman for one of the Ethiopian tribe. The lady in white had descended the first flight of stairs, and was just preparing to turn the corner of the second, when the black gentleman darted sharply round, and bounced suddenly upon her.

The nervous Mrs. Quinine was in no way prepared for the sight of a "man of colour" in such a place or at such a time. Had even her own husband pounced so unexpectedly upon her, the shock would have been sufficient to have driven all the breath out of the body of so susceptible a lady; but to find herself, without the least preparation, face to face with "a black"—as Mr. Cursty Sandboys appeared to be—was more than the shattered state of her nerves was able to bear.

The lady no sooner set eyes upon the sable monster than she screamed like a railway engine on coming to some dark tunnel, and fainted off dead into the arms of the astonished and terrified Sand--

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• boys; and as the lifeless body of the invalid fell heavily against the

wretched Cursty, the dusty, grimy, coaly garments of that gentleman left their deep black mark not only upon the white cambric robe but imprinted a large black patch upon the cheek of the poor unconscious Mrs. Quinine.

The industrious little artist who called that lady his wife was busy in his studio, transferring a brace of wild ducks to canvas, previous to their being cooked for his wife's dinner, when he heard the piercing scream of his dear Blanche. With his palette still upon his thumb, and his wet paint-brush in his hand, he darted forth, and discovered his lady insensible, in the arms of a man who, at first sight, struck him as being nothing more refined than a London coal-heaver.

Guarding his face with his palette, like a shield, the little artist rushed at the amazed Sandboys, and began attacking him with his paint-brush, as with a broadsword, while every stroke he made at the wretched Cursty's head, left a dab of paint upon his cheeks; so that by the time the indignant Quinine had broken the brush in his repeated blows, the complexion of Mr. Sandboys was as dark and many-coloured as that of a highly tattooed Indian chief.

In such a situation it was impossible for Cursty to defend himself; to have done as much he must have let the strange lady in white drop to the ground. His gallantry bore the vigorous attack of the enraged husband for some few minutes, but when the little painter had discarded the impotent weapons of his art, and Sandboys saw him about to belabour him with his fists, his Cumbrian blood could put up with it no longer. Cursty impulsively withdrew his arm from the lady's waist, to throw himself into an attitude of self-defence; and, as he did so, the figure of the unconscious Mrs. Quinine fell heavily on the floor.

The fall had the effect of bringing the lady to her senses, when she immediately clung to the legs of the little artist so firmly as to prevent his continuing the attack. Then, as that gentleman stooped to raise his wife from the floor, and Sandboys advanced to explain and apologize for, the misadventure, the lady no sooner set eyes on the black face that had before deprived her of her senses, than she fell into a violent fit of hysterics, and made the whole house ring with her laughter.

The noise brought the hundred-and-one lodgers from their apartments to the stairs, and, from the top to the bottom, at every landing-place, was a bunch of heads "of all nations,"—bearded, whiskered, and moustachio'd,—some in turbans, others in Greek caps, fez-caps, and nightcaps—all enjoying the scene, and mightily taken with the piebald state of Mrs. Quinine's face and robe de chambre, and the party-coloured character of Mr. Sandboy's complexion.

 

Nor was Mrs. Sandboys less fortunate in her endeavours to free herself from the black of the coals. Having removed the superficial grubbiness from her skin by a hasty rinse of her face and hands at

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the sink in the back kitchen—the only available place—but which merely had the effect of diluting her complexion down to the swarthiness of a neutral tint, she "jumped" into a cab, and, as we said before, made the best of her way to the nearest public baths.

Here she was delayed some considerable time in procuring her ticket, owing to the "rush" of Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, and Poles, congregated round the building, for the London lodging-house keepers had come to a resolution not to receive any foreigners into their establishments unless they came prepared with a certificate from some of the metropolitan washhouses. Her ticket, once obtained, however, Mrs. Sandboys proceeded to make her way down the long narrow passage, between the two rows of little bath rooms, on the "ladies' side" of the establishment. At the end of the corridor she was met by the female attendant, who, in answer to her request for a bath, informed her that all the "warms" were full, but that she expected there'd be "a shower" shortly.

Now, the innocent Mrs. Sandboys, having never heard of such a style of bathing as the last mentioned, was naturally led to believe that the attendant alluded to nothing less than the unsettled state of the weather; so casting her eyes up to the skylight, she observed in reply, that she dare say they would have a shower before long, adding, that it was just what country people wanted.

"Perhaps, then, you wouldn't object to that there, mum?" returned attendant, as she arranged the pile of towels in the cupboard.

"Whya, as Ise here, I dunnet mind, if 'twill be ow'r suin," replied the simple-minded Mrs. Sandboys, still referring to the rain. "I dare say 't'ull dui a power of guid to cwuntry fwoke."

"Oh, yes, mum! always does a vast deal of good, and is sure to be over in no time," returned the bath-woman, still harping on her baths.

In a few minutes the shower-bath was at liberty, and Mrs. Sandboys seated herself in a chair in the passage, while the attendant went to prepare the room for her use.

Presently the woman returned with the heavy-looking wet towels of the departed bather in her hand, hanging down like paunches; letting them "flop" on the floor, she requested Mrs. Sandboys to follow her, as the room was quite ready. Mrs. Sandboys did as desired, and was shown into a small apartment, into which she was no sooner ushered than the attendant withdrew, saying, that if the lady wanted anything there was a bell and she would please to ring.

The room was a small cabin-like apartment, with a narrow little bench against one side of it, while above this a few wooden hooks projected from the wall. A tiny "shaving-glass" hung against the partition, and the uncarpeted floor was dark-coloured with the drippings of the previous bathers. In one corner was what appeared at first sight to be a long upright cupboard, but which in reality was "the second-class" shower-bath. The door of this apparatus was placed wide open, and inside there stood a chair, while a small cord dangled from above.

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Mrs. Sandboys observing nothing that appeared to her primitive mind to bear the slightest resemblance to a bath in the room, conjectured that the hot water would be brought to her in a large pan immediately it was ready.

Accordingly, she set to work to divest herself of her bonnet and cloak; and having arranged those articles on the bench, she proceeded, in her simplicity, to seat herself in the chair immediately under the shower-bath, in the corner of the little apartment, there to await the coming of the expected pan.

Her patience endured the imaginary delay for some few minutes, but at length growing wearied of her solitary situation, she got angry at the non-appearance of the attendant, and starting from her seat, seized the cord which dangled above her head, and which she—poor innocent dame!—mistook for the bell-pull.

Determined to put up with the neglect no longer, she gave a vigorous pull at the rope. Thump went the catch, and instantly down, through the colander above, came a miniature deluge, consisting of two pailsful of "cold pump," suddenly let loose, in the form of a thousand watery wires, upon the head of the luckless Mrs. Sandboys.

What with the unexpectedness of the catastrophe, and the coldness of the water—rendered still more cold by the minuteness of its division—and the rapidity of its descent through the air, together with the perfectly novel character of the bath to the unsophisticated native of Buttermere, the poor lady was so perfectly paralysed by the icy torrent, that she was unable to escape from it; and it was not until a few moments after the cataract had ceased that she rushed out of the balneatory cupboard, gasping for breath, and fighting the air; while her clothes, shining with the wet, like a tarpaulin clung about her as tight as if she had been done up in brown paper, and her hair hung in skeins over her face, so that she had very much of the soaked appearance of a Polish hen on a rainy day.

As soon as she could fetch sufficient breath to scream, she gave a series of shrieks, and capered about the apartment after the manner of the war-dance of the wild Indians.

The peal of screams were echoed and re-echoed as they rattled against the bare walls of the building, and spread an instant alarm among the entire corps of ladies then in the bathing-rooms. One and all they imagined, from the piercing tone of the shrieks, that nothing less could have occurred than that some brute of a man—some impudent Frenchmen, or a wretch of a Turk perhaps—through accident or design—had found his way to the ladies' side of the establishment, and taken some poor dear by surprise. Accordingly they, one after another, repeated the screams of the original screamer—shouting, "It's a man! It's a man! It's a man!"

In an instant the female attendant came rushing down the corridor. Such of the lady bathers as were dressed suddenly opened the doors of their little apartments, and stood with them ajar, so that they might slam them to again in case of danger; while those who were unable to make their appearance, jumped upon the bench within, and

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popped their bald-looking heads, encased as they-were in yellow greasy-looking bathing-caps, over the doors, and squinted into the passage like so many birds from the house-tops; and as they saw the male authorities come hurrying towards the point of alarm, they each uttered a sudden "Ho!" and bobbed down again into the privacy of their cabins, as jauntily as so many "Jacks-in-the-box."

The female attendant endeavoured to explain to the infuriated Mrs. Sandboys that "it was all a mistake;" but that lady felt convinced that the whole affair was nothing more nor less than a preconcerted trick, and that a cistern full of water, at the very least, had been emptied upon her, through a trap-door in the ceiling, by some wicked wretch secreted over head; and that this had been done simply because the people saw she was—like the railway milk—fresh from the country.

In vain did the authorities—who with difficulty were able to sustain that solemnity of countenance which is so necessary a part of the duties of all public functionaries—beg to assure the lady that the apparatus in question was really a form of bath—a shower—belonging to the establishment, much approved of, and highly recommended by the faculty.

But Mrs. Cursty was fully satisfied that no person in his senses would dream of coming to such a place to enjoy a shower, when, if they were that way inclined, they might, on any wet day, have one for nothing. Moreover, she begged to be informed, with an air of triumph,—just to let the Londoners see that she was not quite so simple as they seemed to fancy her,—"if showers were so highly recommended by the faculty, what people carried umbrellas for?" and as she made the overpowering inquiry, she, in the ardour of the discussion, gave so self-satisfied a shake of her head, that she sprinkled the water from her hair all over the by-standers, like a Newfoundland dog just emerged from a river.

It was impossible even for the grave functionaries to keep serious any longer, but their smiles served only to make the assurance of Mrs. Sandboys "doubly sure" that a wicked trick had been played upon her; so, putting on her bonnet and cloak—wet as she was—she left the establishment, vowing that she would have them all up before a magistrate, and well punished for their shameful conduct towards a poor lone countrywoman like herself.

 

A cab soon conveyed the wretched, and shivering, and moist Mrs. Sandboys back to her lodgings. There she and her dear Cursty once more endeavoured to console one another—but consolation was bootless in the state of the Sandboys' wardrobe.

Accordingly, while Aggy borrowed a "change" of the landlady, and proceeded to squeeze her corpulent figure into the thin Mrs. Fokesell's "things," Jobby was dispatched to the railway station to see after the three-and-twenty boxes that constituted the family luggage, with full instructions (given at Mrs. Fokesell's advice)—provided no tidings of the missing packages could be obtained at the "goods department"—*

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• to scour the whole country round, by means of the electric telegraph,

in search of them.

To prevent accidents, however, Elcy was made to write down all that was wanted, together with an accurate description of all that was missing; and, as she did so, the tender-hearted girl did not fail to include a graphic account of her dear pet Psyche, whom, she felt convinced, must be reduced to a positive "bag of bones"—a canine "living skeleton"—by this time.

The youth, as directed, took the Hungerford omnibus, and made his way, without much difficulty, to the railway station. There, he could hear nothing as to the whereabouts of the family boxes; accordingly he proceeded to the Telegraph Office, and having handed in the written instructions, he set out on his return home.

As he passed under the archway of the station, it so happened that "a school of Acrobats" were exhibiting their feats within the open space in front of the two large railway hotels. Jobby, with his mouth wide agape, stood outside the gates watching the posturers pile themselves, three men and a boy, high on one another's shoulders.

The exhibition was as new as it was exciting to the lad. With a thrill of pleasurable amazement the youth saw for the first time in his life the "pole balancer" in his suit of spangled cotton "fleshings," and the tawdry black velvet fillet round his well-oiled hair, lie on his back on a small handkerchief of carpet, and balance and catch and twirl the heavy pole on the soles of his feet. Then, almost breathless with ecstasy, he beheld the "bending tumbler" slowly bend his body back till his head reached the ground, and proceed to pick up pins with his eyelids. Next, he witnessed "the equilibrist" balance, spinning plates high in the air, and burning paper-bags upon his chin, and catch huge cannon balls from a height in a cup upon his head—and as all this went on, and he heard the sound of the music, and looked at the glittering costumes of the performers, Jobby was entranced with positive rapture. He had never seen, never heard, never dreamt of anything half so beautiful.

Nor could he scarcely credit that they were human like himself, till he saw the men put their shabby black coats over their spangles, and as one shouldered the pole, and the other carried the box, stroll off in close conversation with "the drum and pipes," and a troop of pinafored boys at their heels, to some fresh quarter of the town.

Jobby stood for a moment looking after the crowd, longing, but fearing, to follow them. The temptation, however, of once more beholding their marvellous feats was too much for him—so, as he saw them turn the corner, he took to his heels, and hurried after the troop.

There for the present we must leave him.

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CHAPTER VIII.

"The lasses o' Carel are weel-shap'd an' bonny,
  But he that wad win yen mun brag of his gear,
You may follow and follow till heart sick and weary—
  To get them needs siller and fine claes to wear.

"They'll catch at a reed cwoat leyke as monie mack'rel,
  And jump at a fop, or even lissen a fuil,
Just brag of an uncle that's got heaps of money,
  And de'il a bit odds if you've ne'er been at schuil.

The Lasses of Carel.

"Deuce tek the clock! click-clackin' sae
  Ay in a body's ear,
It tells and tells the teyme is past,
  When Jobby sud been here.

"But, whisht! I hear my Jobby's fit;
  Aye, that's his varra clog!
He steeks the faul yeat softly tui—
  Oh, hang that cwoley dog!"

The Impatient Lassie.

If as Mr. Sidney Herbert has informed us this nation be suffering from a glut of females—if as the commercial editor of the Economist would say, the extreme depression of our matrimonial markets be due to an over-production of spinsters—if the annual supply of marriageable young ladies in this country be greater than the demand for the same on the part of marriageable young gentlemen—if virgin loveliness is becoming as cheap as slop shirts in the land, and the market value of heiresses has fallen considerably below their real value—if Cupid is compelled to dispose of the extensive stock he has now on hand of last season's beauties, at an "ALARMING SACRIFICE," on account of the "TREMENDOUS FAILURE" of Hymen—assuredly the Great Exhibition of all Nations was a wise means of restoring the matrimonial markets of the metropolis to a healthy equilibrium.

When the philogynic mind—which we take it is a thousand-fold better than the mere philanthropic commodity—is led to consider the vast influx of susceptible natures that will occur at that eventful period—when we remember that the most eminent statisticians have calculated, that "a wave" of a hundred thousand pairs of mustachios will be tossed upon our shores every week—when we recollect that monster trains, filled with every kind of "hairy monster," will deposit, at the London Bridge terminus, their daily thousands of gynolatrous Frenchmen, with very large beards, and very small carpet-bags, together with their hundreds of polygamic Turks, hirsute as handsome, and with turbans as bewitching to the ladies, as that of the black cymbal-player in the Guards,—when we reflect, moreover, that as if this superabundance of amatoriness was not a sufficient boon to the "women of England," the Iron Duke had, with a view of creating an embarras de richesse for the ladies, given

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orders that an extra body of soldiers—all picked men—should be marched up from the country, and bivouacked in the neighbourhood of the ladies' schools, embellishing the outskirts of the capital—when, too, we call to mind that the active and vigilant Commissioners of Police have, as a grand captivating climax to the whole, come to the noble resolution of adding no less than eight hundred pairs of whiskers to the already strong amatory power of "the force,"—when, in fine, we come to think upon the turbans of the Turks—the beards of the Frenchmen—the mustachios of the soldiers—and the whiskers of the police, that will be all congregated within the Bills of Mortality, into one vast focus of fascination,—what maid, what widow shall not be wooed—shall not be won—and after all, count herself extremely lucky if she's wed.

 

While Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and Miss Elcy sat by the kitchen fire, anxiously awaiting the return of Jobby from the station, or the arrival of some tidings from the telegraph, touching their missing boxes, Major Oldschool was in the parlour, wondering when he should have any news as to the whereabouts of that "ungrateful young hussy," his niece, who, after he had sent for her home from Miss Wewitz's establishment at Wimbledon, had returned his kindness by going off with a foreign Count, with a beard like a Scotchman's philibeg, and a portmanteau not much bigger than a sandwich-box. However, he had given information to the police, and a couple of their most active officers had been despatched after the fugitives.

At this juncture, one of the Detective Force called at Mrs. Fokesell's, to apprise the Major that they had already tracked the runaway Miss. The maid went out into the area to answer the knock and learn the business of the visitor. In a few minutes she returned, saying, it was a strange kind of a man, and that he had a strange kind of a way with him, and had whispered something to her down the railings that he wanted to see a gentleman about "summat as was missing."

The Sandboys no sooner heard this, than they, one and all, started from their seats, declaring it was the man from the telegraph with news of poor Psyche and their boxes.

The maid was despatched with directions to bring the messenger down into the kitchen immediately, and in a minute a pair of heavy boots were heard descending the stairs.

"Tha's come about that thar baggage of ourn, haista?" inquired Mr. Cursty.

The term "baggage" was quite sufficient to assure the Detective that he was in the presence of the gentleman whose female relative had eloped with the foreign Count.

"Yes, sir; we've got some clue as to what you allude to—we've discovered their whereabouts, at least"—and the cautious and mysterious Officer winked his eye, and nodded his head knowingly.

"Oh, thar's a guid man! a guid man!" cried Mrs. Sandboys, with extreme joy. "So tha'st heard on t'things at last."

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"True, ma'am," replied the Officer, "when last we heard on—you know—the things"—and he winked again—"they wasn't a hundred miles from"—and here he looked cautiously round the room, and added in a whisper—"Gretna Green, ma'am."

"Gertna Gern!" exclaimed Mr. Cursty; "whar on yerth be that?"

"Why, I should think it's about, as near as may be, three hundred and fifty miles," added the Detective, nodding his head knowingly, "from where you're a sitting on."

"Waistoma! waistoma! we shall set e'en on t'things never nae mair," shouted Mrs. Sandboys, wringing her hands, as she thought of the "changeless" state of the family.

"And my poor pet! oh, dear!" interjected Elcy.

Mr. Christopher inquired whether they were in safe custody.

"Why, no, sir, we can't say as how we've got 'em in custody, yet. You see its rayther nasty work making mistakes in matters of this kind."

"Then wha in t' neame of guidness had got how'd of t' guids," asked the wife, in a half-frantic state of alarm.

"Oh, you needn't be under no fears, ma'am; its the same foreign party," returned the officer, with another familiar jerk of his head, "as bolted from London with the 'bit of goods,' as you says, ma'am." And here he gave another wink.

"Oh, then it be as I 'spected, Cursty," added Mrs. S., "and I suddent wonder but t' nasty, filthy wretch has got on, at this verra teyme, yen of t' new shirts I bought thee."

"And what ever will become of my poor, poor pet?" ejaculated Elcy, with tears in her eyes, for she could think of nothing else but Psyche. "You don't happen to know—do you, sir—whether that horrid, horrid foreigner is treating the dear thing well, and whether he gives her plenty to eat?"

"Why, for the matter of that, Miss, I think the party a'nt got over much for hisself," and as if the information was very important, the Detective nodded and winked at the young lady several times in succession.

"Ah, I thought it would be so," sobbed the young lady, bursting into a flood of tears, "and after all the pains I had taken to fatten the darling. Perhaps you might have heard whether that brute of a foreign gentleman, sir, allowed the dear to continue her flannel jackets; for if he's only made her leave them off, I'm sure the poor creature must have shivered herself all to pieces by this time."

"Indeed, ma'am!" exclaimed the astonished Detective, who began to think, from Elcy's description, that the missing young lady couldn't be much of a beauty—and, like the gallant members of the force, he flattered himself he was a bit of a judge that way; then, as he heard the broken-hearted girl sob aloud at the thoughts of the sufferings and appearance of her darling Psyche, he said to Mr. Sandboys, "The young lady seems to have been wery much attached to t'other one, sir?"

"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. Sandboys, "she a'ways wud hev her to sleep at t' fut of her bed, even though I set mey feace again it, lest there might be a few stray fleas about t' creatur, you ken."

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The Detective stared with astonishment, and began to think that the family were all very strange. However, it was easy to tell by their conversation that they were fresh from the country, and that, in his mind, made allowance for a great deal. If he had not felt convinced, however, that he had made no mistake in the number of the house, he might have had some slight suspicion as to his blunder, but as it was, he attributed the peculiar character of their conversation to an ignorance of London ways and manners.

"Oh, sir," Elcy broke out again, "do—pray, do, sir—try and get my poor, poor pet back for me."

"Well, Miss, I think we shall be able to oblige you by and by," returned the officer, twiddling his bushy whiskers with self-satisfaction; "I came to tell you——"

"Yes! yes!"

"That we had just had news up by telegraph from one of our men down in the North, that she was seen yesterday in company with a queer-kind of a foreign gentleman—the same party, from all as I can learn, as ran away with her—that is to say, if the description we've got is correct. It says here,"—and he drew from his pocket a paper, which he began reading,—'female—small and elegant figure.'"

"Yes, sir; yes, sir!" interrupted the anxious Elcy. "She was an Italian, sir; and one of the most perfect animals ever seen, sir."

"Well, my instructions don't say nothing, Miss, about her being of Italian extraction; but if she came from that there country, it's quite sufficient to account for her being what you says, Miss. But my adwices runs merely—'female—small and elegant figure,'" continued the officer, reading.

"Wheyte reet," interrupted Cursty.

"Rayther fresh colour," added the Detective.

"Yes, sir, we used to call her foxy—and she had one of the most beautiful coats of her own you ever saw."

"No, there ain't a word here about her having any kind of a coat. But I know, Miss; you means one of them there kind of hairy coats we sees the females in Regent Street in, now-a-days."

"And what was very remarkable about her, sir," continued Elcy, intent upon the perfections of her lost pet, "was her nose—it was a beauty, I do assure you—so long and sharp, and then always so nice and cold, even in the height of summer."

The Detective could not help smiling at the country girl's idea of a beautiful nose, and again referring to his paper, said, half to himself, "They've got it down here as Grecian, but I suppose that'll do."

"Then again, sir, she had one of the smallest waists, and, I really think, the very thinnest legs you could see anywhere."

The Policeman started with wonder at what he thought the young lady's extreme simplicity, and merely observed, "Our people don't say nothing about her legs, Miss;" then, turning to Mr. Sandboys, he inquired whether he had ever known the Italian to go astray before.

"Why, noa," returned Cursty; "I never kenned her run after owt,

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with t' exception of a young hare yence, as she fell in wi', down Buttermere way."

"Ah, that's what they'll all do," observed the Policeman; "they are all ready enough to run after the young heirs, sir, in town and country, too," he added, smiling at his self-conceited severity on the sex; "and them Italians, I'm told, sir, is shocking warm-blooded creatures."

"Warm-blooded!" echoed Cursty; "I'se sure, she always seemed cold enough wi' us, for she were sheevering and shecking away from mworning tull neet, for aw the warl' as if she was a loomp of penter's seyze, (painter's size.) But they be ongracious things to kip; food seems aw thworn away on 'em."

"Yes!" said Mrs. Sandboys, indignantly, "though I 'lowanced her as much as twa pennywuth of meat every day, forby aw the screps from our tebble, she never did yen onny justice. If yen had hawf starved her, she cuddent a bin mair thin than she were."

The larder-loving Policeman could not help thinking to himself that the allowance was far from being anything to brag about, nor was he much astonished, now that he was made acquainted with the diet she had been used to, at the disappearance of the imaginary young lady.

"If it wer'n't for puir Elcy, here, I meysel suddent car' sa varra much if t' creature never kem back nae mair, for there beant much 'ffection in them thar Italians. Now it were on'y last year, she'd twa young ones."

The Detective started back with astonishment, and began to think that such a circumstance fully accounted for "the party" having gone off with the French gentleman on the present occasion.

"Yes, it's a fact, she had twa young ones, and didn't sim to car' a bit when I drowned them baith in our pond."

The Policeman no sooner heard the confession of what he believed to be a case of infanticide, than he exclaimed "Did I understand you, sir, that you—you yourself drowned the poor little things?"

"Yes," continued the innocent Sandboys, "I thowt she wuddent be yable to 'tend to them, you ken; so, for her seek, I 'termined on putting them out of t' way as whietly as I cud."

The Detective here assumed a solemn tone, and proceeded to caution Mr. Sandboys after the custom of his craft, telling him that he was not called upon to criminate himself, and that whatever he might say on the painful subject would be used in evidence against him on a future occasion.

It was now Mr. Sandboys' turn to stare with the same astonishment at the Detective, as the "man of peace" had a few moments before looked at him.

"What dost tha mean, man, by t' painful subject, and yens words being yused in yevidence against yen?" he hastily inquired.

The Policeman made no more ado, but straightway drew his staff from his hinder pocket, and told Cursty that he arrested him and the whole family in the Queen's name; and, to give additional weight to the announcement, he added, that he was a Detective Officer, in connexion with her Majesty's Metropolitan Police.

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The words were no sooner out of "the Authority's" mouth than Mr. Sandboys, vividly remembering his railway adventure with a pseudo member of the same respectable body, seized the kitchen poker, which happened to be in the fire at that moment, and, without a word, proceeded, with it in his hand, to chase the startled Official round the kitchen table; but finding it impossible to get within arm's length of the Policeman while that article of furniture stood between them, Cursty stopped, after a few turns, and placed himself before the doorway, with the red-hot weapon still in his hand, and vowed that the Detective should not leave the house until he had given him in charge. Mr. Sandboys told him he had been taken in by that detective trick once before; and though he and his family might be fresh up from the country, and the Londoners might think they could impose upon them as they pleased, still he'd let them see he was a match for them, this time, "for aw that."

The self-possessed policeman, finding himself imprisoned, stepped back a few paces; and, drawing his rattle from his coat-pocket, proceeded to spring it with all his force in the middle of the kitchen, amid the shrieks of Mrs. and Miss Sandboys.

In a minute down came the lodgers "of all nations," in ready answer to the summons; and scarcely had the "whir-r" finished, before the kitchen was filled with the "drawing-rooms," "the second, and third floors," and "the garrets" from every quarter of the globe; and among the number was Mr. Quinine, who was heard to declare that the sudden alarm had thrown Mrs. Quinine back—it was impossible for him to say to what extent.

Then, of course, came the humiliating explanation in the presence of the assembled multitude; and there, amidst the laughter "of all nations,"—for the foreigners, one and all, would have the circumstance translated to them,—Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys had to make known the whole of the mistake, and to tell how Cursty was about to be taken into custody on a charge of infanticide, for having drowned a couple of puppies. By the time he had finished what theatrical critics term "the éclaircissement of the contretemps" a body of police, attracted to the spot by the well-known buzz of a distant rattle, swarmed round the door like blue-bottles round a butcher's shop, and there they kept dabbing at the knocker, very much after the same persevering manner as belongs to beadles accompanying the parish engine to a chimney on fire.

 

As we said before, while the Sandboys were in the kitchen, anxiously looking for some tidings touching their luggage, Major Oldschool was, immediately overhead, impatiently pacing the parlour, and vowing all manner of vengeance against his niece for having gone off with a "dirty, beggarly, skinny vagabond of a Frenchman." The Major was what is termed a "good hater" of foreigners.

Major Oldschool was a portly little man, who had left one of his legs behind him in India, where the better part of his life had been spent, and where, while attacking one of the bamboo forts of the

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Burmese, he had been wounded in his knee-cap in such a manner as to necessitate the amputation of the limb. In figure he was far from commanding; for the high living of India had given him so strong a tendency to corpulence, that he had lost sight of his boot for many years. This obesity was a great annoyance to the Major, and, to keep his fat within due bounds, his braided blue surtout was made to fit so tight, that you could not help fancying but that, with the slightest puncture, he would shrivel up to a mere bit of skin, like an India-rubber ball. Major Oldschool, withal, had that "highly respectable" appearance which invariably accompanies the white hair so peculiar to Bankers, Capitalists, and Pomeranian dogs. It was the Major's continual boast, that he was grey before he was thirty; and so proud was he of his silver locks, that he wore them half over his face, in the form of whiskers and moustachios, which met at the corners of his mouth, and gave him very much the look of a gentleman who had been called away in the middle of shaving, and had the lather still clinging about his lips and cheeks.

Another striking peculiarity of the Major was, that he would wear tight black stocking-net pantaloons, and a Hessian boot—for the place of the other boot, ever since he had been wounded, was supplied by a wooden leg. And it sounded not a little strange to hear him, as the night drew in, call for his slipper, or, if he fancied he had taken cold, talk of putting his foot in hot water; and equally curious was it when his old housekeeper informed him that really his leg was getting so shabby, he must have it fresh painted. In his bedroom, against the wall, stood a range of old boots and shoes—all rights and no lefts—one Hessian, one dancing-pump, and one carpet slipper; and when he sat down in his chair, his wooden leg stuck out at right angles to his Hessian boot, so that it had somewhat the appearance of a gun protruding from a ship's side.

The Major had no fixed residence, (he had to come up from Bath within the last few weeks, to be present at the opening of the Great Exhibition,) but continually floated about the country in the company of an old housekeeper, who knowing all his ways, and all his whims, had grown to be quite indispensable to him. Mrs. Coddle was the lady of a defunct twopenny-postman, and since the death of the respected twopenny, she had "took to nussing;" but not liking the dormitory accommodations usual in "the monthly line," she had been only too glad to avail herself of the Major's offer, after having attended him during a severe bilious fever, to continue in his service in the capacity of housekeeper. And so effectually had she performed her duties, and so necessary had she made herself to his comfort, during her short residence with him in that capacity, that—having a true sense of her value to him—she always made a point, when she could not get the Major to do just as she pleased, of threatening to leave him, saying she could see plainly she was not wanted, and that he could do well enough without her now; and adding, as she wiped her eyes with the corner of her white apron, that it might be a severe struggle for her to leave so kind a master as he'd always been to her, but, at least she'd have the

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satisfaction of knowing, when she was gone, that she wouldn't be a wherreting on him then, no longer.

Mrs. Coddle was a particularly clean-looking, motherly body. She wore the whitest of caps, with very deep borders, and the cleanest of aprons, while her cotton gowns were of the neatest of patterns; and though she was close upon sixty, her cheeks were almost as rosy as baking apples. To do her justice, she certainly was a mightily pleasant old dame to look at, and she was just one of those persons who, by saving a gentleman every kind of trouble in life, and seeing that he has not to make the least exertion to gratify a single want, manage to beget such a habit of indolence and dependence in those upon whom they attend, that their excess of servitude soon gets to assume the character of the greatest tyranny.

It was the especial care of Mrs. Coddle that the Major should not be able to stir his foot, or know where to lay his hands upon the least article of his own property, without first consulting her—not that she ever allowed him, indeed, to want for anything that he was in the habit of requiring. His clean linen, well-aired, and his one sock turned down, were always ready for him to put on, the morning they were due—and never, since she had been in the house, had a button been known to be missing, or to come off in the operation of dressing. His pipe was on the table ready filled for him, so that he could put it in his mouth the very moment he had finished his breakfast. When he was ready to take his morning walk, there was his hat well brushed, and a clean pair of buckskin gloves, resting on the brim—and when he returned, the bootjack was on the rug, and his slipper nice and warm, inside the fender, so that he might not suffer from a damp foot. She never troubled him about what he would have for dinner, for having made herself acquainted with all his little likings and dislikings, she knew well what to provide, and how to tickle his palate with a daily change, or to give an extra relish to the meal with some agreeable surprise; indeed, it was a creed with her—as with most ladies—that all men were pigs, and that, like their brother animals at the Zoological Gardens, the only way to prevent them being savage was to feed them well. And certainly, it must be confessed, that the Major, like corpulent gentlemen in general, was particularly fond of what is termed "the fat of the land."

At night Mrs. Coddle brewed his toddy for him, and knew exactly the point in the glass up to which to pour the spirit; and when he had taken his three tumblers, there stood his bed candlestick at his elbow, to light him to his room; while on his pillow were his night-*cap and night-shirt, ready for him to put on, with the least possible trouble, and when the bell sounded to tell Mrs. Coddle that the Major was in bed, the motherly old dame would come and take his candle—light his rushlight—and see whether he was quite comfortable, before leaving him for the night.

Mrs. Coddle, moreover, made herself useful to her master as a kind of invisible mistress of the ceremonies. Major Oldschool's long absence from England, and the alteration of many of the points of politeness, since he was a "blood upon town," placed the officer in considerable

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doubt as to how he ought to behave in the presence of company. Mrs. Coddle had "nussed," to use the lady's own words, "in the fust of families," for her connexion, as she said, being only among carriage people, she had helped to bring no less than four cornets into the world in her time, and, she was happy to say, as there weren't one child among all her babbies (she had, in her own peculiar language, had as many as nine confinements every year since poor dear Mr. Coddle's death), she was happy to say, as "there wasn't one child of her nussing what could be called wulgar born." Accordingly, Mrs. Coddle considered herself so well versed in all the social etiquette of the day, that she acted in the capacity of fashionable governess to the Major, paying particular attention to his "manners," and taking care that he made what she termed "no holes in 'em afore wisitors." If the Major had a friend to tea with him, she was continually bobbing in and out of the room, with some excuse or other, just to see how he was "behaving hisself;" and as she passed behind his chair, she would whisper in his ear, "Don't drink your tea out of your sarcer,—you know I told you scores of times it aint perlite." At dinner, while waiting upon him, she would say at one moment, as she saw him commit one after another the several little improprieties of the table, "There you are again, eating your fish with your knife—how often am I to tell you it's wulgar?" at another, she would exclaim, "Now, Major, why will you keep scraping your plate round and round in that there manner, when if there's one thing that is more ongenteeler than another, that's it;" then as she saw him about to lift the glass to his lips, she would take hold of his arm, and beg of him to swallow his "victuals" first, saying, he had a dreadful habit of drinking with his mouth full, and that was the most wulgarest trick of all the tricks he had.

 

Now, while the scene previously described was going on down stairs in the kitchen, another single knock "came" to the door. It was one of the under-clerks from the railway station who had just "stepped on" to inform the gentleman from the country that his boxes had come safely to hand. The Official, however, had no time to deliver his message; for the Major, who occupied the parlours, and who had just returned from his morning's walk, overhearing some one in the passage say that he had come about something that was missing, popped his white head out of the parlour door, and making sure that some clue had been obtained to his runaway niece, requested the young man to step that way.

"So, I suppose you've come to tell me, you've got hold of that precious baggage of mine at last, eh?" said the Major, as he paced up and down the room with delight, and made the floor shake again with the tread of his wooden leg.

"Yes, sir; they was bwought up by the fust twain this morning, sir," said the little gent, as he sucked the horse's hoof that did duty for a handle to his short stick. "And a ware lot you have, sir!" added the young man, smiling, half in joke, at recollection of the three-and-twenty packages.

"Ah! a rare lot, indeed!" returned the Major, between his teeth, as

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he sighed, and thought of the disgrace brought upon the family by the conduct of his niece. "Never was such a lot, I think."

"Why, certingly, sir," replied the "fast" young clerk, who thought it "spicy" not to be able to sound the r's properly, "it ain't the wegular caper, certingly. But your lady, like the west of them, sir, pewaps likes to twavel well pewided. You know, sir, when they're coming up to the metwopolis, the ladies always will have a change or two."

"A change or two! hang me, if I don't think they're always changing!" exclaimed the Major, alluding to the inconstancy rather than the love of dress, which even the advocates of the "rights of women" allow to be a distinguishing feature of the sex. "Now, I shouldn't wonder but what, with all these foreigners here, you have many 'missing' cases at your place!"

"Oh, sir, vewy many cases missing, indeed; and some of 'em woth a good sum. Why, there was one wun off with, the other day, chock full of jewels, sir," added the communicative little clerk, who was delighted to show off his importance.

"I don't doubt you, my good sir; those foreign beggars are devils after the tin," returned the French-hating Major.

"Oh, yes, most of the missing cases with us are tin cases, I can assure you, sir; the others, sir, are hardly worth the fellows looking after, you know; and the worst of it is, sir, that fwequently they bweak their heads, and plunder them of all that's valuable belonging to 'em; and then, maybe, they chuck 'em into the first river they come to."

"Bless my soul, you don't say so!" cried the horrified Major; "and these things going on about us in the nineteenth century!"

"But you need be under no alarm about your lot, sir; we've looked well to 'em, and seen that they're pwoperly secured."

"Well, come, that's right—that's some little consolation, at any rate," exclaimed Major Oldschool, rubbing his hands.

"Yes, sir," proceeded the loquacious railway clerk, "we've had the biggest done up in stout cords—'cause we were wather afwaid of him, on account of his twemendous size and weight."

"Oh, indeed! What, he's one of your big heavy fellows, is he?—and covered with hair, of course?"

The railway official, fancying the Major referred to one of the boxes, replied, glibly, "A wegular hair twunk, sir, and no mistake!"

"Well, I only hope you'll keep the foreign puppy tied up safe, until I can give him in charge to those who will take good care of him, I warrant," remarked the Major, still referring to the mustachioed Count.

The clerk, however, took the word puppy in its literal sense, and alluding to the greyhound, said—

"Don't make yourself uneasy on that score, sir; we've got a cord wound the animal's neck, and its quite impossible for the cweature to get away. We've given him some bwead and water, sir, so that he wont hurt for a little while."

"That's all right, then," responded Major Oldschool; "bread and water's quite good enough for him."

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"I can assure you, sir, he's considered such a handsome dog by all the ladies as has seen him since his awival, that it's been as much as we could do to get some of them away fwom him, for they, one and all, declare that he's the most beautiful Italian they've ever beheld, and that they've half a mind to wun away with the pet."

"Well," exclaimed the Major, "hang me if I can see what the women can find to admire in the filthy hairy brutes."

"They say, sir," replied the official, "he's so wemarkably elegant, and such a beautiful foxy colour. A lady of title, I can assure you, sir, told me this vewy morning, that if the beautiful dog was hers, the pet should have nothing but chickens to eat, because meat, she said, always made their bweath foul."

Here the Major raved and stormed against the fair sex in general, and his niece in particular, in such a manner as made the youthful Official stare again in wonder, at the apparent unmeaningness of his conduct.

When the gentleman had grown a little calm, the clerk ventured, before taking his leave, to say he was instructed to wequest him to send for that baggage of his as soon as possible.

Now, the Major, however irate he might have felt against his run-*away niece, was in no way inclined to permit a stranger to apply such a term to a female member of his family. The consequence was, that the words were no sooner uttered, than the exasperated soldier rushed at the terrified young clerk, and shaking him violently by the collar, demanded to know what he meant by "baggage."

The youth was only able to stammer out that he alluded to his "heap," up at their place.

The term "heap," applied to a lady, only served to increase the fury of the Major; so releasing his hold of the young gentleman's collar, he proceeded to kick him round and round the room with his wooden leg.

At this moment, the sound of the policeman's rattle, and the shrieks of the ladies, were heard from below, and the astonished Major stood for a minute with his wooden leg suspended horizontally in the air, while the terrified young clerk for an instant ceased to fly before the enraged "man of war." The Major, forgetting his anger in the alarm, hurried down stairs as fast as his wooden leg would carry him; while the little railway official no sooner saw the Major turn the corner of the kitchen stairs, than he retreated rapidly to the street-*door, and once safely on the step, proceeded to make the best use of his heels.

The neighbouring policeman, however, who, in answer to the sound of the rattle, came streaming in all directions towards the spot, observing the youth flying from the premises, and naturally viewing the circumstance as of a most suspicious character, raised a cry of "Stop thief!" and gave immediate chase to the terrified little Clerk. For a minute, the railway hobbledehoy was undecided as to his course of action. As he scampered along, he knew not what to do; to go back was to brave the terrors of the Major's wooden leg—while to proceed, was to be hunted through the London streets as a pick--

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• pocket. However, his mind was soon made up, for seeing in

the distance a fashionably dressed young lady, whose acquaintance he had made at Cremorne, he could not bring himself to pass her at full speed, with a crowd at his heels, so he turned back and ran into the arms of the posterior policeman, by whom he was instantly collared, and dragged towards the house he had left, with a crowd of boys in his wake.

The scene that followed has already been half described. The explosion of the double-barrelled blunder was soon over; and then the little railway clerk was welcomed by the Sandboys as heartily as he had been kicked by the Major, while the Detective was as well received by the Major, as he had been insulted by the Sandboys.

CHAPTER IX.

"Oh, man! oh, man! what pity 'tis,
That what we whop our heeghest bliss
Sud disappoint us; nay, what's worse,
Sae oft turns out a real curse.
It shows man's want o' fworeseeght truly,
In not consideran' matters duly."

Tom Knott.

The delight of the Sandboys at the recovery of their luggage was not altogether unbroken. If Mrs. Cursty was overjoyed at the prospect of a "change of linen," still her joy was considerably alloyed with fear at the continued absence of her dear Jobby. If Elcy rejoiced exceedingly at the discovery of her pet Psyche, she was, nevertheless, deeply afflicted at the thought of some misfortune having befallen her brother.

The same family consultation as had been previously held concerning the discovery of the missing luggage was now renewed, as to the best mode of finding the absent boy. Mrs. Sandboys requested to know whether she couldn't have him cried.

Cursty, however, was for putting an advertisement in the Times such as that newspaper-loving gentleman had seen continually in the same column of the leading journal, running—

"If this should meet the eye of J. S., of Buttermere,

he is requested to return to his disconsolate parents immediately."

But Mrs. Fokesell suggested that, according to all accounts, the boy would be but too glad to come back directly, if he only knew the way.

This was more than the philosophy of Mr. Sandboys had calculated for. He saw the force of the argument, and, consequently, modified his plan of action into a proposal to have a hundred or two of bills printed, headed—*

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"Missing—A Young Gentleman,"

And, after giving a full and flattering description of the lad, to wind up by announcing that any one who should bring him to Mrs. Fokesell's house, should be HANDSOMELY REWARDED for their trouble.

The latter proposition being considered to be unobjectionable by Mrs. Fokesell, Postlethwaite was had in, and the copy of the wished-for bill having been written out, amidst considerable altercation on Mrs. Sandboy's part as to the personal characteristics of the youth, the deaf serving-man was, after much shouting, made to understand that he was to take the document to a printer's in an adjoining street, and leave it there with the note that Elcy, to prevent accidents, had written to the head of the establishment, requesting him to have the bills printed and circulated throughout the metropolis, with as little delay as possible.

Postlethwaite was again shouted at so as to make him understand the road he had to follow; but from the odd jumble that, owing to his imperfect hearing, he made of the names of the different streets, it was deemed advisable that the several turnings he had to take, and the names of the various thoroughfares he had to traverse, should be written down for him, and then he could make no blunder.

The list having been prepared, the poor deaf man was started on his errand. But no sooner did the wretched individual emerge into the Strand, than the crowd and hurry of the dense throng that streamed along, half in one direction and half in another, so bewildered him, that, as he stood to look at the names of the streets, he was twisted round and round, first this way and then the other, by the impatient passengers; so that, what with the novelty of the scene he felt at the sight of so many vehicles whose approach he knew he could not hear, and what with the jostlings of the people, and the vertigo superinduced by the continual gyrations that he was forced to make by the crowd, the poor man got so confused in his mind, that in a few minutes it was impossible for him to tell which way he had come or whither he was going, and the consequence was that, with the best possible desire to go right, he proceeded in the very opposite direction to that which he had been instructed to follow.

It was useless for the poor deaf beetle-like countryman to ask his way of any of the strangers; for even in the stillness of home it required the lungs of a Surrey tragedian to make him comprehend what was said; but, amid all the roar of the commercial tide of London, it was sheer waste of breath to endeavour to make the least impression on his leathery tympanum. Moreover, like the generality of people who are a "little" hard of hearing, he was so eager to hide his infirmity, and to put those addressing him to as little extra trouble as possible, that he was always ready to catch at half a meaning, and consequently, from some faint analogy in the sound, was continually putting constructions on what was said that were diametrically different from what was intended.

Hence it was but natural, when poor Postlethwaite requested of the passers-by to be put in the right way towards his destination, that he

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was, owing either to his own infirmity, or to the wickedness of the London boys, invariably sent in the wrong.

And here, in the midst of the London crowd and London roguery, tossed about from street to lane, from lane to square, and from square again to park, we must for awhile leave the bewildered and melancholy serving-man wandering—like Mr. Leigh Hunt's memorable pig—up "all manner of streets."

 

Postlethwaite had not been gone long when a policeman brought Jobby back to his temporary home, but in a very different state from that in which he had left it. Mrs. Sandboys herself had to look at him twice before she could make up her mind that another shameful trick was not about to be practised upon her in the form of a false case of affiliation.

The new suit of clothes which his mother had purchased for the youth at Cockermouth was gone, and in its place he now wore a man's ragged old pea-jacket—once blue, but now foxy with age—and a pair of trousers as wide as windsails, and smeared with tar, so that they bore a strong resemblance to coal-sacks; while on his head was a dirty old straw-hat, with a low crown and broad brim, that reminded one strongly of an inverted soup-plate. The jacket was tied together at the button-holes by bits of rope-yarn; for the miserable young gentleman had no shirt to his back, nor had a shoe or a stocking to his feet.

The truth was, as the policeman proceeded to explain to his terrified mother. Master Jobby had been what in the eastern districts of the Metropolis is technically termed "skinned."

The lad's story was soon told. Led on by the delight of the posturers' performance, he had followed the "School of Acrobats" for miles. Then he had suddenly lighted upon a Punch and Judy Show, and this had so tickled his boyish fancy, that he wandered with it half over London. After this, a street-band of Ethiopian serenaders had bewitched him; their lamp-black faces, their white-paper wristbands and collars, and their fuzzy horsehair wigs, together with the banjos and kettle-drums, and the rattle of the bones, and the chuckle of the nigger-laugh,—all were so new and strange to the boy, that he travelled after them in all directions. Then, as he was growing footsore with his long rambles, an engine at full speed, with the horses galloping, and the firemen in their shiny helmets seated along each side of the machine, went tearing past; and when Jobby saw the people hurry after it, he, too, joined in the crowd. As he ran along, he asked some of the mob who accompanied him, what it all meant; and learning that a fire was raging down at Shadwell, he hurried on the quicker and the lighter to see the sight. But though he kept up with the crowd through many a street and past many a turning, yet, when he reached the Docks, he began to feel so weary, while the sight of the forest of masts showing above the walls and roofs, so took his boyish fancy, that he came to a dead halt, and letting the engine go on its way, entered the gates of the London Docks.

Here he strolled about, now stopping to listen to the song of the

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labourers as they tramped round the wheels that lifted the goods from the vessels alongside the quay; then he wandered to the sugar-houses, and watched the coopers within mending the broken casks; and stood some time at the door, placing his foot stealthily on the sticky floor, coated, as with tar, with the drainings of the casks. Hence he sauntered to the bridges, and there he loved to stand while the iron viaduct was swung back with him and the other loiterers upon it, to make way for some huge emigrant ship, that presently glided through, with its decks littered with ropes and packages, and the passengers grouped at the stern, nodding and waving their handkerchiefs to their friends down upon the quay. Thus Jobby passed the time till the hour came for all to leave; and then, following the stream of labourers, he reached the gates, and there, having watched the workmen pass one by one, in a long file, through the narrow doorway, while the officers hastily searched each as he went past, the youth turned out into the streets once more, ignorant where he was, or which way to go to reach his home.

Now, too, the excitement being over, the youth began for the first time to feel how tired and hungry he was, and to think of the distance he had travelled. It was impossible for him to remember the road by which he had come, so he asked a boy to direct him back to the Strand. The London lad, seeing that Jobby was fresh from the country, made up his mind to have a bit of fun with him, and directed him down some of the many courts and alleys which abound in that locality, and which generally end in "no thoroughfare."

The unsuspecting Jobby went on his way as he was bid; and when he found, on coming to the end of the last court, that a trick had been played upon him, weary and famishing as he was, the poor lad could not help seating himself on the door-step of the nearest house, and bursting into a flood of tears.

Here the wretched youth was soon espied by one of the female inmates, who, seeing that he was well dressed, invited him in, and drew from him, without much difficulty, the whole story of his troubles. She offered him some ale, telling him that a draught of it would be sure to refresh him, and help him on his journey. The simple lad thankfully received a mug of the drink, but had scarcely swallowed it, before his chin fell with a sudden drowsiness upon his bosom; and though he started up and tried to shake the sleepiness off, it was too much for him; and in a few minutes he was dead asleep in the chair.

Jobby could remember no further, save that, on waking, he found himself in a wretched, damp, dirty room, lying on the sacking of a bare bedstead, and on looking for his clothes, he discovered that they had been stolen, and the ragged ones he now wore left in their place. He was too frightened to recollect how he had got away from the house, or found his way out of the courts. All he knew was, that on reaching the open street, he had placed himself under the protection of the first policeman he could meet, who returned with the boy to see if he could find out the house again, but in vain. The many windings and turnings of the courts so confused the country lad, that

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it was impossible for him to recal the way he had gone. After this, the policeman had taken him to the station, where the superintendent had given orders to one of the men to accompany him home.

 

Mrs. Sandboys was too glad to have her darling boy with her once again to feel inclined either to grieve or scold overmuch about his adventures; besides, she now knew the luggage would arrive in a few hours, and then he and the rest of the family could be made clean and sweet, which, she began to think, they were far from being at that present moment.

Mr. Sandboys, too, was not so much annoyed at the occurrence as might have been expected. Not only was he delighted at the boy's return, but he felt a kind of inward satisfaction to find that his long-cherished theory as to the wickedness of the great Metropolis was being, in all its particulars, so fully borne out. He had foreseen, he said, every occurrence that had happened, but they had only themselves to blame. He had fully warned them of all they had to undergo; and, in his opinion—if he knew anything at all about the rogueries of London—they had not yet gone through one tithe of the troubles that were in store for them.

Cursty's sermonizing was at last cut short by the arrival of the long looked-for luggage. Then Mrs. Sandboys was in her glory. If ladies delight in the synthetical operation of packing, they certainly find an equal delight in the analytical process of unpacking—even as children take pleasure in building up their card-houses, and a like pleasure in blowing them down again.

It was not long before Mrs. Sandboys, with Elcy at her elbow, was down on her knees in the kitchen, in front of a long open box, counting the several articles enumerated on a piece of paper gummed to the lid, to satisfy herself that none had been abstracted during their absence. And as she examined the state of her best caps and bonnets, she found them so tumbled, that she felt thoroughly convinced they had been worn by some parties—the wives of the railway men, she had no doubt—or why, as she said, should they have kept them so long on the way?

Nor was the pleasure of going over "her things" confined to Mrs. Sandboys alone, for even the maid and Mrs. Fokesell, though in no way concerned, seemed to experience a similar delight in the operation; for there they stood by her side, watching and admiring every article as she took it from the box.

At length, having looked out the much-wished-for, or rather, according to the lady, the much-wanted "change," for the whole family, she gave them each their bundle of clean clothes, and having arranged with Mrs. Fokesell that they might be allowed the use of the back attic, as a temporary dressing-room, during the absence of the German Baron and his lady, Cursty was started up stairs and told by his wife to make as much haste as possible, for really she was getting alarmed about Postlethwaite, and she wanted Mr. Sandboys immediately that he had "tidied" himself to step round to the printer's and try and learn whatever had become of the poor man.

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In a few minutes Mr. Sandboys returned to the kitchen, clad in his best suit, to receive the opinion of his wife as to the improved character of his appearance. Mrs. Sandboys twisted her "guidman" round and round, tried to pull the wrinkles out of his coat behind, pinched up the frill of his shirt, and ultimately pronounced that she thought he would do—at least, thank guidness, she said he was clean and sweet once more. Then, having kissed him, she despatched him on his errand after the deaf Postlethwaite.

Mrs. Sandboys was still engaged in the interesting process of unpacking her trunks in the kitchen, when a hawker of flowers, with a basket of all colours on his head, stopped before the railings, and observing the lady down stairs, immediately commenced crying—"Fine flowers! sweet-scented flowers! handsome flowers!—all a-blowing—all a-growing!"

Elcy, observing the bright scarlet blossoms of the geraniums, and the long crimson drops of the fuchsias swinging backwards and forwards in the wind, and the pink balls of roses, nodding at every motion of the huckster's head, called out to her mother to come and see what beautiful plants the man had got.

The street-seller no sooner caught sight of Mrs. Sandboys, than he shouted again—"Fine flowers! sweet-scented flowers. Take any old clothes for 'em, ma'am. You may have the pick of the basket for an old coat."

Mrs. Sandboys shook her head, but the street-seller seeing her still look up, put his basket down on the pavement, and began trying to have a deal with her down the area railings.

"Now's your time, ladies," he cried, "you can have this here moss-rose for an old weskit, or a pair of satin shoes. Now's your time, ladies; all a-blowing! all a-growing!"

Elcy, at her mother's request, stepped out into the area to tell the man that they didn't want any.

But the cunning dealer having once got the girl into conversation, handed her down a pot of mignionette, and begged her just to put her nose to that there. As she sniffed at the fragrant flowers, the man said he'd accept of anything, he didn't mind what it was, how old or how dirty, for he had not taken a penny all that day. Any old trowsers, Miss, if you'll tell your ma, or an old hat, or a pair of boots—it's all the same, Miss; though they a'n't no use to you, they're as good as money to us. Take that there pot in to your ma, Miss, and ax her just to put her nose to it, and then say whether she doesn't think such a nosegay as that there a'n't worth an old straw bonnet, or some white linen rags."

Elcy trotted in with the plant, vowing that she had never in all her life seen such beautiful flowers as the man had in his basket,—the geraniums quite made her eyes ache to look at them; and then she told her mother that the man said he would take anything for them, even old rags.

The novelty of the transaction, the beauty of the plants, and the seeming wonderful cheapness of them, all produced such an effect upon Mrs. Sandboy's mind, that she began to consider what useless

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article she had with her that she could offer the man in exchange for one of them.

After much cogitation, they both came to the conclusion that the trowsers which Mr. Sandboys had worn in the morning were too shabby for him to put on in London; they were the "old things" said his wife, "which he had split to pieces in going after that tiresome pig, and which, on second thoughts, she had considered quite good enough for him to travel in; and now, as the new ones she had bought him at Cockermouth had come to hand, why, there was no necessity for her keeping the others any longer; and she knew very well, unless she got rid of the nasty, shabby old things, Cursty would be making his appearance in them some day; whereas if she took them out in flowers, it would prevent his ever wearing them again.

The determination once formed, Mrs. Sandboys motioned the flower-seller to the street-door, while Elcy was despatched to fetch the trowsers that her father had recently taken off.

The street-seller, on seeing the garments, declared that they were hardly worth putting in his basket, and carrying home. "If the lady had got an old coat, he'd let her have that there handsome fucshia for it, 'cause the skirts was valuable—let it be ever so much worn—for making cloth caps for boys, and the officers in the army; or, he wouldn't mind chucking in that partic'lar fine 'artsease for an old weskit, for they came in handy for parsons' gaiters, but trowsers was no account at all; however, he didn't like to be hard with the ladies so he'd give 'em that there lovely Chaney rose for the trowsers and a silver sixpence."

Mrs. Sandboys, however, was woman of the world enough to be a good bargainer; so, as fast as the huckster decried her husband's old breeches, she did the same for the street-seller's flowers. In due commercial style each professed to be equally careless about dealing with the other, and yet each was equally anxious for the bargain.

At length, after much haggling, it was agreed that Mrs. Sandboys should have a pot of mignionette and a couple of cut moss-roses for the garment; whereupon the old trowsers were transferred to the flower-seller's long black bag, and the flowers to the care of Mrs. Sandboys.

Immediately the man had closed the door, the native of Buttermere hastened to Mrs. Fokesell to show her the bargain she had effected; and while the ladies were engaged in sniffing one after another at the delicious perfume of the blossoms, a violent knock came to the door, and in a minute the breathless Mr. Sandboys stood panting before his wife.

Presently he explained, by snatches between his gasps, how he had got into an omnibus on his way to the station house to which Jobby had been taken by the policeman, for, as he said, he considered that would be the best place to obtain tidings of any missing party—and how, after having ridden a short distance, he had put his hand into his pocket to feel for his money, and discovered to his horror that he had come out without any. The consequence was, he proceeded to say, that he had to stop the 'bus and acquaint the conductor

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with his misfortune; whereupon the man abused him in the most shameful manner, and collared him in the middle of the road, saying he was a hoary-headed old cheat, and it would serve him right if he knocked his head off his shoulders, as a lesson to him for the future—and Mr. Sandboys wound up by declaring he verily believed the fellow would have done it, too, if it hadn't been that, as luck would have it, he had taken his silk umbrella with him; which, after a good deal of trouble, he had got the man to consent to hold as security for the fare.

When Mr. Sandboys had finished his story, his wife asked him how he could be such a simpleton as to leave his money behind him, and requested to be informed where he had it.

"In t' pockets of mey auld breeks," responded the innocent Cursty.

The words came upon his dear Aggy like a thunderclap. As the lady said afterwards, "any one might have knocked her down with a feather." Elcy stared at her mother, and the mother stared at the daughter, in a maze of bewilderment. Neither liked to confess the truth to Cursty, and yet to delay doing so was every minute to diminish the probability of obtaining possession of the precious garments again.

At length Mrs. Sandboys did venture to break the matter to her husband. She told him she had disposed of his trowsers only a few moments before his return for a pot of mignionette and a couple of moss roses.

"Well, Aggy," cried Cursty, when he had recovered from the first shock, "thee'll have to suffer for't as well as meysel for forty t' notes I'd got in t' pocket book, thar was thy marriage lines that thee wud mek me bring up wi' me, to show thee wast an honest woman, if ever thee sud want as much."

"Waistoma! waistoma!" cried poor Mrs. Sandboys, when she heard of this, to her, the greatest loss of all. At first she raved against London, and London people, and London wickedness. Then she declared it was all Cursty's fault, and owing to his nasty idle habits of never emptying his pockets, when he changed his clothes, but leaving everything to her to do. Next, she vowed she would go back to Buttermere that very night, for nothing but misery had befallen her ever since they had made up their mind to enjoy themselves.

However, when her anger had somewhat exhausted itself, she entreated her own dear Cursty to hasten after the flower-seller. The man could not be far off, unless he had discovered the prize he had got, and decamped with it to some other part of the town; but she was almost certain he had not felt anything in the pockets at the time he was looking the trowsers over in the passage, or else he would have been more anxious to have purchased them than he was.

Mr. Sandboys she directed to go one way, and Jobby another; for if her marriage lines were really gone, it was impossible to tell what might happen.

In obedience to her commands, Cursty and Jobby were soon out of the house, exploring every street and corner in quest of the flower-seller.

And here, we must, reader, for the present drop the curtain.

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CHAPTER X.

"Here mirth and merchandise are mix'd,
  There trick wi' tumult rages;
Here fraud an' ignorance are fix'd,
  An' sense wi' craft engages.

 

"Here pedlars frae a' pairts repair,
  Beath Yorkshire beytes and Scotch fwoak;
An' Paddeys wi' their feyne lin' ware,
  Tho' a' deseyned to botch fwoak.

 

"Here's Yorkshire impudence, d'e see,
  Advancin' for a brek,
Just askin' threyce as much as he
  Kens he'll consent to tek.
'Here, maister, buy a coat cloith here,
  Ye's have it chep, believe me;
'Tis of the foinest 'ool, I swear.
  Mon, think ye I'd deceive ye?'"

Rosley Fair, by John Stagg.

We left Mr. Sandboys engaged in the interesting occupation of hunting after his lost inexpressibles—the very inexpressibles which his wife had mended previous to his departure from Buttermere, and which that lady had since exchanged, together with forty pounds in bank notes and her own marriage certificate in the pockets, for a pot of mignionette and a couple of cut roses.

His son Jobby, too, was employed upon the same agreeable mission; but the researches of the youth were neither vigorous nor profitable, for remembering the unpleasant issue of his previous wanderings in the metropolis, he feared to travel far from the domestic precincts of Craven Street, lest his rambles might end in his being flayed; stripped of his cloth cuticle—his sartorial integuments, once more; the timid boy therefore kept pacing to and fro within view of his own knocker, or if he allowed the domestic door-step to fade from his sight, he did so only when at the heels of the proximate Policeman.

Mr. Cursty, however, was far more venturesome. He thought of his lost bank notes and missing marriage certificate, and what with the matter o' money and the matrimony, he rushed on, determined not to leave a paving nor a flag-stone untrodden throughout the streets of London, till he regained possession of his lost treasures. So away he went, as the north country people say, "tappy lappy," with his coat laps flying "helter-skelter," as if he were "heighty-flighty."

Up and down, in and out of all the neighbouring streets he hurried, stopping only to ask of the passers-by whether they had met a hawker of flowers on their way. Not a public-house in the neighbourhood but he entered to search and inquire after the missing flower-seller; and when he had explored every adjacent thoroughfare, and bar, and taproom, and, after all, grown none the wiser, and go

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none the nearer to the whereabouts of the floral "distributor," he proceeded to unbosom himself respecting the nature and extent of his osses to the police on duty, and to consult with them as to the best means of recovering his notes and "marriage lines."

All the "authorities" whom he spoke to on the subject, agreed that the only chance he had of ever again setting eyes on his property, was of proceeding direct to the Old Clothes Exchange in Houndsditch, whither the purchasers of the united "left off wearing apparel" of the metropolis and its suburbs daily resort, to get "the best price given for their old rags."

Accordingly, Mr. Cursty Sandboys, having minutely copied down, in order to prevent mistakes—for his care increased with each fresh disaster—the name and description of the locality which he was advised to explore, called a cab, and directed the driver to convey him, with all possible speed, to the quarter in which the left-off apparel market was situated.

He was not long in reaching the desired spot. The cabman drew up at the end of the narrow passage leading to the most fashionable of the Old Clothes Marts, and Mr. Sandboys having paid the driver well for the haste he had made, proceeded at once to plunge into the vortex of the musty market.

Outside the gateway stood the celebrated "Barney Aaron," the hook-nosed janitor, with his hook-nosed son by his side—the father ready to receive the halfpenny toll from each of the buyers and sellers as he entered the Exchange, and the youth with a leathern pouch filled with "coppers," to give as change for any silver that might be tendered.

As Cursty passed through the gate, the stench of the congregated old clothes and rags and hareskins was almost overpowering. The place stank like a close damp cellar. There was that peculiar sour smell in the atmosphere which appertains to stale infants, blended with the mildewy odour of what is termed "mother"—a mixture of mouldiness, mustiness, and fustiness, that was far from pleasant in the nostrils.

Scarcely had Cursty entered the Mart before he was surrounded by some half-dozen eager Jews, some with long grizzly beards, and others in greasy gaberdines—each seizing him by the arm, or pulling him by his coat, or tapping him on the shoulder, as they one and all clamoured for a sight of whatever he might have to sell.

"Ha' you cot any preaking?" asked one who bought old coats to cut up into cloth caps—"cot any fushtian—old cordsh—or old pootsh?"

"I'm shure you've shometing vot will shoot me," cried another.

"You know me," said a third—"I'm little Ikey, the pest of puyersh, and always give a cood prishe."

Such was the anxiety and eagerness of the Israelites, that it was more than Mr. Sandboys could do to force his way through them, and it was not until a new-comer entered with a sack at his back, that

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they left him to hurry off and feel the old clothes-bag, as they clamoured for first peep at its contents.

Once in the body of the Market, Cursty had time to look well about him, and a curious sight it was—perhaps one of the most curious in all London. He had never heard, never dreamt of there being such a place. A greater bustle and eagerness appear to rage among the buyers of the refuse of London, than among the traders in its most valuable commodities.

Here, ranged on long narrow wooden benches, which extended from one side of the market to the other, and over which sloped a narrow, eaves-like roofing, that projected sufficiently forward only to shelter the sitter from the rain, were to be seen the many merchants of the streets—the buyers of hareskins—the bone-grubbers, and the rag-gatherers—the "bluey-hunters," or juvenile purloiners of lead—the bottle collectors—the barterers of crockery-ware for old clothes—the flower-swoppers—the umbrella menders—and all the motley fraternity of petty dealers and chapmen. Each had his store of old clothes—or metal—or boots—or rags—or bonnets—or hats—or bottles—or hare-skins—or umbrellas, spread out in a heap before him.

There sat a barterer of crockery and china, in a bright red plush waistcoat and knee breeches, with legs like balustrades, beside his half-emptied basket of "stone-ware," while at his feet lay piled the apparently worthless heap of rags and tatters, for which he had exchanged his jugs, and cups, and basins. A few yards from him was a woman done up in a coachman's drab and many-caped box-coat, with a pair of men's cloth boots on her feet, and her limp-looking straw-bonnet flattened down on her head, as if with repeated loads, while the ground near her was strewn with hare-skins, some old and so stiff that they seemed frozen, and the fresher ones looking shiny and crimson as tinsel. Before this man was a small mound of old cracked boots, dappled with specks of mildew—beside that one lay a hillock of washed-out light waistcoats, and yellow stays, and straw-bonnets half in shreds. Farther on was a black-chinned and lantern-jawed bone-grubber, clad in dirty greasy rags, with his wallet emptied on the stones, and the bones and bits of old iron and pieces of rags that he had gathered in his day's search, each sorted into different piles before him; and as he sat waiting anxiously for a purchaser, he chewed a piece of mouldy pie-crust, that he had picked up or had given him on his rounds. In one part of the Exchange was to be perceived some well-known tinker behind a heap of old battered saucepans or metal teapots, side by side with an umbrella mender, in front of whom lay a store of whalebone ribs and sticks. In another quarter might be seen the familiar face of some popular peep-showman, with his "back-show" on the form on one side of him, while on the other were ranged the physic phials and wine bottles and glass pickle jars that he had taken of the children for a sight at his exhibition; and next to him was located a flower-seller, with his basket emptied of all its blooming and fragrant contents, with the exception of one

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or two of the more expensive plants, and the places of the missing flowers filled with coats, waistcoats, boots, and hats.

To walk down the various passages between the seats, and run the eye over the several heaps of refuse, piled on the ground like treasure, was to set the mind wondering as to what could possibly be the uses of each and every of them. Everything there seemed to have fulfilled to the very utmost the office for which it was made; and now that its functions were finished, and it seemed to be utterly worthless, the novice to such scenes could not refrain from marvelling what remaining purpose could possibly give value to "the rubbish."

The buyers, too, were as picturesque and motley a group almost as were the sellers—for the purchasers were of all nations, and habited in every description of costume. Some were Greeks, others were Swiss, while others were Germans. Some had come there to buy up the old rough charity clothing, and the army grey great-coats, for the "Irish" market; others had come to purchase the hareskins or old furs, or to give "the best price" for old tea-pots and tea-urns. One man, with a long flowing beard and greasy tattered gaberdine, was said to be worth thousands; thither he had come to add another sixpence to his hoard, by dabbling in the rags and refuse, strewn about the ground in heaps, for sale: others were there to purchase the old Wellingtons, and to have them new-fronted or their cracks heel-balled over, and then vended to clerks, who are "expected to appear respectable" on the smallest salaries. That Jewess is intent on buying up the left-off wardrobes "of the nobility," so as to dispose of the faded finery to the actresses of the minor theatres, or the "gay" ladies of the upper boxes. Yonder old Israelite, who goes prowling between the seats, is looking out for such black garments as will admit of being "clobbered" up, or "turned" into "genteel suits" for poor curates, or half-paid ushers of classical academies. Nor does he reject those which are worn even threadbare in parts, for he well knows they will admit of being transformed into the "best boys' tunics;" while such as are too far gone for that, he buys to be torn to pieces by the "devil," and made up again into new cloth, or "shoddy," as it is termed; and others, which his practised eye tells him have already done that duty, he bids for, knowing that they will still fetch him a good price, even as manure for the ground. Some of the buyers have come principally to purchase the old silk hats—and as they wander among the heaps of old clothes, and rags, and metal, they stop every now and then, and crumple up the shapes in their hands to try whether they have been—as they call it—"through the fire or not," and those which will stand the test of their experienced touch, they buy for the shops, to have converted into the "best new hats" for the country. Some, again, are there chiefly to "pick up" the old umbrellas, which they value not only for the whalebone ribs but the metal supporters—the latter articles furnishing the material for the greater part of the iron skewers of London; while some of the buyers, on the other hand, have come to look after the old linen shirts, which they sell again to the paper-mills, to be

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converted, by the alchemy of science, into the newspaper, the best "Bath post," or even the bank-note.

As the purchasers go pacing up and down the narrow pathways, and pick their way, now among the old bottles, bonnets, boots, rags, and now among the bones, the old metal, the stays, the gowns, the hats and coats, a thick-lipped Jew-boy spouts from his high stage in the centre of the market, "Hot vine a ha'penny a clarsh! a ha'penny a clarsh!" Between the seats, too, women worm their way along, carrying baskets of "trotters" and screaming, as they go, "Legs of mutton two for a penny! two for a penny! Who'll give me a handsell?—who'll give me a handsell?" After them comes a man with a large tin can under his arm, and roaring, "Hot peas, oh! hot peas, oh!" In the middle of the market is another vender of street luxuries, with a smoking can of "hot eels" before him, and next to him is a sweetmeat stall, with a crowd of young Hebrews gathered round the keeper of it, gambling eagerly, with marbles, for "Albert rock" and "hardbake;" while at one end of the market stands a coffee and beer-shop, and inside this are Jews playing at draughts, or settling and wrangling about the goods they have bought of one another.

In no other part of London—and, perhaps, in no other part of the entire world—is such a scene of riot, rags, and filth to be witnessed. Every one there is dressed in his worst—for none who know the nature of the place would think of venturing thither in even decent apparel.

Mr. Sandboys was the universal object of observation. What he could have to do in such a place, every one was puzzling his brains to think; and as Cursty hurried up and down between the seats, in the hopes of catching a glimpse of his lost inexpressibles, the buyers and sellers, one and all delighted, as he passed, to crack some rude jest upon him. The women wished to know whether he wasn't hunting after a "nice pair of stays" for his "missus;" the men would hold up some faded livery, and request to be informed whether he was looking for "an 'andsome suit for his Johnny." But, regardless of their gibes, round and round, like the hyena at the Surrey Gardens, Mr. Sandboys went, in the hope of eventually lighting on his precious nether garments. Not a flower-seller entered the place but Cursty watched him intently, until he had seen every article turned out of his bag, and satisfied himself that the anonymous part of his apparel formed no portion of the man's left-off stores.

Nor did he think of moving from the place until all the buyers and sellers had quitted it; and when the hour arrived for closing the gates, Cursty hardly knew what course of action to adopt.

At one time it struck him that it would not be a bad plan to do as Aladdin did when he lost his "wonderful lamp," and go round the town crying, "New breeches for old ones;" but, on second thoughts, he perceived that, however feasible such a plan might have been in Bagdad, it was far from practicable in London; for he felt satisfied, from the universal habit of wearing such articles of dress

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among the male portion of the metropolitan population—(and, indeed, among not a few of the married females)—that the Londoners' love of a good bargain, no matter at whose cost, would render them so particularly anxious to make the exchange, that the business he would be likely to do in one street alone would be sufficient, not only to ruin him in pocket, but to break his back with the burden. If the lady denizens of the capital were to be attracted to the linen-drapers' establishments, solely by the enlivening inducement that somebody was to be ruined by their custom—if, like the Hindoo widows, they delighted in "awful sacrifices," (at any other persons' expense than their own) how eager, thought the philosophic Cursty, would wives of London be to deal with him, when they imagined that they could breech their husbands by stripping him of all he had.

After revolving in his mind many equally sagacious plans for the recovery of his precious pantaloons, Mr. Cursty decided that, perhaps, the wisest course to pursue, under all the circumstances, would be to return to his temporary domicile, and there consult with his wife as to the future mode of action. Accordingly, he hailed the first omnibus travelling Strandward, that passed him, and depositing himself within it, was once more on his way towards home.

 

While Mr. Sandboys, fagged out with his unprofitable and wearisome day's work, is dozing away the distance from Whitechapel to the Strand in the corner of the long "short stage," let us take advantage of that uneventful interval to communicate the circumstances that had occurred during his absence to mar again the peace and happiness of his family.

Some three or four hours had elapsed after that gentleman's departure from home, when Mrs. Fokesell "bounced" breathless into the back attic, which now constituted the sitting-room, bed-room, dressing-room, and kitchen, of the united Sandboys.

"Oh, mum," the landlady exclaimed, gasping as she wiped her forehead with the corner of her dirty pink cotton apron; "O—oh, mum! here's a man come from the Station-'us."

"From t' Station-house!" echoed Mrs. Sandboys, who had hardly had time to recover the shock of the sudden entry of Mrs. Fokesell; but, on second thoughts, imagining the messenger had brought her tidings of the missing garments, she added: "So then, thank guidness, they've caught t' man with t' flowers and t' trousers at last."

"They've caught your man, you means, mum," returned Mrs. Fokesell, shaking her head till the little bunch of vermicular ringlets at each side of her face swung backwards and forwards, like the "wings" of a kite in the wind.

"My man!" ejaculated the terrified Aggy, as she began to have a vague perception that "something dreadful" had occurred to her beloved Cursty. "What in t' warl' do'sta mean—what do'sta mean?"

"Why, it's just this here, mum—that your good man, as you call him"—here the circumspect landlady opened the room-door mysteriously, to satisfy herself that nobody was listening, and then closing it again,

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advanced towards Mrs. Sandboys, and said, in a half-whisper, "your good man has been and got took up for being drunk and disorderly, and oncapable of taking care of hisself."

Mrs. Sandboys threw up her hands, and dropped into the nearest chair; while Elcy came and leant over and tried to assure her that "it must be some shocking mistake again."

But Mrs. Fokesell would not hear of such a thing; she had made most particular inquiries of the "party" below—for at first, she herself could hardly bring herself to believe that such a thorough gentleman, as Mr. Sandboys always appeared to be, could so lower hisself as to be seen intosticated in the public streets—but there couldn't be no mistake this time, because the "party" had brought one of the "gent's" cards with him. And when she heard Mrs. Sandboys and Elcy both sobbing at the intelligence, the landlady begged of them "not to go and take on in that manner," for after his last voyage, Mr. Fokesell hisself—though he was as good a man as ever walked in shoe-leather, so long as he was at sea out of harm's way—had gone and got overtook by liquor, and been skinned and robbed of everything he had, for all the world like young Mr. Sandboys was, by them painted dolls nigh the docks, and, as if that wasn't enough to ruin her peace of mind, he must get hisself fined two pounds, or ten days imprisonment, for an assault on a policeman. Here the lady digressed into a long account of Mr. Fokesell's failings, saying, that ever since their marriage she had never been a penny the better for his money, and that she didn't know what would have become of her if it hadn't been for her lodgers and the rent of a six-roomed cottage, that had been left her by her fust husband, who was an undertaker with a large connexion, but a weak, though an uncommon fine man, and who might have made her very comfortable at his death, if he had only done by her as he ought. Whereupon, wholly forgetting the object of her errand to Mrs. Sandboys, she further digressed into a narrative of the mixed qualities of Mr. Bolsh's—her poor dear first husband's—character.

Mrs. Cursty, who had been too deeply absorbed in her own family misfortunes to listen to those of Mrs. Fokesell, at length, on recovering her self-possession, requested to be informed where Mr. Sandboys had been "picked up" previous to being taken into custody.

The landlady, anxious to produce as great a sensation as she could, made no more ado, but informed her that her "good man" had been found lying on his back in a gutter in Wild Street, Drury Lane, and that it was a mercy that he hadn't been druv over by one of them Safety Cabs as was dashing along, as they always does, at the risk of people's lives.

The circumstance of the messenger having brought Cursty's card with him was sufficient to preclude all doubt from Mrs. Sandboys' mind; nevertheless she sat for a minute or two wondering how the misfortune could possibly have happened. At one moment she imagined that the loss of his bank notes had produced so depressing an effect on his spirits that Cursty had gone into some tavern to procure a glass

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of wine, in the hopes of cheering himself up amid his many misfortunes, and being unaccustomed to take anything of the kind before dinner, had perhaps been suddenly overcome by it. The next minute she felt satisfied that he had been entrapped into some dreadful place and drugged, like poor dear Jobby. Then she began to ask herself whether he could have lighted upon any friend from Cumberland, and in the excitement of the meeting been induced to take a glass or two more than he otherwise would; and immediately after this she felt half convinced that Cursty had discovered the flower-seller, and been so delighted at recovering possession of his pocket-book, that he had accompanied the fellow to some "low place" to treat him, and there, perhaps, been imprudent enough to take a glass of hot spirits and water "on an empty stomach," and that this had flown to his head, and rendered him quite insensible to everything around him; or else she was satisfied that it was owing to the nasty bit of red herring which he would have that morning for breakfast.

When Mrs. Sandboys communicated to Mrs. Fokesell the several results of her ruminations, that lady was far from being of the same opinion, and did not hesitate to confess that she had long been convinced that the men were all alike, and that, for herself, she wouldn't trust anyone of them—and especially her Fokesell—further than she could see him.

Mrs. Sandboys, however, was in no humour to listen to such harangues, and starting from her seat, desired to know whether the messenger from the station-house was still below stairs, so that she might accompany him back to her husband. On being answered in the affirmative, she proceeded to "put on her things" with all speed, while Elcy, with her eyes still full of tears, implored to be allowed to go with her.

When her toilet was finished, she kissed her gentle-hearted daughter previous to leaving her (for it was not fit, she said, that young girls should visit such places), and bidding her dry up her tears, for that all would yet be right, she hastened down the stairs, and in a minute afterwards she was on her way, in company with the messenger, towards Bow-street station-house.

 

The reader must not do poor Mr. Sandboys the injustice to imagine that he had so far forgotten himself as to have made a pillow of one of the metropolitan kerb-stones. Nor was he, at the time referred to, the temporary tenant of one of the Bow-street police cells; for that much maligned gentleman, far from being then in "durance vile," was still enjoying a disjointed kind of nap in the corner of the Mile-end omnibus.

Let us explain.

The flower-seller, immediately on handling the discarded inexpressibles of Mr. Christopher Sandboys, had discovered that one of the pockets was not wholly empty; and though he was sufficiently alive to the impositions occasionally practised upon members of his fraternity by coachmen, grooms, footmen, and others, to be well

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aware that articles—especially buttons and pieces of silver-paper—were frequently inserted in the fob of cast-off pantaloons, with the view of leading them to imagine that either some notes or coin had been accidentally left in the garments by their late innocent possessors, and so inducing them to give a higher sum for the articles than they were really worth—the flower-seller was, nevertheless, we say, too fully satisfied of the thorough rusticity and consequent simplicity of Mrs. and Miss Sandboys, to believe that they could be capable of any such trick. The hawker, too, was clever tradesman enough to lead Mrs. Sandboys to suppose that he was in no way anxious to become the purchaser of the articles offered to him; and he was particularly careful, as he turned the garments over and over to examine them, never to allow either of the pockets to fall under the notice of Mrs. Sandboys.

As soon as the bargain was settled, and the street seller of flowers had got fairly out of sight of the house, he was joined by the female who usually accompanied him on his rounds, and of whose services he occasionally availed himself when any feminine article of dress was proffered for exchange. To her the hawker did not hesitate to make known his impression that he had got a "prize." Accordingly, the two retired up the first court they came to on their way from the house, to examine what it was that the pockets really contained. The pocket-book was soon had out—each compartment being carefully searched—and when the roll of notes was found, their glee knew no bounds; but the woman, who acted as interpreter on the occasion—the man himself being unable to read—was perhaps even more delighted when she discovered the certificate of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys', marriage at Lorton Vale Church, in Cumberland; for, though not attaching a particularly high moral value to the hymeneal ceremony, she thought, knowing the prejudices of society in this respect, that the possession of such a document might prove of some little service to her on some future occasion. When, therefore, the two came to divide the proceeds of their good fortune, the lady stipulated that the marriage certificate should be hers, and that in consideration of this, she said her mate might take three of the notes, and she would be satisfied with two. This appeared so advantageous an arrangement to the gentleman, that, caring nothing for the possession of the "lines," he immediately closed with the offer.

The arrangement, however, was far from being so advantageous as it appeared; for the lady, on proceeding to divide the treasure, availed herself of her "mate's" want of education, so as, while giving him the greater number of notes, to retain for herself those of the higher value. Accordingly she handed him over three fives out of the forty, keeping a twenty and a five for her own portion. It was then settled between them that the man should proceed to the Old Exchange and dispose of the contents of his bag, while his partner should return home and get a bit of "summut particular good" against his arrival.

The sense of being the possessor of so large a sum of money, was

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too great a temptation for the hawker's slender sobriety to withstand; while the treasure remained in his pocket, he could hardly assure himself of its worth, for people of his grade in life have generally an utter want of faith in the value of what appears to them to be nothing more than a strip of silver paper. Besides, he thought it would be prudent to "run for gold" as soon as possible, for he well knew that the current coin of the realm, unlike bank notes, bore no numbers by which one sovereign or shilling could be distinguished from another.

A variety of circumstances, therefore, conspired to lead the man into the first public-house he came to. Here he entered the tap-room, and placing his basket of flowers on the seat beside him, called for a pint of "dog's nose"—a combination of gin and beer, to which the gentleman was particularly partial.

This had the effect of rendering the hawker indisposed for prosecuting his journey to Houndsditch. What was the use, he began to ask himself, of his going all that way to sell a few rags, when he didn't want for a pound or two? Accordingly, as the liquor got to make him feel more and more careless, he commenced tossing and raffling away the remaining flowers in his basket, among such as entered the tap-room during his stay there; and while the gambling was going on, he partook of a second and a third quantum of his favourite potion, so that, by the time he had got rid of all his plants, he felt inclined to enjoy himself, and disposed to go anywhere but home. Still, however, he entertained some little difficulty respecting his costume, which certainly was not fitted for holiday-making, for, like the rest of the old clothes' dealers, he was habited in his worst, with the view of attending the Houndsditch Exchange at the close of his day's labours; and as he ran over to himself the several places of amusement that he should like to visit, he debated in his own mind as to what he should do for a "change." To return home and put on his brown Petersham coat and bright "yellow kingsman" neckerchief, that he delighted to sport in Battersea Fields on a Sunday, was to go through a greater amount of exertion, at that precise moment, than he was inclined to undertake; and as he discussed within himself the several other modes of supplying his deficiency, it struck him that he had swopped a cactus that morning with a lady up in Clarendon Square for a "very tidy Pallytott," and "these," as he justly observed, "with the pair of breeches as he took with the pocket-book in 'em, would turn him out fit even for the 'Heagle.'" Accordingly, he emptied the contents of his clothes-bag on one of the tables, and having selected therefrom such articles as he thought would suit him for the occasion, he proceeded at once, amid the laughter of all present, to indue himself with the garments; then having obtained permission of the landlord to leave the basket and bag in his charge for awhile, the hawker sallied forth, determined, like the quondam possessor of the trowsers he then wore, upon "enjoying himself."

Still the flower-seller was undecided whither to direct his steps.

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At first he thought of Greenwich Park and a feast of tea and shrimps; but, though Greenwich had attractions, tea had none for him. Next he turned his attention to the Red House, but he knew of no pigeon match that was to come off there that day, so that would not suit him. "Then he made up his mind to pay a visit to the Bower," and the minute after he changed it in favour of "Lord Effingham's concerts." Still, what was he to do with himself till they began? He had it! he wouldn't go to any of the places—he'd be off that moment to Rosherville—and yet it was getting late in the day for a trip to Gravesend, so he'd take a run down to Hungerford instead, and go on to the roof of the Swan and have a treat of periwinkles and ale. Accordingly he turned round and proceeded in the opposite direction to that on which he was before journeying.

But the flower-seller was too fond of halting at each tavern on the way to get even that far. The money he possessed, as the street people themselves say, "seemed to burn in his pocket;" and the drink he had already taken made him crave for more, so that it would have required greater strength of mind than he was master of to have refrained from entering the next public house he came to. The liquor that he here swallowed served as usual only to increase his thirst for more of the same maddening fluid. So on he went, "dropping in" at every "public" on his way, and standing at the bar drinking, wrangling, or tossing with any one whom he could "pick up." At length, with the many glasses of raw spirit that he had taken on his road, the drink got to produce so violent an effect upon his temper, that the more respectable of the landlords refused to serve him; but this tended only to make him still more furious, so that at almost every tavern he visited, he was forced to be turned into the street before he could be got rid of. At one house, however, it was found impossible to get rid of him without closing the doors; for each time that he was thrust out, back he came staggering and offering to fight everybody at the bar. Seeing, therefore, that it was useless attempting to enter, he sat himself down on the step and went fast asleep against the door; on being roused by the pot-boy and desired to go about his business, the hawker grew so enraged that he jumped from his resting-place and strove to seize hold of the lad so that he might wreak his vengeance upon him. In the attempt, however, to catch the youth, the flower-seller stumbled and fell heavily on his back beside the kerb, and there he lay unable to raise himself, with a crowd of boys shouting and playing every imaginable trick upon him.

The arrival of the police at length put an end to the whole affair, and the hawker, with a dense crowd after him, was carried off, struggling and bellowing among four of the stoutest of the force, each holding him by one of his extremities. On being searched at the station-house, Mr. Sandboys' pocket-book was found in the hawker's possession; in one of its compartments were the cards of address belonging to that gentleman. The authorities, believing these to be the rightful property of the flower-seller, proceeded at once to enter,

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among the list of offenders of that day, the name of Mr. Christopher Sandboys, of Craven-street, Strand, as having been found drunk, disorderly, and incapable of taking care of himself.

The reader knows the occurrences that followed. A messenger was despatched to the residence of Mr. Sandboys, to apprise that gentleman's family of his unpleasant position.

 

Mrs. Sandboys had been gone but a short while, before Cursty, who had been "dropped," as the idiom runs, by the omnibus, at the top of the street, staggered, half asleep and half awake, up to the door.

He had no sooner set foot on the door-mat, than Mrs. Fokesell, who had espied him from the kitchen window, and run up to answer his knock, threw up her hands in astonishment, and exclaimed, in a familiar way, "How in the world did you ever get out?"

The innocent Christopher was unable to comprehend either the cause of the lady's surprise, or the meaning of her question. "What do'sta mean, woman?" he said.

"Oh!" returned Mrs. Fokesell, winking her eye as she nudged his elbow; "you needn't mind telling me—I knows all about it. There's been a party up here, and told us of all your goings on."

"My gangings an!" exclaimed Cursty. "Ye may well say that, for I've been half ow'r London."

"Very well turned off"!" retorted Mrs. Fokesell; "but it won't do. We're up to all your tricks, we are: so you'd much better confess at once. Oh, you're a sly old fox—though perhaps you ain't much wuss than the rest of you men. Fokesell was almost as bad—hardly a pin to choose betwixt you."'

Mr. Sandboys, fatigued and vexed with the futility of his journey, felt in no way inclined for jesting; so, brushing past the unceremonious landlady, he darted up the stairs to the family garret.

Mrs. Fokesell, however, in anticipation of a "scene," which she longed to witness, hastened after him, and was just in time to behold Elcy throw herself into her father's arms, and burst into subdued hysterics at the unexpected pleasure of his return.

For a few minutes the landlady stood unobserved at the doorway, and while Cursty was wondering within himself why his daughter should receive him with so unusual an outburst of affection, and coupling her tears with the mysterious conduct and insinuations of Mrs. Fokesell, he began to ask himself, half in fear, "What fresh disaster could have befallen them now?"

Elcy kissed him again and again, telling him each time how happy she was that she had him home again. "Could she get him anything, or would he not like to lie down?" she inquired.

"Yes, Miss," interrupted the busy Mrs. Fokesell, "if your Pa will be advised by me, he'll take off his boots, and go and lie on the bed for an hour or two—and let me get him a bottle of soda water, while you puts a wet towel round his head, for if you looks at his eyes you'll see they're quite bloodshot."

"My e'en bluidshot!" ejaculated Mr. Sandboys, growing half

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enraged at the apparent unmeaningness of the whole of the landlady's remarks; however he went to the glass to see if there were anything odd enough in his looks to account for the peculiarity of the landlady's behaviour. His eyes were a little red, certainly, he thought, as he scrutinized his countenance, but that arose from the "nap" he had indulged in during his ride home, and beyond this he could see nothing which could call forth so much anxiety on his behalf.

"Do, father," said Elcy, "do go and lie down, or you'll be ill, I am sure."

"Yes;" chimed in Mrs. Fokesell, "I'm sure it's a wonder you hasn't got the delirious trimmings as it is. Fokesell, I know, once had 'em after one of these bouts, and then he fancied he was aboard his ship, in our back parlour, and that the house was agoing down, all hands, 'cause I wouldn't work the pumps. Now, come, there's a good gentleman, do be persuaded by Miss Elcy, and go to bed for an hour or two."

"Go to bed!" echoed Sandboys, tetchily. "I'm not tired—I've had a nap."

"Oh, yes, we know," retorted Mrs. Fokesell, winking her eye and nodding her head, in a manner that is considered to speak volumes, and which was certainly meant to insinuate to the unsuspecting Sandboys that the lady was acquainted with the fact of his having tried to take "forty winks" in the gutter; "and we know where you had your nap too. Fine times, indeed, when you gents must needs go falling asleep in the 'kennel.'"

"In t' 'kennel,'" shouted Sandboys, in none of the mildest tones. "What do'sta mean, woman, what do'sta mean, I say?"

"Oh, you knows what I means, well enough, Mr. Slyboots—going and doing such things, thinking it 'ud be unbeknown to your missus. A nice time she'd have on it if she only knowed all, I'll be bound to say." And here Mrs. Fokesell gave herself a jerk, expressive, as she imagined, of the highest possible indignation.

"How daresta speak to me in that way?" demanded the incensed Cursty. "Leave t' room, woman."

"Father! father! pray calm yourself," said Elcy, growing alarmed at what she imagined to be the lingering effect of her parent's indiscretion. "Pray be calm, and go and lie down just a little while."

"Lie down! why, what's come to you aw'? You seem to be aw' mad tegidder. But where's your mother?"

"Ah! you may well ask that," answered the pert Mrs. Fokesell—"gone to look after you; and I suppose you can remember the kind of place you've come from?"

"I come from Houndsditch, I tell tha, woman," replied Mr. Sandboys, curtly, for he was afraid to give full vent to his feeling, lest he might receive "notice to quit," and then be left without a roof to shelter himself or family.

"You must tell that to the marines, as my Fokesell used to say," retorted the landlady; "for I knows better—so it's no use your denying the tricks you have been at no longer; and all I got to say is,

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the sooner you has your temples bathed with winegar, the better it will be for you in the morning. Come, now. I'm a married woman, and knows all about these matters. Bless you! my Fokesell has taken a drop too much many a time; so just let me go and get you a Seidelitz powder, or, if them's too cold for you, be persuaded by me, and take a couple of 'Cockles.'"

Poor Mr. Sandboys sat all this time almost "boiling over" with rage. He bit his lip between his teeth to prevent his saying a word, for he now began to see that not only the landlady, but his daughter, both imagined that he had been drinking. Why they should imagine as much was more than he could conceive, but it was evident that such was their impression.

"I'm sure your head must ache, father," said Elcy, observing her parent bite his lip, as she fancied, with pain. "It really burns like a fire," she added, as she laid her hand across his forehead.

"Doan't be a fuil, child!" cried Cursty, as he angrily dragged down her arm. "I shall go mad among you aw', I shall. What in t' warl's happened, to put sic notions in tha head?"

Here the girl of all-work tapped at the attic-door, and informed Mrs. Fokesell that there was a young man below stairs as wanted to speak with the lady of the house.

The landlady disappeared for a few minutes, and then suddenly darted back into the room, with cap-strings flying a yard behind her.

"Well, I do declare," she exclaimed, standing with her hands on her hips, "if you ain't all of a piece;—fust it's you, and then it's your missus. Ah, you may stare, but I've got a pretty set in my house, it seems. Here's a young man below as has come to say that Mrs. Sandboys has got took up for assaulting a policeman, and that she's a lying in the station-house till her case comes on for hearing."

"Heavens!" cried Cursty, "it canna be true——"

"Oh, father! father! what will become of her?" said the afflicted Elcy, as her head fell on her parent's shoulder, in terror at the thoughts of her mother being in such a place.

"What can it aw' mean?" shouted Sandboys.

"Why, the lad says, as well as I can make it out, that Mrs. Sandboys went into the Black Bull public house—of all places in the world for a lady—to ask for change—and that there some noise or other arose about the money; that then the police was called in to settle the matter, and that on his stating that Mrs. Sandboys was not a proper woman, she flew at him, and nearly tore him to bits. And the young man does tell me," continued the landlady, "that the language she used on the occasion was quite dreadful for decent people to hear—so a pretty set indeed it seems I've let into my house. Well, I always thought you was a queer lot, that I did—and I said as much to Mrs. Quinine as had my second floor. I'm sure the house has been like a common bear-garden ever since I've had you in it—what with your screams when a few coals was shot on top of you—and what with your frightening poor Mrs. Quinine nearly out of her life, and alarming the whole house with

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the screams of the dear thing—and what with your threatening to murder the policeman in my kitchen with my red-hot poker—and what with the springing of rattles, and collecting a mob round my hairy rails—and what with your allowing your son to be brought home here by a common policeman in the disrespectable state he was; and now what with the two police reports as there will be in the paper about you to-morrow morning, there'll be fine talk about my house and my people all up and down both sides of the street. You'll bring a scandal upon me, you will. I'm sure I've never knowed a moment's peace—never since I was fool enough to be persuaded to allow you to set foot under my roof. But you'll please to provide yourself with some other lodging the moment your week is up, for not another minute after do you stay here, I can tell you."

Mrs. Fokesell, who had grown red in the face with the long catalogue of her grievances, was obliged to come to an end for sheer want of breath.

It was useless for Cursty to seek to obtain any more definite information from her in the excited state of her mind, for immediately he ventured to question her as to what had befallen his wife, it was but the signal for her to renew her vituperations. At last, putting on his hat, he hastened down stairs to the youth who had brought the intelligence, and proceeded to accompany him in search of his dearest Aggy.

 

Mrs. Sandboys, however, it should be made known, had been no more concerned in the occurrence above detailed than her lord and master had been the hero of the scene previously described; for the "lady" who had passed under that name was none other than the mate of the flower-seller, who had become possessed of the Sandboys' marriage certificate. Proceeding on her way home, it had struck the woman that it would be as well to convert the twenty pound note into sovereigns as soon as she possibly could, for on a closer inspection of the valuable, she had perceived that the name of the gentleman mentioned in the marriage certificate was inscribed on the back of it. Accordingly she entered a public house where she was not known, and after having partaken of a glass of gin-and-rue, and the half of a pork pie, she tendered the bank note in payment for what she had devoured. The landlord, however, looked upon the possession of a note for so large a sum by one of so mean an appearance as a very suspicious circumstance, and believing that she had not come honestly by the money, began to question her as to how and where she had obtained it. Finding that her answers were not particularly lucid or consistent on the subject, he thought it best to send for a policeman, and leave the officer to decide upon what course to take. The official, on seeing the woman, was as confident as the landlord that the note had been got hold of by unfair means, nor did he hesitate to tell the woman that he was satisfied she had stolen it from some gentleman, insinuating at the same time that she was, as the phrase runs, "no better

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than she should be." The words were no sooner uttered than the woman, incensed at being foiled in her prize, flew at the policeman, and with her clenched fist beat him in the face so vigorously that before the man had time to defend himself he was covered with blood.

In a few moments afterwards she was on her way, handcuffed, to the station house, while the landlord, who had handed the note over to the officer, thought it best to send the messenger before mentioned to the address inscribed on the back of it.

On reaching the station house, the superintendent directed that the woman should be immediately taken before the sitting magistrate, so that the charge might be disposed of with the least possible delay.

His worship, on hearing the evidence of the policeman, demanded to know what proof the woman could adduce as to the note being her own lawful property, as she asserted; whereupon she drew forth the marriage certificate of the Sandboys, protesting most loudly that it was her own. The magistrate, having perused the document carefully throughout, and satisfied himself of its authenticity, said there could be no doubt that the woman was really the person whom she represented herself to be.

Finding the magistrate take this view of the case, the female flower-seller then laid a formal complaint against the policeman, declaring that he had insulted her in the grossest manner that a respectable married woman could possibly be insulted, insinuating that she was a person of immoral character, when his worship could see by the marriage lines as she had shown him, that she was as honest a woman as any in London. The man's conduct, she added, had thrown her into such a passion that she really did not know what she had done to him after he had insulted her: and she put it to his lordship whether his good lady would not have done the same.

The magistrate, though hardly inclined to take that extreme view of the case, still acknowledged that every excuse was to be made for the woman, adding that the officer had no right whatever to make any such insinuation without having indisputable proof of the fact—and that, as it was, he should dismiss the case, warning the policeman to be more cautious in future, and ordering the note to be restored to the woman, upon whose character he was bound to say there was not the slightest stain.

 

But to return to our lost mutton—Mr. Christopher Sandboys.

Immediately on learning from the boy of the "Black Bull," the precise part of the town in which the lady passing by the name of Mrs. Sandboys was held in "safe custody," Cursty called a cab, and having placed the lad on the box beside the driver, deposited himself within it, ordering the man to carry him with all haste whither the youth should direct.

On reaching the station-house, to Cursty's great delight, he was informed that Mrs. Sandboys had been discharged, as the magistrate said, "without the slightest stain on her character," while the policeman, who had suffered so severely from the lady's indignation, and who

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now began to fear, from the presence of Mr. Sandboys, that the magistrate had been perfectly correct in his conviction as to the honesty of the woman who had been brought before him, thought it prudent to apologize for his mistake, lest an action for something or other might be commenced against him.

The consequence was, that Cursty hastened back home quite as fast, if not faster, than he had hastened from it, in the hopes of clutching his poor injured Aggy to his bosom, and consoling her under her heavy trials, with the assurance of his undoubting affection.

 

During the absence of Mr. Sandboys, his better half had returned from Bow-street, where she had been agreeably surprised to find that Mr. Sandboys, or rather the gentleman known there by that name, had been bailed out a few minutes before her arrival, and had left the station accompanied by his friends. In vain did she make inquiries as to the name of the bail, in the hope of ascertaining who the friends could have been that had done her husband so great a service; for she was not aware of his being acquainted with a single individual in London: nor did the names and addresses of the sureties, when read over to her, tend in the least to enlighten her on the subject; so, as she found the authorities little disposed to enter into that minute account of the proceedings which was necessary to clear up the mystery, she left the police-office, and proceeded on her way home, wondering within herself who "in t' name of guidness" the friends could be; and coming to the conclusion that they were some Cumberland people who had come up for the opening of the Exhibition, and whom her Cursty had stumbled upon in the course of his rambles through London.

 

On reaching home, Mrs. Fokesell, who had recognised, from the kitchen, the skirt of Mrs. Sandboys' dress as it whisked round the corner of the door-step, ran up the stairs in immediate answer to her knock; and no sooner had she closed the door after the lady, than she began wondering how she could have the impudence to show her face in that house after what had happened, and begging to assure her, with a significant shake of her cap, that she was not in the habit of letting lodgings to people who occasionally occupied an apartment in the station-house.

Mrs. Sandboys imagined, of course, that she alluded to her husband's recent incarceration, and not being particularly proud of the circumstance herself, endeavoured to calm the landlady's irritation on the subject.

But Mrs. Fokesell was not to be appeased, and she gave Mrs. Sandboys plainly to understand, that she ought to think herself highly favoured to be allowed to set foot within her door again, after her shameful, unlady-like conduct to the policeman.

Aggy, imagining that the landlady referred to her inquiries at the station-house, endeavoured to call to mind how she could possibly have committed herself.

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But Mrs. Fokesell soon informed her, that it was useless her attempting to play the innocent to her, for a man had been down there and told her about her shameful goings on, and how she had beaten one of the force within an inch of his life.

Mrs. Sandboys stood aghast at the accusation. At first she wondered how such a charge could possibly be trumped up against her; then she imagined it must surely be some jest of the landlady's; but Mrs. Fokesell soon put that notion to flight, by not only repeating the aspersion, but adding, that she had been informed, on the very best authority, that she was well known to the whole of the police, as not being the most respectable person in the world.

This was more than the Cumberland blood of Mrs. Sandboys could bear; and, holding in her breath with the effort of subduing her wrath, she demanded to know what Mrs. Fokesell meant by such an assertion.

Mrs. Fokesell, who was nothing daunted, did not make the slightest attempt to mince the matter, but proceeded to tell her lodger, in the most unequivocal terms, that the policeman had declared that he knew she was not an honest woman.

Mrs. Sandboys could hardly contain herself for rage. If ever she had felt inclined to commit an assault upon any one, it was at that particular moment. Her fingers were all of a work, and it was evidently as much as she could do to keep her hands from tearing the landlady's cap from her head. She could have borne any imputation in the world save an aspersion on her virtue.

Again she demanded of Mrs. Fokesell an immediate and full explanation. How dare a low-bred woman like her tell her she was not an honest woman—when Mrs. Fokesell, herself a married female, (and Mrs. Sandboys laid a strong emphasis on both of the words,) was without so much as a husband to show for herself. It was very well to make out that he was at sea, but nothing was easier than to say as much.

It was now Mrs. Fokesell's turn to grow scarlet with rage, and the words were scarcely uttered before she thrust her hands in the huge pocket she wore at her side, and drawing out an old "housewife," she took from it a piece of paper, which, having torn open, she thrust into the face of the terrified Mrs. Sandboys, saying, as she shook it vigorously, "There's my marriage lines, woman! show your'n! show your'n, if you can, and prove yourself to be what you says you are."

Poor Mrs. Sandboys felt the helplessness of her position. She knew that she had parted with her certificate in the act of disposing of her husband's old trowsers. It was idle for her to think of an explanation—of course it could but appear as a lame excuse on the present occasion; so prudence made her gulp down her indignation, and try to soothe the infuriated Mrs. Fokesell, who was once more making her misfortune the laughing-stock of the whole house—for the lodgers, hearing the wrangling of the two ladies in the passage, had crept one by one from their respective apartments, and stood with their necks stretched out over the balusters, giggling at the disputants below.

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But the gentle Fokesell was rather anxious to make a public case of the matter, and finding that she was getting a good audience about her, shouted at the top of her voice, "Where's your marriage lines? where's your marriage lines?—where's your marriage lines, I ask again, in the presence of all these respectable gentlemen."

This was the unkindest cut of all, and Mrs. Sandboys sought to escape up stairs, but Mrs. Fokesell was in no humour to let her off so easily. She could not forget the base insinuations that the lady had presumed to throw out respecting the apocryphal character of her absent Fokesell, and feeling satisfied of Mrs. Sandboys' inability to justify her character, by the production of her marriage certificate, she felt the more enraged that such a stigma should be cast upon her by such a person; accordingly, as Mrs. Sandboys endeavoured to get away from her, she seized that lady by the arms, and with her teeth clenched, proceeded to shake her violently against the wall, while the terrified Aggy shrieked "murder!" in her shrillest tones.

At this critical state of affairs, a loud double knock at the street door made the passage echo with its clamour. This had the effect of inducing Mrs. Fokesell to relax her hold of the poor trembling Mrs. Sandboys, to whose great relief, on the door being opened, no less a person than her own dear Cursty made his appearance.

Immediately that gentleman was fairly in the passage, the exasperated landlady sought to empty the vials of her wrath on the heads of the innocent couple, but Mr. Sandboys, observing the agitated state of his wife, and judging from a glance the nature of the scene that had transpired, thought it prudent to withdraw to his own apartment; though as he and Aggy ascended the stairs, they could hear Mrs. Fokesell in the passage below vowing all kinds of vengeance against them both on the morrow, and heaping on their names epithets that were not of the most choice or flattering description.

Once by themselves, each began to console the other. Cursty of course believed that his beloved Aggy had suffered imprisonment for assaulting a policeman. Aggy too, in her turn, fancied that her dear Cursty had been only just released from the station-house, where he had been confined for being drunk and disorderly, and each sought to learn from the other what circumstances could possibly have induced them so far to forget themselves. Elcy, who looked upon them both as martyrs, was delighted to welcome them back again, for while each of her parents believed that the other had transgressed, she had been led to imagine that they both had been incarcerated for violating the law in some way or other.

Mrs. Sandboys was anxious that Cursty should retire to rest, for she was afraid that he must have taken cold from sleeping in the street, as she had been informed he had done; and Cursty begged that she would dismiss the whole affair from her mind until the morrow, when they would both be in a better condition to speak calmly on the subject. He was sure a glass of wine would do her good, after all the violent exertion she had gone through. But Mrs. Sandboys, alluding to her trip to the station-house after her husband, begged to

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assure him that it was solely on his account that she had done what she had, and all she could say was, she'd do it again to-morrow for his sake. Cursty, however, who believed that she referred to her late assault on the policeman, felt within himself in no way anxious that she should encourage a habit of resenting any attack upon her honour, in the Amazonian manner in which she had so recently distinguished herself, lest some day or other, she might resort to the same unpleasant means of vindicating herself, when aggrieved, even with him. Then he told how he had gone off to the station-house merely out of his regard to her. But Mrs. Sandboys was unable to perceive how his falling asleep in the gutter was calculated in any way to benefit her; and thus the worthy couple went on for some time, playing at cross purposes, until at last an explanation became necessary; and then they both saw clearly that their names had been assumed by some unprincipled persons, though with what motive they neither of them could comprehend. Cursty, however, was determined to sift the affair to the bottom, and hurrying back to the station-house whither the woman had been conveyed, he obtained a minuter account of the whole circumstances than he had previously been able to receive, and soon became convinced that the woman was an accomplice of the flower-seller, who had got possession of part of the notes, and the marriage certificate that had been deposited in the missing pocket-book.

When he returned home and cleared up the mystery to his wife, Aggy could plainly see through it all, and what was more, she felt satisfied that they'd many more troubles to come, for so long as that certificate was out of their possession they could not tell what might turn up against them.

The next morning a climax was put to their distress of mind, in the shape of a long "comic" police report in all the daily papers, detailing how Mrs. Christopher Sandboys, of Cumberland, who had come up to town to see the Great Exhibition, had made a furious attack upon one of the most active members of the metropolitan police force.