and my innate desire for the triumph of equity and the punishment of fraud, all bid me read it."

Here the little attorney gave a thump to a volume of Moreau's Digest which lay before him on the table, that made its cover resound like Mr. Cripps' kettle-drums!

Recorder." I care not, sir, what or who bids you read it -I forbid you to read it, so sit down. Are you aware, sir, that I have already heard the President's message read to-day?" Attorney." Sir, that is not a case in point."

Recorder. "I tell you, sir, I'll point you out to a police man if you don't at once sit down."

Attorney." Then I appeal!"

Policeman." Silence![in an under tone]-Appeal and be d-d!"

The little lawyer left the office in disgust, and Bill Brown stept up to tell his own story in his own way. He plucked off his little glazed hat, made a deposit of the extract of his quid on the boards, rubbed the left cuff of his blue jacket across under his nose, gave his canvass trousers a hitch up, and commenced

"You see, your wu'ship"

Policeman." There's no one worshipped here."

Brown.-"O, Lord love you, messmate, it's all the same, for the matter o' that. The Admiral there (pointing to the Recorder) knows the way I'm steering."

Recorder." Go on with your complaint."

Sailor." Aye, aye, sir; but, Commodore, dang my buttons if I know what point I was sailing at, when I put my to talk to this lubber here."

helm to,

Recorder." State why you have summoned this coloured man here."

Sailor. "All right, your honour; I know my reckoning now. Well, you see, I goes into this here fellow's this morning, to have a shaye-to wash of decks like ;-well, he did shave me, and may I be food for sharks before another week, your honour, if I didn't suffer more by the operation than I did when I was shaved the first time I passed under the line."

Recorder." Well, what followed ?”

Sailor.-"Why, your honour, I gave him a $2 bill, and he only gave me thirteen of these (ten cent pieces) in change; and he threatened, your honour, unless I made sail, to scuttle me on the spot."

Recorder." Jones, what have you to say to this charge?"

AN ABSCONDING PARTNER.

27

Jones.-"I'se got nuffin to say, no how, your honour, but I make dis statement in my own offence. As for de shabin' ob dis here gemman, nuffin war neber nicerer don, for I jus operated per se right ober his face, as Captain Tyler would say, Yaw! yaw!"

Recorder."No impertinence, sir, stick to your story." Jones.-"'Cuser, massa, I will. Wal, you sees, I does bisness on cash princerples-'cause I doesn't look on dose banks, you see, as very 'stantial, no how. If a gemman comes in, Í shaves him-dat ere's a bit; if he gives me a note I shaves dat too-a bit in de dollar-and dat's wat I calls de 'gitimate bankin' bisness."

The Recorder made Jones refund the sailor two bits, and as he avowed he had no fear of being "scuttled" by the barber, the case was thus adjusted.

AN ABSCONDING PARTNER.

"Frailty, thy name is woman."

We lost our umbrella once, and know what a sadness comes over the heart on ascertaining the loss of that necessary article. Our new hat has been taken "by mistake" from a party, and a shocking bad one left in its stead, at which we felt "miffed." We lost our passage on board a steamboat on a certain momentous occasion, after having paid our fare, and our chagrin was considerable. But as we never had a wife we never lost one, and consequently cannot tell the degree of misery which such a bereavement is calculated to inflict; nor, perhaps, sufficiently sympathize with those on whom such a thunderbolt of misfortune falls. If we could be magnetized by the hero of our sketch, we know we would have tears to shed, and would be "prepared to shed them now."

There was something very peculiar in the look of Alfred Keating, as he sat in the prisoner's box yesterday. His face was for the most part of the time covered in his hands; but occasionally he would suddenly raise it up and placing his open hands before him at an angle of forty-five degrees, in an attitude expressive of dislike, he would say to an interesting looking woman who sat on the side bench-"Away! away! thou unit of a deceitful sex. I hate ye!"

Now we have not a doubt that the lady to whom this

tragically told exhortation was addressed, would have willingly complied with the wish of Mr. Keating and gone off, but it happened that the Recorder had something professional to say to her ere she departed.

"You were found in St. Charles street last night, Mr. Keating," remarked the Recorder, "making much noise and acting very strangely."

"I know it, I know it," answered Mr. Keating, driving his fingers through his hair-"I know it, sir; but has she been found? Where is the faithless one?"

"What one?" asked the Recorder-"of whom do you speak?"

"Of Anna, lovely Anna! faithless Anna! my-no, no, not my Anna!" said Mr. Keating, sinking his voice and falling back in his seat in a paroxysm of grief.

"What was this man doing when you arrested him?" asked the Recorder of the watchman.

66 O, he vas cutting up all kinds of extra shines," said Charley, "like these here theatric fellers. He catches me by the collar, and my eyes! but he gave me a shake-tell me vere she's gone,' he says, 'or, by heavens! thou diest.' Yes, yer honour, I'm blowed if he didn't swear just so. It is that ere voman you means,' said I, that passed by about half an hour ago, under the influence o' liquor? Vy, she's gone right to the vatch 'us.' 'Willian,' said he, thou liest! she ran avay vith the bandy-legged tailor, and has left me here the sport of fortune.' Vell, your honour sees, I thought as how he had got the man with the poker, or sum'it o' that sort, and I brought him to the vatch 'us."

"You hear the charge of the watchman," said the Recorder to the prisoner.

"Hear!" said Alfred Keating-"I hear nothing, I see nothing-the world is a chaos to me, and every object in creation wears a loathsome hue. If a fitful light does for a moment break on in my mind, it is

or

'A light like that with which hell-fire illumes
The ghastly, writhing wretch whom it consumes!'

'Like moonlight on a troubled sea,
Bright'ning the storm it cannot calm.'

I'm a miserable man, sir, I'm a miserable man."

"But your misery, whatever be its source," said the Recorder, "does not give you a license to disturb the public peace."

TOM TROTTER IN TROUBLE.

29

"Were he a man of comely person and fine proportions,” said the semi-mad Mr. Keating, "the misfortune might have fallen lighter on me; but to forsake me, who feared the winds of heaven might visit her too roughly,' for a tailor-a mere fraction of a man-a human form made by one of nature's worst journeymen! It is too much, too much—but

'She's gone-I am abused-and my relief

Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,
That we can call these delicate creatures ours,
And not their appetites!'"'

"That'll do," said the Recorder, who had heard enough now to know that the better half of Mr. Alfred Keating had made a transfer of herself and her affections to some one whom Alfred deemed less worthy of both than himself. "Mr. Keating," added the Recorder, "I shall discharge you this morning; but if brought up here again, I will find means to keep you from making a noise in the streets at an unseasonable hour."

Mr. Keating left the office ejaculating-“O! Anna, Anna! source of all my bliss and all my woe!"

TOM TROTTER IN TROUBLE.

See

"THAT was a mighty accurate remark of Newton's," said an individual who passed up Poydras street at a late hour Thursday night, "it was a mighty accurate remark of his, that the world turned round. I only wonder that the fact was not discovered and promulgated long before. I knew it by intuition, and I have ocular demonstration of it this instant. there; isn't the lamp turning round, and isn't it making as many faces at me as a clown in the circus would at the audience. Isn't that cotton bale dancing a quadrille with the molasses barrel, and isn't the curb-stone changing partners' with the mackerel cask. That's the way to do it-hands across' -down the middle."" At this moment he lost his equilibrium and fell off the sidewalk into the gutter.

"Look here, old fourth-proof Jamaica," said the watchman, "you is like some of these fellers wot goes about tellin' 'bout 'tarnal punishments and all that-you doesn't practice wot you preaches; instead of going down the middle' you have

gone down the side. Jest get up and try it again. Whereabouts does you live?"

"Live!" said the now recumbent discoverer of centripetal force, "where do I live? The question is a narrow one, and presupposes a littleness of soul and a contraction of the ideas. I live, sir, in the world-my home is on it.-Attachments for petty localities I despise-in domestic matters I am purely cosmopolitan. I live abroad, sir-everywhere."

"Why, you must be a werry nice man," said the watchman; "I vonders vere you gets your vashin' done; but it aint no matter. I guess I'll supply you vith lodging, though, like the appearance of the vonderful voman, it may be but for von night only.""

"You're a gentleman," said the philosopher-who was still in the gutter-in a maudlin tone," you're a gentleman; though for one of that character most confoundedly disguised. But tell me, do you demand cash in advance-do you require payment before going to bed? because I've made it a rule never to do these things. It throws doubt on a man's respectability to do so. Prompt payments did very well, sir, for our ignorant and benighted ancestors, but it won't do for the present enlightened age. No, sir, the greatest men and the greatest nations go in debt, and the deeper they go the greater their respectability. Look at England, sir, there's a great nation! And why is she great? Because she is greatly in debt; that's the secret of her greatness; and if you ask Sir Robert Peel he'll tell you the same. I'd be a great man myself, but the people are so ineffably stupid that they won't give me credit. Why, for the last six weeks I have stopped at six several boarding houses, and the owners are so invincibly ignorant of the true principles of greatness, that they have, every one of them, refused to trust me for more than one week's board. Horrible state of society, sir."

"Blow me," said the watchman, "if I doesn't b'lieve you is a 'tinerant lect'rer, or a mesmeriser, or summat o' that sort -you talk like a book. But come with me, I'll show you the elephant."

The watchman led him off to Baronne street, he assuring watchy, as they went along, that he'd be forever indebted to him. "Zoology," he said, "is a favourite study of mine, and in the contemplation of nothing is my ideas of animated nature more expanded and elevated than in surveying the mighty elephant."