see one. Neither could the ensign; and this
seemed to us very odd. We did not know
that it requires practice to see all that the
human eye may perceive out at sea. A
neighbour, old Glassford, of long experience, was
called; and he declared me to be right,
owning that he doubted whether any eyes in
the place but mine would have found out the
fourth sail, without being told where to look.
The officers praised my eyesight, and said
they must take me into the service; and
then, if I would tell them when Bonaparte
was coming, they would fight him for me. I
had never heard the name at full length
before; and while I was puzzling about it,
Glassford ventured to correct the officers,
telling them that he supposed they came from
some way inland, but that we on the coast,
who must know best about the enemy, called
him Bony. The officers laughed, and hoped
the wise men on the coast would fight him as
well as the soldiers, whatever they called him.
They asked me if I would have a little red
coat, and enter the service; to which I
answered that I had something else to do
than to go amongst people who could not see
what was before their eyes.

"What have you to do? Do you catch
fish ?"

"To be sure I do."

"Does she ?" they asked of our neighbour.

"A little matter of shrimping, perhaps," he
said, with a patronising smile.

The officers asked me if I would get some
shrimps for their breakfast the next morning.
As the tide would serve, I readily promised
to do so. They desired me to bring them to
the barracks alive, because they did not want
curious shrimps that were caught ready
boiled. We might be very clever in catching
red lobsters; but they preferred the blue
sort, and shrimps all alive. By this I knew
that the soldiers had put them on their guard
against us.

They afterwards examined every cottage on
the outside, and asked some questions about
the stones on the beach, and the rocks above.
They borrowed a hammer, and knocked off
some bits of the rock. They made faces at
the dell behind, but asked for a spade, and,
with their own hands, dug a spit here and
there. They counted the men and boys in
the place; or, rather, they tried to do so, but
could get no true answers—so afraid were we
all that they were somehow connected with
the pressgang. They were exceedingly
surprised to find that we knew no more about
Dunridge and its people than if the town had
been a hundred miles off. They pitied the
townspeople for having no fish, and ordered
some for their own table. Their chief surprise,
however, was to find that we had no
vegetables, except when a cargo of potatoes
now and then came by sea. As we had none
ourselves, we could not help them to any.
Certainly, their notions of things were very
different from ours; so much so, that as soon
as they were out of hearing, my mother and
the neighbours agreed that they wished those
might be real British soldiers, after all, and
not some sort of pressgang, or people belonging
to Bony. As for me, I felt as if something
great was going to happen. I got my mother
to mend our shrimping net, and tumbled into
bed, with plenty of marsh slime between my
toes, and a head somewhat troubled with
wonder as to whether the officers would buy
my shrimps, and let me come home again, or
whether they would put on me a little red
coat, and make me stand all day long on the
rocks, to look out for sails, and tell when
Bony was coming.

MR. BUBS ON PLANETARY
DISTURBANCES.

ALTHOUGH Lord Rosse's telescope will never
let us put a man in the moon again, yet we
may fancy one in the sun, without much fear
of the six feet reflector reaching him; and,
having got him there, all the telescopes in the
world cannot prevent us from calling him
Mr. Bubs, and making him an inquisitive,
patient, pains-taking mortal, endowed with an
odd fancy for always being able, when he
opens his eyes, to look for anything he wishes
to see in the exact place in which it is,
whether it has moved since he went to sleep,
or not.

The very first thing, then, that Mr. Bubs
does, when fairly settled in his new home, is
to look about him; but, like many others,
his wonder and attention are given entirely
to things far distant; he cares very little for
any object, however curious, which is close at
hand; and cannot be made to see anything
worth admiring in that with which he is
familiar.

Instead, then, of examining the sun as he
ought to do, and telling us something about
it, he falls to wondering what all those lights
are which are moving round him in the ring,
a good way off.

Now, Mr. Bubs being a bold man at a
theory, fancies these must be the Solar Policemen
going their rounds; that it is the bulls'-eyes
of their lanterns which he sees, and that
they are walking behind one another (though
in rather a disorderly manner) on that which,
in his earthly school-days he was taught to
call " the ecliptic plane." One light attracts
his attention very much; for it has a slight
reddish tinge in it, and Mr. Bubs concludes,
that although it is certainly not the biggest,
yet the distinction in colour marks it as the
Superintendant of the Solar Police with his
lantern and bull's-eye. Singling him from
the rest, he watches him going his rounds,
and calls him Mars.

Mars appears to walk on with a steady pace
in a circle round the sun; and, after a moderate
lapse of time, to return to the place
where he first set out. Mr. Bubs, before
composing himself for a nap after his long watch,