robber taking all the cash he can find. In
return Lowel recommends him to listen at
the keyhole while he fires a pistol out of
the window. The three guests, hearing the
report, believe all is over, and begin to
talk. One observes that Lady Belfast
can now marry her cousin Henry; the
other, that Belfast will not hear of the
bankruptcy of his banker, Simon Maidel;
and the third, the Doctor, that Belfast
was getting fat, and would probably have
died of apoplexy.

On hearing these unpleasant truths, the
M.P. in a rage vows vengeance against the
cousin Henri, the banker, and the doctor, and
is determined " to incrust himself in life."
He gives Lowel two thousand pounds to
receive him into his band, and sets out at
once. Descending by a rope to the robbers'
boat, he proceeds to the burglars' house of call,
"Hotel Albany, Regent Street." Arrived
there, after shaving off his whiskers by way
of disguise, the Honorable Belfast signs a
greasy parchment of partnership, presented
by Lowel to the gentleman.

The Honorable Mr. Belfast passes the
following eight nights in ditches, or in rushing
across fields, guided by the signals of robber
spies. At the end of that time Lowel
presents him with his share of the spoil, nothing
less than seventy-five thousand pounds in
bank-notes; and insists, in spite of the M.P.'s
excuses, that he shall accompany him to the
Queen's theatre. There he makes him pick
the pocket of Lord Kendal, one of his
parliamentary colleagues. Lowel seizes on the stolen
handkerchief, spreads it out like the mizen
sail of a frigate, and blows his nose until
every one stares. The Honorable B. rushes
out of the theatre, leaving his hat and cloak
behind, and flies to the robbers' den in
Regent Street. As soon as the bandit
returns, the M.P. exclaims:

"Lowel, you are a monster, and I am the
most unhappy man in the world."

"Say you so? " cries the robber chief. " Do
you mean it?"

Then follows an explanation, from which
it turns out that Lowel is no other
than his cousin Henry, captain of a
merchant ship, and no robber; that the whole
affair has been a farce performed by the
three friends and the captain in order to
cure the Honorable Belfast of his suicidal
tastes.

The last specimen of an eccentric' Englishman
is the baronet James Turner, who on
the fifteenth of June, eighteen hundred and fifty-
one, at a quarter-past one oclock A.M., was
pacing the deck of the floating lighthouse off
Holyhead, dressed in a mackintosh jacket
with a sorway, whatever that may be, on
his head, followed by four deerhounds,
Yeoman, Snowball, and Selkirk. The baronet
had been a month keeper of the floating lights
at a salary of thirty pounds a year.
Disappointed affection had driven him into this
artificial solitude. He had fallen in love
with Miss Mary, a beauty such as Lawrence
loved to draw, the sister of Sir George
Peebles, who lived near him in the island
of Anglesey.

Sir James was young, handsome, and rich,
but always too late. After thinking of
making his offer for two years, he made up
his mind at midnight; but, considering that
hour unreasonable for popping the question,
he adjourned it until the next day. The
next day, as he was dressing for the purpose,
the pilot of his yacht came to tell him of a
wonderful shoal of sardines. We certainly
were not aware that sardines travelled so far
north. Taking it for granted that Sir George,
who had also been summoned, would meet
him at sea where the offer could be made
more pleasantly, James Turner went on
board his sloop. Unfortunately, the shoal of
sardines made away for the Frith of Solway,
the lover following, and was rolled about three
times twenty-four hours before he cast anchor
in his own port. The first person he met on
the jetty was the valet of Sir George Peebles,
who told him that his master had left for
Cumberland, where his sister was about to
marry Sir Edward, son of the celebrated
Major Hogsen.

Of course, James Turner's first idea was a
strong dose of chlorhydrate of morphine; but
his honor's family apothecary refused to
supply the article. After a course of
metaphysical reasoning, Sir James applied for and
obtained the post of light-keeper, where,
solitary as Robinson Crusoe, he fished or shot
gulls in the day, lighted the lamps at night,
read, smoked, and drank flowing bowls of gin
punch.

On the fifteenth of June, the baronet
was as drunk as Falstaff; and, walking on
deck to sober himself, he was disturbed
from his misanthropical meditations by his
dogs chasing and slaying an unfortunate
rat in the hold. James took a pair of
tongs; and, laying hold of the dead rat,
climbed to the deck to throw it overboard,
when he started back on seeing Sir George
Peebles, Miss Mary, and an unknown
gentleman, leaning against the starboard
bulwarks.

"My friend," cried Georges, not recognising
Sir James, " help us to put our provisions on
board—our boat is alongside."

The young lord (it will be observed that
Sir James is turned into a lord) blushed red
as a cabbage at being caught rat in hand,
and first threw it, pincers and all, overboard;
then, pulling the mysterious sorway over
his eyes, he cried, in a disguised voice, " You
must return to your boat; the regulations
of the Admiralty forbid me to receive
strangers."

But the strangers decline to cross the
stormy waters; and, while they are talking,
their boat is carried away. Mutual recognition