To my unspeakable horror, there lay the letter I had just opened, on the table; and Miss Pidgmore tapped it with her parasol and said, "I see you 've had an invitation to join our meeting at Mrs. Markingall's, Eliza. You know I was speak-into ing to you about joining us the other day; and so I've come round, so inexcusably early, to ask you to come to my house to-night, where we shall all be at the preliminary tea. Mr. Ignatius Cope has actually promised to come and read to us while we 're cutting out; and I mean to make Mr. Snelboy promise to let you stay till to-morrow." Here was a pretty affair gathering round me! I'd actually left St. John's Wood for the very purpose of escaping this confounded tea-drinking, from which I was excluded; and now-but it was useless. "You know it's impossible to have gentlemen," said Miss Pidgmore. Except Mr. Cope, who is our secretary and treasurer, we never have gentlemen. Besides, it couldn't be interesting to them, you know-women's and babies' clothes, and all that, and the conversation of a parcel of ladies after tea; so you must do without her till to-morrow, Mr. Snelboy."

meetings had a witness for whom they were very little prepared, I imagine.

for what they call "lurking about with an improper purpose."

What should I do? Crawl through the window and discover myself? Impossible! I drew my feet up to the next pole, and rested my heels upon it, lying back in the shadow of the planks, where the fearful pulsations of my heart might have been heard inside. But they were laughing and talking again, and the Reverend gentleman laughed and talked as loud as any of them.

There they were, cutting great piles of stuff into all manner of queer shapes; crowding round the table, and snipping bits out of linen; raking in work-bags and reticules for patterns, and needles and thread. I got so excited in my wish to hear what scandal they were talking about me and the rest of their husbands, that I had to clutch the window-sill to keep myself from falling. What a turn I experienced from this Ha ha! what was there to laugh at, I should sudden danger may readily be imagined, when I like to know! jingling their glasses, too, the mention that I had totally forgotten to examine wretched gormandizers!-I saw the flashing of a the ground above which I was sitting, and felt long stream of light, which shot here and there morally certain that I should have perished in among the beams and posts below—if it had the foundations of the unfinished house. I heard turned on me where I sat, I must have fallen a light step coming up the garden-walk, and, from that giddy height into the abyss at my feet peering into the darkness, saw a figure approach--the officer had uncovered his lantern. ing the street-door; a genteel crescendo passage upon the knocker revealed the identity of the intruder—yes, intruder there!

I knew him; it was the "expected;" the Reverend Ignatius Cope!

I heard him coming to the spot where I had placed the ladder, and held my breath. "A pretty careless lot they are," he muttered to himself; "to go a leavin' a ladder about like this here;" and, while I stifled a cry with the end of my comforter, he had taken away my only means of descent, and deposited it at a distance. It was not till his villanous footsteps were lost in the next hundred yards of his confounded beat, that I ventured to move. I was growing desperate, and thought, with a gloomy foreboding, of the morrow, when my mangled remains would be discovered in a stagnant pool in the deep cellarage beneath. I speculated upon clinging to the poles on which I was sitting, and trying to drop into the garden; but dismissed the thought with a shudder, when I remembered that I was just over the spiked railings of the forecourt. Strangely enough, these horrible contemplations helped to nerve me to further endurance. "Robert Snelboy," I said to myself,

Such a hush inside, and such a fluttering of the women into their seats, and a hasty disposal of some of the garments under the table, and into the chiffonnier. A moment of breathless suspense, veiled by a base, hypocritical, mean attempt to look perfectly unconcerned; and the Reverend gentleman entered the room. I had to hold on with both hands, and trembled violently. The ends of my comforter had blown round my head, and confused me for a moment; but when I opened my eyes, there he was, (and mind, I don't deny that he was, and is, a most respectable and praiseworthy person, if the women would only let him alone,) installed in a large easy chair, with two candles before him, at the end of the table, preparing to read from one of three volumes which he had brought with him." compose yourself, and trust to those qualities This was my first disappointment; I couldn't which must be equal to such an occasion; tempt for the life of me make out what it was about. not the uncertain, but endeavour to hold out till The low even voice (some people call it melli- morning." fluous) of the Reverend Ignatius Cope stole monotonously through the window in one unbroken murmur, no distinct syllable of which reached me. I kept my post, though, with a determination which nothing could baffle. Hours seemed to pass while I pressed my nose to the nearest pane in the vain endeavour to make out what subject engrossed their attention. I said engrossed; but I could see them whispering and nodding to each other every minute, something about the work on which they were occupied, in a manner by no means complimentary to the reader. I was actually getting sleepy, and my feet, which had been hanging down all this time, seemed as though they would burst out of my shoes. A tray was brought in filled with sandwiches and wine-glasses. It must have been ten o'clock; and I had just gathered up my failing energies to a great attempt. I would try to open the window at the bottom-even half an inch, would have done it-when I heard a slow measured tramp coming along the footway at the

next houses.

The full horror of my situation burst upon me at once.

Once let me be discovered there by a member of the police force, and I should be incarcerated

There came sounds of a break-up of the meeting; some of the ladies left the room, and came back prepared to go home. The Reverend Ignatius Cope was shaking hands with everybody, Eliza included; and I heard him say he hoped that they should be able to secure her valuable assistance at their future meetings. Did he !not if I knew it; not if I could escape from the terrible calamity which they had brought upon me. I should have liked to howl at them, as they all stood to be asked to have "just half a glass more wine." Why couldn't they pass the decanter outside, the mean wretches!

I was getting beside myself. I've heard of drowning people, and people hanging on to points of rock over precipices, and people just ready to be devoured by lions and that, saying afterwards that "the memory of a life seemed to be concentrated in a single moment." I was beginning to understand it myself; I'd got to one stage of it, in fact, for I seemed to have been clinging to that scaffolding for years; and I had now to look forward to hours of anguish, without even the miserable satisfaction of watching the proceedings through the window. When the last guest went out at the front door, and I heard their chatter cease as the gate clinked after them, hope died

within me. There was my wife sitting with Miss Pic gmore, and partaking of warm brandy-andwater and pastry; and I knew, by the latter lady extinguishing all but two candles, which came in in flat candlesticks, that they were going to bed. I felt the premonitory symptoms of fever coming over me; my mouth was parched, and a cold perspiration was running down my frame, when the servant came and fastened the windows, after drawing down the blinds.

"Now

the lantern which he handed to me. then," he resumed, "let me come alongside, and just you stow yer jaw a bit. When I gets the winder open you go in fust, an' I'll shet it arter myself. We've got a good twenty minutes afore the shiner comes along here agin, an' jest you hold the light in front on yer, where they can't see it down below." I began to entertain a horrible certainty that this man, this ruffian, was a robber, and had forced me to be his accomplice. It would be impossible to give any adequate Could he have mistaken me for another person? description of the emotions of that fearful night. Oh, that vile cap and the gardening blouse! I was conscious only of terrible and prolonged I was doomed-doomed to penal servitude, perduration of alternate mental and physical agony; haps; but I dared not speak out. I threw the at last, I think, stupor must have intervened, light of the lantern upon the window-frame, as for I seemed to wake suddenly, and heard a he bade me. I saw him take a piece of tapering long, low whistle. This was repeated, and wire from his coat-sleeve; it had a small hook seemed to come from some spot below where at the thin end; and almost before I knew that I was sitting. In my utter fear and confusion he had begun I saw it slide in between the two I attempted to answer it. "Bob," said a deep, parts of the sash, and heard the sharp click of the gruff voice, just underneath; "Bob-be-e-e!" window-bolt, as it flew back under the pressure. Could it possibly be aid to my failing strength?" Now then, in with yer!" he whispered hoarsely, -I was too distracted to reflect for a moment," and douse that there light under the shade; but answered "Hallo!" blow'd if I don't hear sum'un a comin' up the "How long 'ave you been a perchin' of your-street." He lifted the window gently, as I clung self up there ?" inquired the voice. "Oh! hours and hours. Can I get down?" I gasped, wildly leaning as forward as I could to get a glimpse of my deliverer. "Git down! well, I should say, not azackly; we was to jine company at the lane, and I've been a dodgin' about this 'arf-hour; they 've only just changed the beats though, that 's one comfort."

The voice, which was no more than a loud whisper, seemed to be approaching me nearer; and presently I saw a head come up above the edge of the scaffolding—a head with a cap on it, which looked very like my own. "Here, ketch hold, can't yer," said this person; "I'm blest if it ain't jolly hard work a climin' up this 'ere; give us yer fist, can't yer ?" And he put a long, coarse bag into the hand which I had stretched out to him.

to the sill; and while I was drawing my legs gently up, thrust me through, with a brutal push, that nearly wrenched my arms off. I was inside Miss Pidgmore's drawing-room. I could never fully describe the ensuing ten minutes. Menacing my slowness and stupidity, my villanous companion swept the two candlesticks, a dozen teaspoons, and a milkpot, into the bag, which I held in my hand. The lock of the chiffonnier was wrenched silently enough too, in a moment; and I trembled as I heard his anathemas at finding it only filled with unmade baby-linen, two or three nickknacks from the "what-not" and the mantelpiece, and he took off his shoes, an example which, after fumbling at the strings-for which delay I got a kick from his fortunately bare foot—I was compelled to imitate. I remember no more, except that a wild notion of alarming Mrs. Snelboy took possession of my faculties; that I placed my hand upon the knob of the door, which I "What's this!" said my companion, in a very conceived to belong to the room; that I was surly way, as I thought; "why, you do know about to open it, and, indeed, had ejaculated what it is, I suppose. Why, it's the inster-"Eliza!" "Mrs. S.!" when it suddenly flew from ments-that's what it is; you aint a comin' the sneaky dodge along a me, I hope, are yer? Now, you jest do what I tell yer, or else you'd better say yer won't, and I'm blowed if I don't pitch yer down into that there cellar in about no time;-come now!"

"What-what's this?" gasped I, entirely

bewildered.

What could be the meaning of this dreadful language! I felt that I was in the power of a ruffian likely enough to keep his word; and as he had now crawled on to the planks beyond where I was sitting, I trembled with suppressed fear. "Now then, look alive!" he continued, in a low voice. He opened the bag, which I gave him, and took out something; I soon saw what it was a little dark lantern, such as I used to carry when I lived at St. John's Wood, and expected to be garotted every night. He looked wonderfully like myself with respect to his habiliments, seeing that he also wore a linen blouse; and wore, instead of a comforter, a large, coarse cotton handkerchief tied round his neck in a loose knot. All this I could see by the light of

my grasp, and Miss Pidgmore, armed with the tongs, appeared. I have reason to believe that she flung those instruments at my head, and that they closed round my neck. I fell; while she ran screaming back to the window, and opened it, calling loudly for assistance. I heard my late companion calling me, in the room we had just left, but dared not follow, when I saw him making for the window. Fortunate was it for me that I had, even then, in that desperate extremity, the presence of mind to descend and try the back-door; it resembled ours at Joachim Villas, and opened to my trembling hands, in which I still, thoughtlessly, held the bag, containing Miss P.'s plate. In another moment I was crouching under the wall in the back garden.

The scoundrel whom I had so lately left had been less fortunate, and I heard a struggle going on, on the other side. He must have dropped from the scaffold into the arm of the police, for in the midst of scufflings and imprecations, a

rattle was sprung, which was answered imme- smiles," (as What's-a-name called 'em), intimated diately, and another officer came running up from that he knew where a screw was loose somewhere. the opposite direction. I thought this would This was Z 439, and I was obliged to tolerate give me an opportunity to make my escape; but him. Every night that he was on duty did that I had no sooner began to creep along, than the zealous and indefatigable officer go the round of atrocious villain who had been the cause of my our lower premises, and look to the fastenings; misery shouted, "There, it ain't me, I told yer every night did I surreptitiously dispense drink so; there he goes, t'other side of the wall." One to assuage his perpetual thirst; and every night of the officers immediately rushed to the spot did I wonder that the simple fastenings of the indicated. I think he must have imagined me lower kitchens required a great deal of precaution, to be bare-headed, for he grasped my seal-skin especially as there were two people, Susan and cap with such violence, while leaning with half the above officer, to secure them from violence. his body over the wall, that it came off in his hand. At that moment his brother constable shouted again for assistance, and I heard a sound of a heavy fall, followed by a loud laugh and the noise of retreating footsteps. Nerved by desperation, I felt what is generally supposed to be a strength more than human, and, with a hasty glance to the place where I had seen the last policeman disappear, bounded madly forward. Let me not exaggerate; fell more than once. But what of that? Sixteen brick walls, four of them surmounted by broken bottles, did I clear in my headlong career; and then, flying across some intervening ground where rubbish had been shot, fell breathless, bruised, and bleeding into the cucumber-frame in my own garden. There I lay, stunned, and utterly exhausted, till, fearing that search might yet be made for me, I determined to gain admission to my house.

The back-door was fastened. "Susan," I said, gently tapping at the kitchen window, "Susan; let me in this way; it's me-Mr. Snelboy."

D'hear?

"The divil it is," I heard a man's voice ejaculate. "Come along wid me, Susey. An' it's oi that'll guard ye." I thought I should have sunk to the earth; but there was no help for it, and, the back-door opening, I sank fainting into the arms of Z 429.

This active and intelligent officer (confound him!) had been looking after the premises in my absence; and although his presence in the kitchen was never satisfactorily accounted for, I could make no answer to his assurance that there had been "an alarum in the neebourwood." Finally coming to myself, I asked Z 429 to partake of brandy-and-water; and, perhaps inspired by the reviving draught which he afterwards forced upon me, confided to him my belief that a robbery had been committed somewhere, and that I had seen somebody leave part of the proceeds of it in my own garden. We made the round of those premises together afterwards, and there, sure enough, was a bag containing two candlesticks, a milk-pot, and twelve teaspoons, lying in my cucumber-frame, which had been unforThe recovery of tunately broken to pieces. sagacious this property did great credit to the " officer," as he was afterwards called, and I believe helped him to his promotion.

I went to bed, and was lying there stiff, sore, and broken down, when Mrs. Snelboy returned the next morning. How she became possessed of my secret, it is unnecessary to disclose. I lay there long, and profited by Eliza's gentle nursing -for I admit that she is gentle when a person's sick. One thing haunted me-or rather, one person haunted me, continually: one who, from his frequent "nods, and becks, and wreathed

--

In the course of the week, however, Mrs. Snelboy had sent for her mother, Mrs. Simco, to come and stay with us. This most remarkable woman at once declined the visits of Z 439, who now only flashes his bull's-eye over all the front windows as he passes to and fro. In the company of these two devoted creatures, my wife and my mother-in-law, I am rapidly recovering from the effects of that fearful night; and as I am in treaty for a house at Camden Town, there will soon be bills in the windows of Joachim Villas, N. E.

PUSS.

MR. EDITOR,-Not to trespass on the province of your Inconstant Reader, I hope there can be no harm in turning a congratulatory verse to my especial favourite, Louise Keeley,* (that little lady at the Princess's Theatre, with a handsome face copied from her father; a vivacious habit of mind and body imparted by her mother; and a shrewd instinct of everything that is humorous, graceful, and artistically effective, derived from both parents)-I mean, on her recently-achieved success in the drama of Puss.

"Tis certain Zo-ologic truth,

That we pugnacious Britons
Are more attracted by the youth
Of puppies than of kittens.

With "jolly dog," and "spiteful cat,"
Our speech is ever dealing;
Proving our cruel race more pat
At cane-in' than at feel-in'.

(The joke is old, but let it pass,)

Thy dainty bearing pat jumps
To teach the pig, the hound, and ass,
P.W.
How gracefully the cat jumps.

BRITISH DIPLOMACY.

IN Chamberlayne's Magna Britanniæ Notitia we find the following passage, which proves that the English diplomatic character has not changed :-"Their Ingenuity during the last 150 years: will not allow them (the English) to be excellent at the Cheat, but subject in that point rather to take than give; and supposing others to be as open-hearted as themselves, are many times in Treaties overmatched by them, whom they overmatched in Arms and Valour." Well done, prosy John Chamberlayne! We scarcely gave you credit for so much penetration!

* We insert this communication from our valued corre

spondent Paul Ward, equally on account of the writer and the subject.-Ed. W. G.

ODDITIES OF GREAT MEN.

DRAWN BY KENNY MEADOWS.

II.-STEWART AND MACKINTOSH BALANCING PEACOCK'S FEATHERS.

THE pencil of Kenny Meadows was wanted to give reality to a ridiculous episode in the lives of two Scottish worthies, which the pen of Patrick Fraser Tytler has chronicled. Dugald Stewart, Henry M'Kenzie, Sydney Smith, and Sir James Mackintosh were all welcome guests at the same happy board. The philosopher forgot his academic dignity, and even his natural gravity, amidst the playful distractions that surrounded him. One morning after breakfast, he and the youthful historian were discovered running round the dining-room, each balancing a peacock's feather on his nose. The names of the fortunate individuals who surprised the amateur jugglers are not recorded. We trust that Sydney Smith was not one of them, and that the sober author of the "Elements" had no harsher a critic of his peculiar application of the Philosophy of Common Sense than M'Kenzie, the "Man of Feeling."