and curiosities" which we had just been
examining. They made me aware of how much
I had lost, chiefly by means of the talk which
they held one with another as we rowed through
the smooth waters of Alum Bay.

"Ah, Benjamin," remarked Robinson, the
stroke, looking over his shoulder at his
companion as he spoke, "the gen'leman's been
unlucky. If we'd ha' had a smoother day, we might
ha' rowed in at them caves of Neptune, as we've
done afore now," with a glance in my direction
—"rowed in at the great cave, and come out of
the small one; but it's the wrong sort of day."

"Ah," replied the individual thus addressed,
"you're about in the rights of it there. Wrong
sort of day, and wrong time of year. Why, if
the gen'leman had been here a little earlier, say
the end of May or the beginning of June, he'd
ha' seen that bit of rock at the Main Bench all
alive with birds — cormorants and puffins, and
all the rest of 'em, let alone the
samphire-gatherers hanging all over the cliffs by their
ropes, and that's worth seeing, that is."

           ENGRAVED ON STEEL.

BUNGLEBUTT, the great Bunglebutt, member
of parliament for the flourishing town
of Lower Pighurst, has come out decidedly
strong this time! Bunglebutt, at any time, is
an awfully knowing blade; a regular Adam Smith
over the nation's wealth collectively, and over
his own wealth individually.

Bunglebutt — who has been returned by a
majority of nine hundred and ninety-nine of the
most enlightened of Lower Pighurst, to serve
in the imperial parliament — is admitted, on all
hands, to be up to a thing or two; his grasp
over the mysteries of political economy is so
tremendous, and his appetite for statistics
is so alarming, that ever since he came out
with his exhaustive pamphlet, "What will
Britannia do when her last shovel of coals
has been put on the fire?" not only the Lower
Pighurstians to a man, woman, and child, but
the political economists and the most cunning
staticians in all parts of the kingdom have
combined to consider the great Bunglebutt as a
match for any two chancellors of the exchequer,
one down and the other come on. Yet, all
this is nothing to what the great Bunglebutt
has since done on the momentous coal question.
Bunglebutt is, himself, a great manufacturer,
and consumes no end of tons of coals
every week. Our daily increasing consumption
of coals so rankles in his heart that he sees the
day when it will be all up with England and
her coals, together. To avert this stupendous
calamity, the mighty mind of the far-seeing
Bunglebutt has been hard at work, both in and
out of parliament, until the interesting result
has been the production of his truly stunning
work, "Our empty Coal-cellars, and What's to
fill them?"

Only think! A book on the great coal question
consisting of one thousand and one closely
printed pages, filled from beginning to end with
a never-ending variety of statistical tables, from
which even the most hungry statician can
appease his appetite to his heart's content!

Only think! Twenty-one editions one
thousand each — of "Our empty Coal-cellars, and
What's to fill them?" devoured in the short space
of twenty-one days, by twenty-one thousand
admiring political economists and stunned
staticians, each and every one of whom talked
himself clean out of breath to twenty-one more
almost driven-mad political economists and
stunned staticians who had not been fortunate
enough to make a purchase of "Our empty
Coal-cellars, and What's to fill them?"

Nevertheless, twenty-one editions, of one thousand
copies each, demolished in twenty-one
days, is not half enough to satisfy the craving
of the public upon this home-touching topic.
All heads (especially the thickest and hardest)
are filled with Bunglebutt. The fame of
Bunglebutt resounds everywhere — morning,
noon, and night. Every twenty-four hours
the name of Bunglebutt turns up in every
column of every morning and evening newspaper,
no matter what may be its price or its
political colour. Then who can wonder that
the twenty-second and much-augmented edition
of "Our empty Coal-cellars, and What's to fill
them?" has gone to press?

But at the last moment, when the panting
public are almost at the point of frenzy lor this
twenty-second and much-augmented edition,
the splendid idea strikes somebody that it
should be adorned with a portrait of the great
Bunglebutt, "beautifully engraved upon steel,
in the highest style of art."

Jolterhead, the eminent photographic artist
of Lower Pighurst, who has accomplished no
end of cartes de visite of the mighty Bunglebutt
in every possible pose — sometimes with his left
foot thrown over his right foot, with his hat in
his right hand, and sometimes with his left hand
upon his left hip, and his hat upon the table,
against which he rests gracefully — has just
accomplished a great triumph, in the shape of a
large portrait of Bunglebutt. Hence the splendid
idea of somebody — perhaps the immortal
Bunglebutt himself — that "Our empty Coal-cellars,
and What's to fill them?" should hereafter be
delivered to the panting public embellished with
this photographic portrait of the great Bunglebutt,
"beautifully engraved upon steel, in the
highest style of art."

The dreadful consequence of this "at the
last moment" determination is, that Pickpeck,
the engraver, is sent for, and is comrnandingly
requested to engrave upon steel the portrait of
Bunglebutt in the "highest style of art,"
from a muzzy and black-as-your-hat photograph,
as quick as "a flash of lightning." There
is no help for it; the public are panting for the
twenty-second and much-augmented edition of
"Our empty Coal-cellars, and What's to fill
them?" The book is ready to go to the binder. It
is, therefore, Pickpeck, the stipple engraver, the
dawdling Pickpeck, who alone keeps, as it were,
the cellar-door of publication shut up, and
simply because he cannot engrave, "in the