osity need not be gratified so far) the exact price he put upon the two heaps? Suffice it to say that, whilst he seemed to offer too little for Jack's commodities, and more than we had expected for mine, the two sums together were more than we had anticipated we should be able to raise between us. He had just the sum, to a sixpence, that he should be glad to give for Jack's. Could we change him a note? No, I could not. Could Jack? I asked with a gravity and sincere look of doubtful inquiry which, considering that I was well aware his worldly goods in money were at that moment represented by a fourpenny-bit, were deserving of all praise. No; Jack had nothing but notes, he was sorry to say. Oh, it did not matter, our customer said; he would go home for change. And as they were a heavy lot, he would pay for Jack's, take them with him, and then return for mine, bringing the money. He would be back in ten minutes at most. Be it so.

At the end of the ten minutes we looked out for our friend. No knock. Ten minutes more: no knock, no sign. Jones would return directly. Jones returned. We told him he might have another halfhour. No Jew. Jones would be back again directly. Jones was back again; and my old clothes still lay on the bed. Light began to dawn upon me light began to dawn upon Jack; and we both fell a-laughing violently.

"Clear as mud; the high-flavoured old sinner has got my clothes for much less than their value, and has not the slightest intention of returning for yours. Sold, by the Lord Harry!"

"Sold, beyond a question; law laughed at in its own especial sanctuary of Pump Court. Bah! you muff!" I added; "did you not see through it the whole time? I did." (Never had I uttered more impudent falsehood.) "I knew you were being sold. I am not sold. I have my clothes yet."

"Then sell 'em!" shouted Jack, striving to imitate my coolness. "Sell 'em. Sold, indeed! Who's sold? Not your clothes, but you! See through it? I should think I did see through it; but with different eyes to yours, you young greenhorn! I saw that he was giving a fair price for mine; and I was not going to raise a question, because I saw he did not intend to buy yours at all. Why, who would buy them? Look at 'em!" And he held them up scornfully. "Only just look at this dress-coat! There isn't a tailor's apprentice in all London would wear such a concern, much less buy it. Sold! Who's sold?" And he rattled the money he had received from the deep old swindler. "Sold, forsooth! You may trot off to Monmouth Street in search of another 'Ole Clo❞ as soon as you like, if you intend to share my cab to Bayswater to-night. Why, I don't believe you have a pair of gloves. Haha-ha!" And again he chinked his shekels.

I felt as though I could not have faced another "Ole Clo"" that day, had the woolsack depended on it. Besides, we had agreed to share between us equally the proceeds of the joint sale. This I pointed out.

"Certainly; but there is no joint sale. You a lawyer! Go and sell your beastly old rags, if you can find an 'Ole Clo" sufficiently sunk in his noble profession to take 'em at a gift. Then we'll divide. You think I'll give you money? Give you money! What for, pray? Shall I pay your fare to Blanche's feet, where I intend to sit the whole evening myself? Pay for gloves, for you to squeeze her hand with! See you damned first. Not such an idiot as that. You can walk, you know; your shoes won't be so very dirty, though it is a devilish muddy day" (he walked to the window). "It's raining faster than ever. Oh, you'll be able to get a 'bus at the top of Chancery Lane; it runs within three-quarters of a mile from Chatterton's; and I know you have sixpence, or had this morning. Then I'm sure you'll be able to rummage out a pair of old whites from those drawers of yours, if you try. I'm off to Piver's for mine."

I knew him of old; how it was his delight to banter any body, but more especially me, in this offhand way. I made sure he would return with a pair of gloves-he knew my size-(seven-and-a-quarter, I beg to state) for me, as well as for himself. He returned about half-past five, and inquired if our things had come from Bond Street.

"No, not yet. But where are my gloves?"

"Your gloves! I know nothing about them. I tell you again, I will be no party to cutting myself out with la belle Blanche. It's nearly time to dine. I don't mind giving you a dinner; but, on my honour, nothing more."

He seemed so thoroughly in earnest, so determined to carry the joke out to its conclusion, that I began to get uncomfortable, and to fear that, if I did not use my wits, I should have either to present myself before Blanche that night in dirty gloves, or not at all. I hastened out. I reached Newcastle Street. Great heavens! All the "Ole Clo"" shops were hermetically sealed: it was after sunset on Friday; it was the Sabbath! Dolt and ass that I was! I slunk back. Jack sate smoking in the easy-chair; he saw it all at a glance. He jumped up, he shouted, he danced, he sang, he screamed, he hissed me with ridicule. He lend me money! he buy me gloves! he take me in his cab! By the beard of Mahomet, never! He would give me a dinner, and he would leave me a shilling or sixpence, rather, for I had one-to go half-price to the Adelphi. He behaved like a perfect fiend. However, I bore it as I best could, and said that, at any rate, I would accept his offer of a dinner. Away we went to the Mitre. I tried to get him into an argument, and so inveigle him into a bet. No. He would contradict me to any amount, but he would not bet a farthing; he who was always betting me ten thousand pounds, and other unimaginable sums, that I, his dear fellow, was wrong altogether. I threatened to order some pastry, to swell the bill, and so spite him; he vowed, if I did, that he would pay his own score only, and leave me to argue my point with the waiter. Never had I seen Jack in such spirits; he actually ran, and made me run, all down Middle Temple Lane, and so to Pump Court.

"Now for the new toggery, and to try on the gloves! No parcel come! It must have come. No clothes from Bond Street-impossible!" Yet so it was. "Oh, they'd be here directly." And he sate down, lit his pipe, and recommenced chaffing me about the nice long walk I should have. It literally rained waterspouts.

It was half-past seven, and no parcel had arrived. It was a quarter to eight, and no parcel had arrived. Jack's spirits began to flag; they sank; he began using abusive language; condemned the whole of the tailor tribe to the torrid under-zone. What the devil was to be done? I didn't know, I said; and what was more, didn't care. Of course, had given up all intention of going, I added; walking to Bayswater, or going in a 'bus, and in dirty gloves, being out of the question. But it seemed to me as if he had not much chance of going either.

This was a skilful blow of mine; it reduced him to nearly my own melancholy level; it made him feel that he was a brother in misery. Such a sensation puts us on our best behaviour: it put Jack on his. All of a sudden he pretended, the humiliated hypocrite, that he never had any intention of persisting in the cruel joke (I know he had), tossed me half-a-sovereign, and said:

"Come, old fellow! let us get into a cab, bowl off to Bond Street and get our things. As it is, it will make us awfully late."

Away we went, as fast as a Hansom could carry us-extra charge for fast driving. Most of the tailors' shops were shut. By Jove, so

was ours!

The man must have "crossed" us, Jack suggested; we must bowl back to the Temple. Just a minute. Stop at Piver's: I must have my gloves. Our cabby drove like a Mississippi steamboat; but it struck the half-hour after eight as we alighted at the Temple Gate. Again we ran; and again-no parcel! We went to all the porters' lodges; at none of them had any thing been left for either of us! My turn had come; my triumph was here.

I brought out my old dress-suit which had so narrowly escaped accompanying Jack's, and quietly, very quietly, began brushing them under his nose. They were brushed. I walked with them towards my bedroom. Suddenly I turned. Would Jack buy them?

"By the gods, I'd fight you for them-I'd tear them from you—if they'd fit me." And then came plentiful curses on tailors, and me, and every body and every thing. He wished he had the beggars there ; he'd the rest of the sentence was inaudible from the bedroom; but what he would have done might be guessed from the awful tilts he was making at the bars with the poker. I came out equipped: I put on my gloves; they fitted me to perfection-not a crease any where. I called Jack's particular attention to this fact. Again he commenced swearing; again he assured me he would have fought me for my clothes, if I had not been such a diminutive beast that he would not be able to get into them. "What!" I exclaimed; "fight me for a coat that a tailor's

would not take at did not be quiet, One of the por

apprentice would not wear, and the lowest 'Ole Clo" a gift!" Again more swearing, and a threat, if I that he would blacken my shirt-front with the tongs. ters knocked; my cab was ready. I believe at that moment Jack Arthington really hated me. When I got into the court, I tapped at the window; he came to it and opened.

"Well, what the deuce now?"

"For half-price at the Adelphi !" I laughed out, and flung in a shilling.

Down-deeper down went the window-a crash of broken glass; and flying after me, as I retreated, came the domestic poker. Too late! I had started for Bayswater.

CHAPTER III.

IT was considerably after ten o'clock when I entered the ballroom. Like all London ballrooms, it was crammed. A savant, fresh from his laboratory, not versed in the terpsichorean habits of our youth, would have supposed, and might have been pardoned for supposing, that he had been taken into the interior of an enormous air-pump, larger than any known to his experience, from which the oxygen had been nearly exhausted, and in which, consequently, the human beings, confined therein for experiment's sake and the dear cause of physical knowledge, were kicking and gasping previously to their approaching dissolution in that uninhabitable void. With much difficulty, and after treading on the toes of three rivals (how I did enjoy it!), I found Blanche. There she was, sitting saucy as ever, dispensing courteous scorn with well-bred impartiality. Still her card-I asked to be allowed to look at it--had but three blanks, two waltzes and a quadrille, singularly separated from each other. She looked at me, and all but shrugged her shoulders, as if she would say, Que veux tu? As though she had said it, I answered: "That and that," pointing to the quadrille and one of the waltzes. "Suppose you limit your demand to one,"-kindly enough uttered,— "the first one ?"

"So it please Miss Chatterton."

Captain Gunter-a man I hated (I did not know him, of course)-— seeing this proceeding, asked for the remaining waltz.

"My card is full, Captain Gunter!"

The Captain looked any thing but military or heroic on receipt of the reprimand. But hundreds of men who have led forlorn hopes, and figured in gazettes, would have slunk away before her glad indifference.

We were waltzing. Well, well; let bellow-mouthed pulpit-orators inveigh, hammer-and-tongs, against the seductions of the dance; let the stiff-collared sticklers for the physical dignity of man grow actually jocular (the dry old sticks!) about "ridiculous capers," "apish antics," and the like; but the seductions are more fascinating than the denunciations are terrible, and the physical conditions under which we come into

the world, and those under which we leave it, are not of so dignified and elevated a character that we need to be very particular as to the figure we cut in the interval. At any rate, if I looked absurd (and I don't care if I did), neither the philosopher with the most starched wristbands that ever scarified hands, nor the loudest preacher that ever devoted whole generations to the devil, could assert as much of Blanche. I know I would not willingly expose either the ascetic morality of the one, or the dignified bearing of the other, to the chance of the yet open waltz. She glided, a very Juno-nay, a Venus vivified. Shall I go into still absurder raptures? To my intense amazement, I found myself asking for this very waltz, on the score of which my enemy the Captain has got so fearfully bitten; but what was my amaze at my asking for it, compared to my amaze at her granting it? She surely could not have kept them for me? impossible. I believe I looked at myself in the glass, to see whether I really had the old coat on or the new one. We danced again.

"And this is my last ?" I said; "your card is full ?"

"No!" she answered, looking at her card, and away from me; "there is one left, the last quadrille."

"And it is mine?"

She looked consent.

What was

Oh, if Jack could have been there! There was a stir in the room; you think it was the supper. Miss Chatterton would go? Thank me, she would. A la bonne heure! Let us go.

the poor beggar doing? was Jack? No, no; it

Oh, my pen! be thou sober, even if thy master was not quite in that state on the night of the eighteenth of December, A.D. 1842. Siccis Deus omnia dura proposuit, we are assured on the best authority: is it that, on the converse principles, to those flushed with wine all things are easy? To that opinion I strongly incline, and hereby recommend all who have to put the previous question (I mean no reference to the House of Commons), to have a tooth taken out, or to make (or hear) a speech, to prime themselves beforehand with potent drinks. Without their help, the most eloquent man-experto crede (you see I am not naturally modest) will discover, when he comes to declare for how long a time he has nursed, &c., and struggled, &c. (never mind the rest), that all his eloquence has deserted him. Half a bottle of champagne will give him a marvellous lift; a whole one will make him irresistible. I had had a couple of bottles; and so urged, did I let my starling out of its cage. What it said or sung, shall no one know; of this only shall they be informed, that I danced the next quadrille with Blanche, and - Et puis? Et puis? another, smuggled into the card with consummate skill, and the last galop. And Blanche-wonderful Blanche-was that night short of a fan, and of a heart; unless my heart be deemed an honest bargain in exchange for hers.

My windows in Pump Court were a-blaze; my outer door was open. I knocked at the inner; Jack admitted me; he was up and alone. Four