chaffin' of me. Howsoever, the day come, I
went, and this is how 'twas.

Imagine the astonishment of me and Mrs.
Hel, when, one morning, as we was at breakfast,
up comes the postman to the winder,
and delivers in a letter bearin' a forren stamp—
head of a young 'oman, hupside down, feature
good, but perky, hinscription, "Correyos
Reales."

"Why, what d'ye make o' this?" I asks.

"Queen o' Spain's, I fancy," says the postman,
with the indifference of his specious.
"You're 'senior' Lufkin, I suppose?" he adds,
grinning.

"Well, there a'nt no junior, yet" says I,
with a wink at my missis, which colored, and
poured out the tea.

Sure enough, the letter was addressed to
"Señor Lufkin, Goodburn-close, Hogsmead,
Lincoln, Hangletare." Hafter spekilatin' nigh
half-an-hour who it could possibly be from, we
opened it. Who should it be, but Tom, my
missis's cousin (you remember Tom?) which
took us to see the Mrs. Davingpodge, and
which we'd never set heyes on, since that
curous hinvestigation.

Now, Tom is that sort o' movable chap,
that, if you heerd of him yesterday at
Broadstairs, you might reasonably expect a note from
him to-morrow, from the himmediate wicinity
of ancient Babylon. If he telegraphted from
Chaney, that he was off to Japan, having took
final leaf of England, my missis, without any
hobservation, would get our spare bed ready for
him, to-morrow. We wasn't surprised, therefore,
to find that Tom had wisited Sarah Gosser.

Nor it wasn't so very strange, his writin' to
me. Hever since that evening at the Mrs.
Davingpodge's, we had been, though we never
met, the best o' friends. He came home to
supper that night with us, and after we'd
spoke of the hevents of the hevening, and I'd
gone so far as to allow that the sudden
huntying of a rope, under very peculiar and critical
circumstances, might be a useful haccomplishment
to a certain class o' men, my wife went
up to bed, and we had a deal o' friendly talk,
Tom and me had, hover our pipes and toddy.
We agreed that we had been very sad fellows,
and sowed a mighty power o' wild oats, to be
sure! (My wust enemies wouldn't accuse me
of much in that line; but my hobject, you see,
were to set poor Tom at his hease, and seem
wery penitent for what I hadn't done.) But
that we felt it were now high tune to steady
down, and putt our shoulders to the wheel.

Tom was franker than ever I know'd him.
He told me all his adventures, the fortins he'd
been on the brink o' making, and the ill-luck
that spiled so many of his hexlent designs, the
theayter he'd built, with self-hacting scenery,
lights, and box-keeping, which went to smash;
the "Hevery 'Alf-hour Hexpress" which cum
to grief; the gun which bust; and the Polish
conspiracy, which was hanged in hinfancy.

He had now got in hand a wonderful Drayma,
which, being took from the French, and put
into Irish, with a railway smash, and a plunge
down the Falls of Niagara, would make the
fortins of half the managers in Europe, besides
helevating the drama almost out o' sight.

In return, I told him the luck I had had
at Hogsmead, 'specially with beasts, and of the
good bit o' money I had already put by. This
pleased Tom very much. We got more and
more agreeable together. We shook hands a
good many times, in the course o' the evening,
and, I don't remember much else, 'cept that,
next morning, I found that one o' my ten
pun'-notes had turned into a I. O. U., bearin'
the signature, shaky, but legible, "Thomas
Ketcham Tirritup."

(I never mentioned that little hepisode to
Mrs. Hel, and if ever this comes to be published,
in the same singular manner as the former, I
only begs that the printer'll leave out the last
parrowgraft.)

Now, we comes back to Tom's letter.

'Twas wrote in the best o' sperrets, Tom
statin' that he was already good 'alf-way up the
'ill o' fortune, which he'd been so long a-bungling
at the foot of. Seeing how lucky I had
been in the bullock line, he had gone in for a
branch of the same, and was already half-
proprietor of one o' the wery finest establishments
in Sarah Gosser. Such were the popilarity of
the stock—'specially small but hactive bulls,
supplied from the grazing farms of Ramirez
Vermijo and Tirritup—that it was sometimes
hard to make room for all that came to bid.
They did a little in horses, too, but weren't so
lucky as in t'other. It seems bulls didn't agree
with 'em. At all events, the mortality in the
stable was wery serious, and Tom hinted that
a consignment of animals from England—
'specially of cab-'osses as had served their four
or five year, and had anything the matter—
exceptin' glarnders—would be wery acceptable.
Hoddly enough (added Tom) they was in a
position to give five shillings more for a blind
'oss, than one as saw.

"Well, Jem, I never!" put in my wife.
"That is a queer fancy."

"The work," Tom adds, "is 'hexceptional.'"

"What's that, Hel?"

"Mill work," says I (I always likes to make
ready answer)—"grinding bones, or something
o' that kind. It's depressing to a thinkin' 'oss
to be walking round and round, and seeing
what his own bones is gradually workin' to."

"Do 'osses think?" asks my wife.

"What d'ye suppose their brains is doing
all day long, in the stable?" I asks. Then,
before she'd time to ask me what I thought
they was doing, I reads on.

"'With your experience, an' a little capital, I
could dewelope the business o' Ramirez Vermijo
and Tirritup to a hextent hundreamed of in
the wildest wisions o' avarice. Hafter that,
I'll sit down a contented man.'"

"Poor Tom!" says Mrs. Hel, wisibly effected;
"he's not a bad fellow, you see."

"' You remember our conwersation,'" I
continued, reading, "after the sworry, shay
Davingpodge Brothers, and how we agreed
that, having now, both on us, had our swing
and enj'yed our little games——'"