And thus, sir, mysticated in that horrid greasy
rug, with a visage nearer in tinting to a cast-off
pair of old top-boots than my own natural
bloom, I went back in my mind, when my
toilette (assisted by lordly evasions) never
entered the room without a buzz of emulation,
even from others less circumstantiously
advantageous in their position than "my Lord
Timothy," erst my playful name. I was
called back to the stern hour of life. "Mr.
Theodule," said Mr. Bloxome, laying down
his crayon-pencil, and staring as if he
could see nothing, "this will not answer. It
wants concentratiousness. A prophet has
nothing to do with rounded contores, but should
be Biblical and broad and mysterious with
instinct reverence. You aim at Italian. Think
of the truth of custom and climate, of the
splendid and noble plains of the glowing East,
Mr. Theodule. Concentrate, will you!" And
Mr. Bloxome set to and sighed and sniffed
again.

Instead, I bit my tongue with the patience of
a camel, and turned up my eyes in an attempt
at the ecstasy requested.  Too Italian, I re-
peat, Mr. Theodule," was my thanks from that
pragmatic tyrant. Judge, sir, if I did not rove
home that day with daggers in my bosom where
gentle passions had till now been solely tenants
at will.

"Mrs. Wignett," said I, when we was solo,
"if them Tobago Tubulant Dividends does not
turn up at a proximate quarter, I know them
as shall cut and run, and not cut and come
again."

Such, sir, is a bare cymbal and type of what
I abode for a week to come. Every day Mr.
Bloxome sighed and sniffed more and more, till
at last, one Friday, the twenty-sixth, "Mr.
Theodule," said he, "this will never do. No
breadth, no intrusiousness! You are too, far
too Italian."

Patience emerged from her monument. I
bounced up from the rock, tipping over the
palm-tree, I am happy to say, which it had been
always groggy (as the low might call it).

"Italian to you Mr. Bloxome! only you will
never reach such: nor even be tuneable or
gracious in the most,minutoust particle. Here I
have been a-slaving and a-grinning myself like
a lonely Arab, and a-twisting my eyes into them
postures regarding the whites as never may be
mitigated right again, for aught I know; and
what for? To be called out of my name by a
imposture that never picture of his was seen in
an aristocratic gallery! No, sir, the Profit
for your money is him of the Dipper's
dissuasion, as preaches on a Windsor chair in the
Parks, till exiled by the police to Cow-cross.
He's square and gashly enough, I hope, even
for Prophets as bad as yourn; and such as him
will sit till December for asking, to any one who
will forestall their visages or canvas against
future posterity. You are a born pair, only
he can out-preach you, and he do not sniff like
a grampus, with a cold in the nostrils. So I
wash this filth off my face, and shake my shoes
in your dust, and say good morning, and good,
good luck to you, Mr. Blockhead—-in return for
your Theodule.

"What's all this row about?" said a jolly
voice, as it entered the tumultuous whirlpool:
"come to see how you are getting on, Bloxome.
What have you got here? A regular Choctaw,
by Jove! Where did you pick him up?"

Passion's progress had ebbed into exhaustion.

"A jackdaw you may well entitle me; and I
hopes I see you well, Mr. Stratford," said I, for
it was that well-known gentleman.

"Hollo, my beauteous Theodore!" (Such had
been my playful appalation among the painters
when they was jocund.) "What's all this row?
That was not you, I hope, I heard bawling
matters to tatters on the stairs? Gad, it was loud
enough for Lear!"

"Mr. Stratford," says I, stung into extraneous
malignity and repartee, "it was not me as
may have been noisy, but the Prophet of
Disobediency, Mr. Bloxome. On receipt of my salary,
sir," said I, turning to that minion as cool as the
Pyramids, and buttoning my coat, "we part
to meet no more on this side the waves of Time.
Good morning."

"Stop, Theodore," said Mr. Stratford, as I
was indulging in an exit of mixed scorn and
impassive candour combined, "an idea strikes
me. I suspect I can put something in your
way. Look in to-morrow."

                     CHAPTER II.

MR. STATFORD, to whom, polished reader,
we now procede, is a gentleman of no common
water;—-one of them as popularises golden
opinions, though, alas! they gathers no moss,
and makes money by their pens. His
antecedents had been neither few nor far between;
but redolent of viccisytude. Natal fortune
had bequeathed paternial wealth to his cradle
of infancy—-also a beauteous form, in heighth,
however, superseding due proportion, being
taller than your humble servant by two inches.
Add to these personate graces a jocund
humour, equal to make him king of his
company, whether high or low, and no matter
where, even to the point of cheering a fleet of
passengers wrecked promiscuous on some bleak
cape in the middle of ocean, with none of their
little comforts about them. And few could
boast his equality to havoc the bosoms of the
fond, credulous fair.

What is life but a toy? a track whose stormy
path even the Crimean sibyl could not decipher.
Succinctly, Mr. Stratford, senior, came to
grief; a more uncordiable and dissolvient
bankruptcy never was put in the papers, so said the
Times. The crisis abstracted Mr. S., junior, from
Oxford (where post-abits attests his studies there
to this day), to buffet the scowls of advercity in
life's tearful vale, and make the best of a hard
bargain.

Shocks is no more than parables to the elastic.
Where the dull herd would have drifted down
to a pining shadow under such a blow, Mr.