come round to me to-morrow. We must all
live."

"Pray shake hands!" said Mr. Traveller.

"Take care, sir," was the Tinker's caution,
as he reached up his hand in surprise; "the
black comes off."

"I am glad of it," said Mr. Traveller. "I
have been for several hours among other black
that does not come off."

"You are speaking of Tom in there?"

"Yes."

"Well now," said the Tinker, blowing the
dust off his job: which was finished. "Ain't it
enough to disgust a pig, if he could give his
mind to it?"

"If he could give his mind to it," returned
the other, smiling, "the probability is that he
wouldn't be a pig."

"There you clench the nail," returned the
Tinker. "Then what's to be said for Tom?"

"Truly, very little."

"Truly nothing you mean, sir," said the
Tinker, as he put away his tools.

"A better answer, and (I freely acknowledge)
my meaning. I infer that he was the cause of
your disgust?"

"Why, look'ee here, sir," said the Tinker,
rising to his feet, and wiping his face on the
corner of his black apron energetically; "I
leave you to judge!—I ask you!—Last night
I has a job that needs to be done in
the night, and I works all night. Well,
there's nothing in that. But this morning I
comes along this road here, looking for a sunny
and soft spot to sleep in, and I sees this desolation
and ruination. I've lived myself in
desolation and ruination; I knows many a fellow-
creetur that's forced to live, life long, in desolation
and ruination; and I sits me down and
takes pity on it, as I casts my eyes about. Then
comes up the long-winded one as I told you
of, from that gate, and spins himself out like
a silkworm concerning the Donkey (if my
Donkey at home will excuse me) as has made it
all—made it of his own choice! And tells me,
if you please, of his likewise choosing to go
ragged and naked, and grimy—maskerading,
mountebanking, in what is the real hard lot of
thousands and thousands! Why, then I say it's
a unbearable and nonsensical piece of
inconsistency, and I'm disgusted. I'm ashamed and
disgusted!"

"I wish you would come and look at him,"
said Mr. Traveller, clapping the Tinker on the
shoulder.

"Not I, sir," he rejoined. "I ain't a going
to flatter him up, by looking at him!"

"But he is asleep."

"Are you sure he is asleep?" asked the
Tinker, with an unwilling air, as he shouldered
his wallet.

"Sure."

"Then I'll look at him for a quarter of a
minute," said the Tinker, "since you so much
wish it; but not a moment longer."

They all three went back across the road;
and, through the barred window, by the dying
glow of the sunset coming in at the gate—
which the child held open for its admission—he
could be pretty clearly discerned lying on his
bed.

"You see him?" asked Mr. Traveller.

"Yes," returned the Tinker, "and he's worse
than I thought him."

Mr. Traveller then whispered in few words
what he had done since morning; and asked the
Tinker what he thought of that?

"I think," returned the Tinker, as he turned
from the window, "that you've wasted a day on
him."

"I think so too; though not, I hope, upon
myself. Do you happen to be going anywhere
near the Peal of Bells?"

"That's my direct way, sir," said the Tinker.

"I invite you to supper there. And as I
learn from this young lady that she goes some
three-quarters of a mile in the same direction,
we will drop her on the road, and we will
spare time to keep her company at her garden
gate until her own Bella comes home."

So, Mr. Traveller, and the child, and the
Tinker, went along very amicably in the sweet-
scented evening; and the moral with which the
Tinker dismissed the subject was, that he said
in his trade that metal that rotted for want of
use, had better be left to rot, and couldn't rot
too soon, considering how much true metal
rotted from over-use and hard service.

THE END OF THE CHRISTMAS NUMBER FOR 1861.

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON'S SERIAL
A STRANGE STORY
Will be concluded in March next; when
A NEW NOVEL BY MR. WILKIE COLLINS
WILL BE COMMENCED.