fortress of Nature by storm, my friend—you
must circumvent it."

"Well, I dare say it's all right," said
Mathews, "but I don't know a bit what you're
talking about."

"I know you don't, Mathews. Our missions
in art are different ones. You paint bodies, I
paint souls. You represent the outside of things,
while I penetrate into the depths beneath. My
path is chosen. What though its giddy heights
may lead me into dangers, I smile at them even
as you, my Mathews, smile at me. Enough, I
am not in cue to-day. I shall go back to the
Louvre, and, flinging myself down before the
Paul Veronese, give way to my fancies
untrammelled."

So saying, and casting down his palette and
brushes, Mr. Clipper pulled his sombrero over
his brow, and nodding gloomily to me, vanished
from the apartment.

"Now what a fellow that is," said Mathews,
when the door had closed upon him. "I happen
to know (and so does he) that the Pontifex
Pryors and Lady Fanny Fauteuil are in Paris,
and are going to the Louvre this very afternoon,
and Clipper has gone there to be discovered with
his eye in a fine frenzy rolling, doing the artist
with all his might. I've known him do the same
kind of thing before. He has an especial
partiality for being 'discovered' in this highly
conscious state of unconsciousness, and
whenever Clipper tells you that he is going to fling
himself down under the trees in Richmond Park,
and give way to the flights of his imagination,
you may be quite sure that he will do so very
near the main road, and that on that particular
day Lady Suckbrains, or the Chumley Biggs, or
some other admirers of 'unconscious' genius,
will happen to be passing through the park on
their way to the Star and Garter."

"I can't think how you and Clipper get on,"
I said at this point.

"Well, I hardly know how it is myself," said
Mathews. "I think it's partly that he amuses
me, and partly that we have got into a habit of
being together. I had a studio with him before
for a long time in London, when he used to go
on very much as you have seen him to-day, and
when he used to talk and act so extraordinarily
like a genius that I remember a period when I
got at last so confused by his goings on that I
used sometimes to doubt the evidence of my
senses as to his abilities, and say to myself,
'Surely there must be something in this man,
after all.' Well, well," added Mathews, checking
himself abruptly, as if he felt that we were
getting too hard upon our absent friend, "we
all have our faults, and this harmless vanity is
the only one I have ever found in Clipper.
Shall we go and dine?"

"By all means," I answered; "but where?"

"Let's go to the English tavern," said this
thorough Briton. "I hate your kickshaws."

So to the English tavern we went.

It was a very good dinner. Plenty of joints,
and plenty of English. These last all spoke to
the waiter in French, while the foreigners who
were present addressed that functionary
invariably in the English language.

After dinner, we English, drawing our chairs
together round the stove, began reading the
newspapers and chatting as we felt inclined. I
happened, unfortunately, to be placed next to a
little man who, sitting with the Morning Post in
his hand (an old number which I think he must
have brought from England witli him), presented
a perfect specimen of the snob tribe, and bored
me every now and then with genteel conversation
in a very terrible manner, as the reader shall
hear.

          CHANGE FOR NUGGETS.

I HAVE done a very bold and sensible thing.
I have thrown off the irksome tyranny of my
currency doctor. It was only a few days ago
that he felt my mental pulse, and declared
me to be in a dangerous condition. My answer
was, that I would take no more nostrums,
pamphlets, tracts, and inky abominations; that
I would listen to no more denunciations of rival
systems; I would take nothing but the benefit
of the waters of fact; and I went at once
to the Mint, on Tower-hill, to get them. I went
to the Master of the Mint. Before I accepted
his kind offer to show me his establishment, I held
a short conference with the shade of Ricardo,
the great political economist.

"I am about to look upon currency from
a mechanical point of view," I said to the shade,
"and I want your opinion upon the fixed price
of gold I have heard so much of."

"Gold fixes its own price," returned the shade
of Ricardo, " because of its uniform steadiness
of value. It is for this rare quality that it is
chosen as the standard basis of our currency."

"But why," I returned, "is three pounds
seventeen shillings and tenpence halfpenny
always to be given for an ounce of gold, when all
other commodities are always rising and
falling?"

"Coinage labour," he answered, rather evading
the question, "is given gratuitously to the
public: you take your precious metal to the Mint,
and the Mint returns you the same weight in
the shape of sovereigns, even adding the
necessary alloy, without making any charge for the
process."

"Then any digger," I asked, "may take his
nuggets, however small, and exchange them
immediately for money?"

"Theoretically, yes, but, practically, no," he
answered, "for they receive no metal there, to
save trouble, that is less in value than ten thousand
pounds sterling. The Bank of England is
their collecting agent for small amounts; being
bound to purchase any gold that is tendered to
it, giving notes or gold coin in exchange, after
the metal has been examined and tested by the
regular refiners."

"This is under the abused act of 1844," I
said, "which is since your time."

"It is," he replied, "and there is no hardship