which it failed to explain. What of intelligent
and economic design could be traced
in the half-dozen bones hidden beneath the
skin of the seal's flapper. Those joints were
useless, and those pieces unavailing. A solid,
single-hinged mass were apparently far more
to the purpose than this difficult complexity
of unused joints. We begin now to see that
the apparent anomalies bear reference to
economy of type, and not of instrument. They
wear the livery of archetypal servitude, they
are the servants of a double wisdom.

Thus, beyond and above the law of design
in creation, stands the law of unity of type,
and unity of structure. No function so
various, no labours so rude, so elaborate, so
dissimilar, but this cell can build up the
instrument, and this model prescribes the
limits of its shape. Through all creation,
the microscope detects the handwriting of
oneness of power and of ordnance. It has
become the instrument of a new revelation
in science, and speaks clearly to the soul as
to the mind of man.

THE NIGHT PORTER.

A GAUNT man in a gaberdine sleeps during
the winter mouths on a mattress placed for him
in a cupboard near the entrance hall of The
Charles in the Oak Inn; which, by right of
him, inscribes upon one of its door-posts, this
charm, indicative of constant business: "A
Night Porter—Always in Attendance."
When I first read the inscription it appeared
to me as odd a confusion between town and
country as "Bill Stickers Beware," on a
banyan tree.

John Pearmaine is the night porter's name.
By day he is half-witted; perhaps he is
on that account shrewder than most people
at night. His only relation, a brother, is an
idiot in the county lunatic asylum; but
the half of his wits left to John enables
him to live at large. He digs and goes
on errands for a market gardener close
by, receiving food for his labour; and, at
rare intervals, a shilling. The poor creature
is homeless; and, in summer time, uses
his master's greenhouses as sleeping rooms;
or, in fine weather, lies amongst the cucumbers,
it being his charge to watch them and
the fruit. He is an exceedingly light sleeper,
and deserves more pay than he receives, for
this part of his service. Should these lines
by any chance come under his master's eye,
let him say, Dowsie (they call John, Dowsie,
which means, in these parts, half-witted—daft,
as the Scotch say), Dowsie shall certainly
be better paid next summer, if he lives to
see it.

Some years ago the life of this afflicted
outcast must have been very distressful in
the winter season. There was no fruit to be
watched, and little work provided by the
market garden. The gardener, indeed, was
not unkind, and the people of the neighbourhood
did not shut up their hearts. He never
felt the want of food except when times were
hard, and then the hand of common charity
among poor people being closed perforce,
Pearmaine took refuge in the workhouse.
But when free during cold weather, the
unhappy creature wandered always in no little
uncertainty as to the whereabout of the
good Christian who would next open to him
a barn or an outhouse for the night, or generously
welcome him to a warm horsecloth
and the right of lying down before the ashes
of the house-place fire.

The railway station claiming to belong to
the next town, lands passengers at the
distance of about a mile from it; and, on the
roadside between town and station, stands The
Charles in the Oak. Passengers to and from
the trains go by the door of this modest inn,
in omnibuses, which unite the railway to the
Biffin's Arms Hotel. All the nightwork
that the railway brought us, in the first year
after its establishment—and a pretty piece of
work the landlady considered that—was
caused by one passenger from the mail
train passing at four in the morning, who,
having missed or scorned the omnibus,
knocked up the house for a glass of hot
gin-and-water; and even this customer appears
to have regarded the demand as a mere passing
joke. But, in the second year of the railway,
nightwork was brought by it to The
Charles in the Oak, in the shape of a gang—mine
host considers that it must have been a
gang, comprising the select of London
burglars—who broke into it; and, without
disturbing a mouse, stole from the bar six
teaspoons, a rummer (vulgarly known as a
tumbler); a crown punch-bowl, several hareskins,
a dish of mutton-chops, and a pepper-castor.
The rest of the glass was fortunately
locked up in a chimney cupboard, and the
bulk of the plate was under the host's bed;
where it is always kept of nights. I take
for granted that no London burglars are
among the readers of the journal which
contains this revelation.

After the burglary, both landlady and
chambermaid expressed, after dark in winter
time, unusual alarm. A house-dog was, for
their satisfaction, turned loose in the passages
at night; but he kept the whole establishment
awake for a month, chambermaid informs
me, by continual howling. Then, every one
who tells the history claims for himself or
herself the merit—which belongs truly, I think,
to the ostler—of having brought into discussion
the superiority of such a watch-dog as
poor Dowsie John. It would be Christian
charity, said that somebody, to give him
settled lodging in the winter, and he was so
light a sleeper that the footfall of a cat would
wake him up as surely as the biggest
gun. The only fault to be found with him
as a watcher, was that, if some tales were
true, he had been known once or twice to
say that he had heard and seen such things as