Englishman was confident. I will repeat
what he said:—

"'The discoverer of that island was Robert
Machin, my countryman. Robert Machin, a
bold adventurer, won the love of Anne Arfet,
the daughter of a Bristol merchant. His suit
was rejected by the father; but Robert
married her, and carried her off in his ship.
They were bound for the Mediterranean, but
missed their course. Their vessel foundered
in the Atlantic; Machin and his wife were
saved. They reached the wooded island,
which you Portuguese have named Madeiro.
They abode there three or four years; in
utter solitude, but contented and happy. The
wife, then, sickened and died. They had a
little boy; but Robert could not endure that
loneliness, and he dreaded now, that he might
die, and that the boy should perish. He
resolved to leave the island as he had come to
it. He stowed his boat with chesnuts, and
with fish dried in the sun the food on which
he and his wife had always subsisted. It was
a calm season, and he made good way. Off
the coast of Morocco an English ship picked
him up. I was the mate of that ship. Poor
fellow! his toil and his grief had been too
much for him. He died in a few weeks—his
boy was my charge. I was little use to him,
for we were soon taken by a rover, and carried
into Fez. I wish I could meet with that
orphan boy. But that will never be!'"

Anna Zarco blushes and trembles:—"I
know the rest. You were that little boy;
and this island is your inheritance, and not
my father's discovery."

"Keep my secret, Anna. I love your
father, and would not rob him of an atom of
his honour."

Anna Zarco does not keep the secret from
her father, who is a just man, and not
unmindful of his daughter's happiness.

Juan de Moralès does not return to Lisbon.

In a few years there is a pretty cottage, and
a vineyard in the "Corral," where, not far
from the tomb of stones, dwell other Machins,
John and Anne, whose shadows are pleasant
to look on.

A GREAT IDEA.

"SHOULD this meet the eye of any gentlemen
or ladies who are stouter or thinner,
taller or shorter, stronger or weaker, hungrier
or more abstemious than the generality of
people, by addressing Podgy Dick, to the
care of Mr. Backer, Flute and Fidgets, Liverpool,
they may hear of something to their
advantage."

I am Podgy Dick. My height is five foot
four, and I have a decided tendency to
corpulence. Not having prospered in the world
up to the present time,—having, in fact,
slipped down from a respectable condition
owing to circumstances over which, it is
needless to say, I had no control,—I am
desirous of going into some business which
requires no capital, and returns a certain
income. With this view I have answered
several advertisements in the Times, and been
informed in reply that my fortune was to be
made by taking lessons in handwriting, or
learning how to make wax flowers. I've
my doubts. At any rate I declined to assure
myself a fortune by such means, and after
much reflection I decided that my safest way
to wealth was greatness. England rewards
with money her great men. I do not mean
such shadowy great men as your lean scholars,
your poets, and your naturalists, but real
substantial greatness, of the Lambert sort.

Having a tendency, as I have said, to
corpulence, it occurred to me to feed myself.
I am convinced that a man may, if he has
proper perseverance, fatten himself for a
show, and being once so fortunate as to
become a show, nothing, methought, would
remain for me but to establish a pay box at
my door, to sit at home and let the capital
flow into my pocket of its own accord; some
trifle being of course paid to a literary man
for handbills. Food is unhappily expensive,
and when I had eaten through my credit
without much consequent increase of bulk, I
saw no other hope for myself than to borrow
five shillings for the publication of the
advertisement above written in a country paper.
Having paid for it once I opened an account,
and caused the advertisement to be repeated
four or five times. My design was to establish
a community of fat men, living skeletons,
giants, dwarfs, strong men, hungry men,
fasters, cripples, and deformed men; and to
establish with them, on participating terms,
a Grand Combined Entertainment, at the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which is now,
luckily for my design, to let. The numerous
answers to my advertisement proceeded
exclusively from hungry men who were
desirous of hearing anything to their
advantage.

I wish now, again to call the attention of
all persons suffering from curious bodily
affliction to my plan, to point out its
advantages, and to define the sort of people that
I want.

I hear it said, that owing to the increase of
civilisation and its humanising influence, the
number of the vulgar who are to be depended
upon for paying a shilling to stare at an
affliction is very much decreased. I do not
know. It may be so, but the little fellow
humorously called General Tom Thumb, was
a great favourite for his smallness, and grew—
if growth may be named in reference to the
poor atomy—quite proud of his bodily defect.
It was not an affliction but a boast to him;
and if it gratified the pride of people who
have not much consciousness of mind, to
compare bodies to their own advantage with
a poor monster, why should they not? How
can the monster be called poor who is paid
for showing himself, whose mind is pampered
by admiration, and trained up into a vain