"Are you all ready, boys?" said Columbanus,
turning to the six young gentlemen.

"All right!" answered King Childebert.
"The moment your lordship gives the word
of command, there will be six arrows sticking
in the six gizzards of the six ugly giants."

"Make ready! present! fire! " said the
bishop.

Whizz went the arrows! and then there
was a screech heard, such as there has not
been the like of, since the Danes were
slaughtered by Brian Boroihme at Clontarf. At
the very instant the six giants were struck
with the arrows they were turned into six
round towers. And there they remain to this
very day, for all the world who will take the
trouble to go down to Lehon to look at them.

"That is a good day's work I have done
already," said Columbanus. "I have put my
mark upon seven merciless, murdering
miscreants, and they will bear it for centuries to
come; but not in the same way. For the
giants are killed outright, whilst Count Canao
will be hundreds upon hundreds of years in
dying. There will be a bit of life left in every
stone of the tower that belongs to him; and
when, at last, that tower decays away, his
doom is, that those stones shall never be used
for any other purpose than to build pig-sties.
And, now, King MacLaw, how do you feel?"

"As happy as a lord," answered the king,
joyfully.

"But not half as happy as you shall be
before you put on your night-cap; nor a bit
more happy than you deserve to be. Here,"
said the saint, "bring out the king's six
daughters until I marry them at once. It
wants still ten minutes to seven, and before
the clock strikes—I swear by my mitre!—I
will marry every one of the girls to every
one of the fine, able, dashing, handsome,
young fellows that have come here along
with me."

The bishop kept his word. In ten minutes
all the king's daughters were married; and
in forty minutes afterwards there were bonfires
lighted on the tops of the seven new
towers of the old fortification on the hill,
and those seven new towers, were as you well
know, nothing else than the stony bodies of
the red-bearded Count Canao, and his friends
the six Pagan giants.

"You have done your work well," said the
king to the saint, as he lighted his lordship
to bed. "And, in order that I may not be
behind-hand with you, I intend to keep my
lord-chancellor and my treasurer up the
entire night writing like two law-clerks
making out a grant of all the lands you have
looked upon to-day, and conferring them
upon your lordship, so that you may, in
remembrance of your own virtuous deeds
this day, and for the good of others, and the
benefit of my poor soul, build a monastery in
Lehon."

"And I'll do that same," said the bishop.

And he did it.

And, to show how true all this is, there
are to be seen to this day the ruins of the
monastery by the river-side; and, in the
crumbling towers on the hill, the decaying
remains of the six giants of Lehon.

MY FRIEND'S FRIEND.

Next to our friend's relatives,—whom we
never saw, and trust we never shall see—
next to his father, who is a military person
of distinguished appearance, and the most
heroic character, and who ought to have
been knighted by his sovereign; next to his
mother, who is a woman of queenly dignity
and a star in fashionable spheres; next to
his brothers and sisters, who are all charming
people it seems, and possessed of the cardinal
and other virtues, besides property in the
three per cents; next to our friend's relatives,
we repeat, of whom he is constantly relating
some eulogistic and extraordinary anecdotes
we dislike, and are utterly weary of, our
friend's friend.

If death were a likely thing to separate
him from us, we should cordially wish that
the family vault, after  receiving all our
friend's relatives, might have a spare corner
comfortably filled up by our friend's friend
also; but we are very well aware that we
should not get rid of him by any such
method. Anything like a happy release in
the obituary sense is not to be expected of
our friend's friend. Even in his ashes would
not only live his wonted fires, but our friend
would probably take advantage of his decease
to be the more commendatory and Boswellian.
He would not edit his Life and Remains, and
there have done with him, but he would go
about like a walking cenotaph, celebrating to
everybody, everywhere, the wonderful
properties of his great departed. There would
also be a sort of indelicacy in questioning
the wisdom or virtue of the man, being dead,
which we are certainly very far from feeling
under the present circumstances. It is certainly
better that he should live, but live as
he shall do after the publication of this paper,
attached to the dead walls in popular places,
like carrion on a barn-door, pilloried in the
largest type on every pillar—our Friend's
Friend!

If we could only get to know him
personally, all would be well; we would then
either insist upon his retailing his own
stories, boasting of his own achievements, and
in every particular discharging the duties of
his own trumpeter; or—better still—we
would pick a quarrel with him, engender a
coolness, and decline to have his name
mentioned in our presence so long as we live.
Unfortunately, however, and singularly
enough, mortal eye, save that of our friend
has (as far as we know) never yet seen his
majestic proportions,—nor mortal ear, save
that of our friend, yet listened to his fascinating
tones. Copious extracts from his letters;