of it. They menaced me with the commissary.
Me! Israel Sarpajou! Get out of the shop, or
I'll call the guard."

The meaning of all which was, that M. Israel
Sarpajou had been somewhat disappointed that
morning in the quality of some loose pearls in
which he had invested capital; and, not caring
to lay out any more ready money just then,
thought he could indulge in a little cheap luxury
by baiting a girl whom he knew to be poor, and
guessed to be friendless.

Indignant, and yet alarmed, Lily was hastily
leaving the shop of the ill-conditioned dealer,
when, in his vapid slobbering voice, he called
out,

"Come back, little one. Give me a kiss, and
you shall have seventy-five francs for your
locket." But Lily stayed to hear no more, and
hurried away as fast as ever she could.

She went into one gold and silver dealer's
shop after another; but, through a kind of
fatality, as it seemed, no one would give her
anything like a remunerative price for the
trinket. One overflowing philanthropist, who
was a Christian, offered her twenty-five francs
for it; another, who was a wag, advised her to
make it up with her young man, and then she
would no longer desire to sell the locket which
contained his beautiful black hair—ses beaux
cheveux noirs. A third was more practical. He
was an optician as well as a goldsmith, and wore
himself such large polygonal blue goggles as to
look like a walking lighthouse. He told Lily
that her locket was worth, at the very least, two
or three hundred francs—not to melt, but as a
work of art—and advised her, instead of selling
it, to take it to the nearest bureau of the Mont
de Pieté, where they would lend her half its
value.

This benevolent counsellor gave her, besides,
the address of a commissary priseur—one
Monsieur Gallifret, who lived in the Rue Montorgueil.
Thither did Lily repair with quickening
steps; and very seldom, I will venture to
surmise, was the first visit to a pawnbroker's paid
so blithely.

Monsieur's office was up a narrow filthy
passage, and three pair of stairs. There was a
traiteur's on the first floor, and a preparatory
school on the second; and the mingled odours
of soup, scholars, and the bundles of wearing
apparel in the pawnbroker's store-closets, were
decidedly powerful, but far from pleasant.
Monsieur Gallifret was not at home; but his
wife was—a snuffy old woman with a red
kerchief.

"A hundred francs," said Madame Gallifret,
when she had examined the locket.

Lily bowed her head, meaning the gesture as
a sign of acquiescence.

"Cent francs, ni plus, ni moins. Do you
take it? Est-elle sourde-muette, la petite?
Speak out."

"I will take it."

"Bon, what is your name?" went on Madame
Gallifret, opening a large thin ledger.

"Lily Floris."

"Drôle de nom! Your profession?"

"Couturière." Oh, Lily, how fast one learns
to lie.

"Domicile?"

"A hundred and twelve, Boulevard Poissonnière."
She was making rapid progress in
mendacity; but that locket had to be got
rid of.

"Where is your passport?"

"My passport, madame?"

"Yes, your passport, your papers. Don't I
speak distinctly?"

"I have none."

"Bien fâchée, then, but we can have nothing
to do with you. No business is transacted in
this office save with persons provided with
papers perfectly en règle."

And once more Lily went forth into the street:
the locket still unsold, and even unpawned.

BRITANNIA'S HEAD FOR FIGURES.

ONCE every year—on or about the day known
as All Fools' Day—the country has to listen to
its financial statement. This statement, or
Budget, is made by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer—an officer who comes in and goes out
with ministries. This Chancellor may, or may
not, be an able man; his notions of taxation
may be brilliant or common-place; he may
be industrious, he may be indolent; he may
be full of ingenuity, bold in expedients, and
sound in principles, or he may be nothing
more than the mere mouthpiece of a Treasury
clerk. But, for the time being, with the sanction
of Parliament, he governs the national balance-
sheet. Having collected estimates of the
probable national expenditure, or Rule Britannia
side of the account, for the twelvemonth under
consideration, he goes to the other, or Suck
Britannia side—amongst the sugar, gin, malt, bill-
stamps, and tradesmen, to see where the money
is to come from. On the Rule Britannia side
of his department—in his palatial drawing-
rooms—he dispenses his millions with an open
hand; while, as Britannia's factor, he collects
some of his pence by taxing lollipops, and seizing
poor men's bedsteads.

Since the days when Chancellors of the
Exchequer were invented, the country has had
some eccentric and jocular financiers. The
more eccentric and jocular the financier, of
course the more comic were the taxes imposed.
One inventive genius in the art of Sucking
Britannia thought it would be a good thing to
tax bachelors, and an equally good, though
somewhat contradictory thing, to tax widowers.
This was in 1695. When the bachelor or
widower tried to escape from this tax by getting
married, the clever financier had him on the
hip with another impost. Marriages were taxed
as well as celibacy, and even births and burials
were made to contribute to the Treasury. Later
financiers revived most of these imposts, adding
to these taxes on deaths and christenings. The
tax upon the birth of children was revived at a