in conjureing, or such entertainments as is
thorough-bread."

On which Mr. Stratford let fly, like the last
scene of a tragedy. What he uttered about
false parential indulgencies was as pregnant as
gospel. "Why did they bring me up to
nothing?" he cried again and again, tramping up
and down the room. "Why did they teach me
nothing properly? Yonder is the glass, Theodore.
Open that fresh bottle, fill it, and leave
me to myself. I'm ill; I'm dead beat; I can
do no good or bad to-day."

"Sir," said I, "let humble sympathy assert
her part, if so be you feel low." But I see that
my begging to stay would only make him worse;
so I made believe he was funning me, and left
his home with a heavy heart.

But funning he was not, pleasing reader.
Truth was in these words of his, I have since
submitted, if ever Truth be found at the lower
part of a well (to quote the song). For let
Reason assume her sway, and Amiteurs stand
confest, as making up with make-believe
beyond the adoption of any as must get their
bread, without false miasmas floating round
them. Returning to my own departed station,
I ask you, sir, whose penetrations eye is as
potent as your ridiculous sensation of the
sublime, what would become of your plate—-
I wish with all my heart it was gold—-if
Amiteurs cleaned it? Does one in a thousand
know that rouge gives the best lustre, which is
merely a drop in the bucket as is to be attended
to? And if Plate, why not music and conjureing
tricks, as requires the flight of Time to ripen?
I have heard speak that there is tumblers and
tight-rope dancers as have begun to tumble
before they could talk. Billiards, again, like
Rome, is not built up in a day. But truce to
morality.

In the brooding evening, I gets one of his
quizzical notes from Mr. Stratford, saying as
how he was going to change the air for a few
days, and would write when he came back.
Why did no glooming oracle whisper in my ear,
it was not days so much as nights he meant,
and with whom the nights was spent? Only
them omens is poor useless creatures—-a bad
lot, as has no sense, and is good for nothing till
things has happened.

Yet it was with a heavy heart, as I addicted
myself to arranging the bill agreed—-on premising
as Mr. Stratford, determined to rend every
link as might recall his high connexions, had
died his hair, and was growing a beard, and
had his cards printed as Signor Bello-pietra,
meaning, in Italian, Beautiful Stone. When he
had explained it, "Sir," said I, "here's
something as it should be, not of every one's sort, a
downright duck of a name, I call it, for a gem
of a gentleman."

"Timothy," said he, almost the last time I
ever heard that sweet laugh of his, "take you
care! your wit is getting too extensive."

"Mr. Stratford," was my reply, "good
company only impares them as is weak, as ever I
heard speak of." And the little joke had dropt.
But it rung in my ear, candied reader, all the
while I was penning what was agreed on, as
follows:

              SIGNOR BELLO-PIETRA.
     MYSTERY! UNNATURAL PHYSICS! THE
BARD'S THRILLING SPELL! MUSIC! AND THE
        MUTUAL ANTIQUE GRACES!

Sig. Bello-pietra, with the aid of M. Theodore,
will have the honour of introducing to
Aristocracy, Science, and the Populous Element,
the following unheard-of entertainments.

The Cards of Orientious Sorcery: which Signor
Bello-pietra will enter into any game, with any
cards, and any party, and for any stakes—-his
back turned, and his eyes scrutinously blinded
by a jury of unquestioned ladies—-Sig. B. P.
will call the winning cards.

The Loquacial Table, equal of giving any
information as is requisite by them prepared to
receive. The code of raps to be varied nightly,
and agreed on by Sig. B. P. and them as holds
stall tickets. N.B. No spirituous pretences
adduced as the medium.

Twenty Minutes with Choice Authors: Take
Heed how you Walk, by a Proverbious
Philosopher. The Song of the Chemise, and Blow
Bugle, by the Loriot (with royal permission),
also a scene from Little Dorrit, with a mute
tableau by Mr. Theodore, D.B.—-D.C.—-D.E.F.
of home and foreign academys.

Song, Come out of the Harbour my only
Anne (thirteenth edition), executed by Signor
Bello-pietra with a guitar, who will afterwards
perform the Cornet Polka on the cornet.

           To CONCLUDE WITH

Diana and Erasmus the Fawn (see Homer's
Commentaries), gesticulated in six pictures from
Pompey's ruins by Signor Bello-pietra—-no
Fawn of analogous height!) being in Sculptores
nomenclator—-assisted by Mr. Theodore, whose
personation of the Virgin Monarch has elicited
testimonials from the most authoritative sources
as chaste and tearful—-which no other Diana has
been anything but a PALTRY IMITATION.

         GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS QUEEN!
                                  AND
                          COME EARLY!!!

You will join me, honoured sir, that here was
a bill; I panted for Mr. Stratford's return,
secure of approvial beaming from his jovial
features. But a week ebbed, nine days, ten,
and dead silence boded over all. On the
eleventh—-if there was ever a stuffy Sunday
evening, and all the West-end like a stuffy
Simoon, that Sunday was that Sunday.
Expectation could no longer brook. To the well-
known chambers did my throbbing heart repair,
and without parly admitted (no common favour
to Mr. Stratford's visitors, if otherwise than
apinted), and asked to wait for an instant in
the outer room.

I had but sate a moment or so, when a
cataract of terror seized me in its scorching gripe;
and expectation's beaming spell was broken by