dissonant scream. This was only when the noise
became absolutely intolerable, or when more
than the average number of personal encounters,
engaging themselves at the same time, threat cued
to attract interference from without. For,
strange to say, Cocky liked the disturbance,
and sent his scholars rioting up the tree of
knowledge in such sort, that, could strife and
clamour have done it, not a leaf would have
been left unplucked upon that glorious stem.
As it was, I am afraid, many got serious falls,
and didn't try again.

Barrow Brown was another of my allies. In
accordance with what seemed to be the prevailing
custom, I had been in the habit of accosting
him as "Barrow" for some time before I made
the discovery that his name was not at all
"Barrow," but, on the contrary, Job. His
history was singular in some respects, pathetic .
Job, otherwise Barrow, Brown, was the victim
of an unfortunate misconception, which, in
costing him his good name, supplied him with
another that stuck to him for life.

Job's mission, from the cradle, was the doing
little odd jobs. Early manhood surprised him
still engaged in this interesting and varied but
not very lucrative employment—engaged,
moreover, to a young lady whose name, for a
wonder, was not Brown, and who, much to
Job's discomfiture, exhibited considerable
reluctance to make it so. She was the daughter
of a somewhat haughty fishmongar of the next
village, and was considered by her friends to
have acted unadvisedly in plighting her very
capricious troth to a man in Job's position.
With a patience worthy of his name, the poor
young fellow endured for a long period such
tortures as only a spoiled village beauty can
inflict, to perfection, upon her devoted Damon
or Silvius. It is possible he would have brought
matters to a crisis with his Adina precisely as
did Nemorino—by "listing," in accordance
with the advice of a friend, recruiting-sergeant
Dick Brown—but fpr the solemn promise of
his mistress, cemented with a broken sixpence,
of which each possessed half, that nothing
short of some great misconduct of his own
should annul the pledge she had given him.
Upon this Job lived. This, in his own words,
"kep' him straight." For this he abjured the
blandishments of the Brown Bear, was a
stranger to the good dry skittle-ground, and
subscribed (without any definite object, except
that it looked and sounded steady) to the
village burial club.

These precautions were of no avail. In a
fatal hour, Job's evil genius threw in his way
an odd job which involved a barrow. Little
thought poor Job, when he borrowed Stephen
Brown's, and trundled merrily away, that he
was wheeling his godfather! The day was hot,
the burden heavy. Job halted, for a minute, at
a roadside beer-house. He had a pot of beer—
a whole pot. He had another. A friend appearing,
Job generously ordered a third, whereof
the pair partook, and also of two more.

The result is singular, and, for a very long
period, was enveloped in an impenetrable cloud
of mystery. The load, of whatever it consisted,
was delivered in safety, but the barrow returned
no more. Mr. Brown was seen, late that evening,
staggering in the direction of his home,
persistently stopping every passer-by in order to
secure their testimony (in case of need) that he
was perfectly sober, or, as he himself expressed
it, "all right." But he made no mention of
the barrow.

The owner did, for the barrow was new, and,
singularly enough (so, at least, it was affirmed
in the village), Stephen Brown, in the visions
of the night, had seen the apparition of his
barrow, the wheel wanting, lifting a broken
leg, as if in mute appeal for vengeance! His
worst fears were conlirmed, when Job, in
confusion, blurted out certain vague and utterly
irreconcilable statements, and finally declared that
he could remember nothing at all about it.
From this position nothing could dislodge him.
At length his neighbour, losing all patience,
avowed his conviction that Job had either
maltreated the barrow in the diabolical
manner suggested in the dream, or converted it
into beer. Job indignantly repudiated both
theories, but being unprepared with a better,
an appeal was made to the law, when Mr.
Brown limited himself to the same line of
defence, namely, that he could remember nothing
about it.

Whether the jury—of whom several were
Browns—imagined that the barrow might have
risen upon Job at an unguarded moment, and,
having knocked him down insensible, absconded,
cannot be known. At all events, they acquitted
him, and Job—henceforward Barrow, or Barrer
—Brown, returned home a whitewashed
man. But this process of cleaning is not
always satisfactory. Whitewash will come off,
and people who are particular eschew a too
frequent and intimate acquaintance with it. So it
was with poor Job. He was declared by his
country, upon which he had put himself, innocent
—but the barrow remained unaccounted for.
A shadowy suspicion still followed, and naturally
followed, the individual last seen in its
company; and the surname of Barrer, which
originally meant no slur, got at last to convey
a hint that Job was not so stainless as the
verdict of an enlightened jury had pronounced
him.

Let those who delight in expatiating upon
the trusting character of woman's love, blush
to hear that this illiberal opinion was endorsed
by Job's mistress. He was informed by her
proud sire, in a letter that had a strong aroma
of periwinkles, that his Dorter regarded their
engagement as at an end.

From this epoch dated the decline and fall
of Job. One feeble effort he did make to preserve
his steadiness, and to rehabilitate himself
in public esteem. He rented a little shop—or
rather shop-window—in the character of "Job
Brown, Fruiterer and Fishmonger," but, the
stock-in-trade being represented by three wrinkled
and venerable pears in a saucer, and a small