was lurching about from one side of the street to the other,

and singing

"I'm now, d'ye see, six days on shore,

And yet my spree, it is not o'er;

Should I be calaboosed, wouldn't that be a bore?

I'll be d-d if it wouldn't,"

said Jack Robinson.

"Vell, you is in for it this time, sure, my covey," says Charley, laying his grappling irons on Jack Robinson"you'll hammock in the calaboose, to-night, old feller; that's as sure as that you have eat chowder."

"Avast there, you piratical looking old landshark," says Robinson " or I'll douse your glims while you'd be saying Jack Robinson." Jack, suiting the action to the word, made a blow at the guardian of the night, missed him, and keeled over. The watchman, without holding further parley with him, took him to the Baronne street prison, vi et armis.

"Jack Robinson ?" said the Recorder, in his usual grave tone. “Aye, aye, sir,” said Robinson, standing up, giving a jerk to his canvass trousers, removing the deposits of tobacco from one jaw to the other, and giving himself a shake like a Newfoundland dog after leaving the water.

"What do you follow for a living?" said the Recorder.

"Well, look here, commodore," said Jack Robinson, "if so be as you are quizzing me when you ask that ere question, hard weather to me if I'll answer it. I thinks as how it needs no telescope to tell I follows the sea; why, bless your eyes, I haint been off it a whole month since I first joined with Commodore McDonough. The poor commodore has gone to Davy Jones' locker long since, and as brave a fellow he was as ever paced a quarter deck." Here the old tar's eye became moist, a tear stood in the corner of it, and he wiped it off with the cuff of his jacket.

"What ship do you belong to ?" said the Recorder.

"Schooner Experiment," said John-" rather a rum 'un to look at, but a precious good sailer."

"Well, I shall let you go this morning," said the Recorder, "but when you next come on shore you ought to try some other experiment than that of getting drunk.”

"Thank your honour," said Jack Robinson; "I'll make an entry of your advice in the log-book of my memory-it may keep me off from breakers in future." He clapped his low crown hat on his head and put out.

A DANCING-MASTER IN A DILEMMA.

ADDITIONAL interest was yesterday added to the ordinary or every day picture which the police office presents, by the appearance of three figures which stood out in bold relief in the foreground. These were a man of very sallow visage, with very long soap-locks, and a very long waist, legs to match, and wearing a very seedy coat; a very hard-featured lady, who had passed life's meridian, and whose dress, like the veterans of '14-15, has seen some service; and her daughter, a girl whose time of life was somewhere in the twenties, with round, beet-coloured cheeks and a nose that you could hang a tea-kettle on. Their presence was soon explained, and their respective positions soon defined by the Recorder gravely calling out their names, and by the parties answering the call

"Rebecca Ringwood-Eugenia Ringwood-Theophilus Twing. What is your charge, Mrs. Ringwood?" said the Recorder.

"Four dollars and fifty cents," said Mrs. R. "One week's board, washing two dickies and a pair of white cotton gloves, and mending a pair of black silk-and-worsted stockings."

"I mean," said the Recorder," what criminal charge do you bring against him?"

"Why, attempting to defraud a poor, lone widow, of course," said Mrs. Ringwood, "and endeavouring to win clandestinely the affections of this young and amiable child."

Here Mr. Twing turned up his eyes, as if he were attempting to descry a bottle-fly on the ceiling, and Eugenia turned down "her'n," as if she was looking for a pin on the floor.

"State what steps he took to accomplish his purposes," said the Recorder.

"Steps!" exclaimed Mrs. Ringwood, "why he took no steps at all. If he did, I'd have no fault to find with him. Didn't he promise to teach Eugenia all sorts of steps-the Pol-kat, the Cat-chouka and the Crack-a-vein, and all these things; but instead of that, he never gave her a lesson. She doesn't know no more than her three first positions, and them her poor dear father taught her. Eugenia, show his honour how gracefully you understand the attitudes."

A DANCING-MASTER IN A DILEMMA.

177

"Not now, Mrs. Ringwood," said the Recorder. "I sit here to decide a question of law and fact, and not to act as umpire in the Court Terpsichorean. Mr. Twing makes a counter complaint against you. He says you retain a silver-keyed flute of his, worth fifteen dollars."

"O gracious me!" exclaimed Mrs. Ringwood, "didn't he make a present of it to Eugenia didn't I hear him with my own two ears singing

"I give thee all, I can nomore,
Though poor the off'ring be;
My heart and flute are all the store
That I can bring to thee!'

"I suppose, Mrs. Ringwood," said the Recorder, "that it was but a poetical presentation."

Nothing more in life, your honour," said Mr. Twing. "On the occasion which she refers to, I was but indulging in a favourite retrospective scene, which from association made that song dear to me a scene which impressed itself on my memory long before I saw these vulgar people, and which will remain graven there long after every trace of their ignorance will be obliterated."

Here Mr. Twing sighed an audible sigh, placed his left hand over his right elbow, and placed the nail on the thumb of his right hand between his teeth. He was a fine study for a painter who would wish to present Bonaparte in a contemplative mood the night before the battle of Austerlitz.

"Mr. Twing," said the Recorder, "did you agree, as Mrs. Ringwood says you did, to teach her daughter to dance ?" "There certainly was such an agreement, your honour," replied Mr. Twing, "and I have performed my part of it. I do not wish to be ungallant, for you know what Shakspeare says

"It matters not what Shakspeare says," said the Recorder: "what have you got to say touching your failure to instruct this young lady in dancing, as you had agreed to do?”

"That success in the undertaking were impossible," replied Mr. Twing. "Why, your honour sees the girl before youyou see her carriage and bearing. By perseverance I think I could teach an elephant to move through a quadrille, or a buffalo to understand the gallope; but as for perfecting Miss Eugenia Ringwood in the 'poetry of motion,'-lord! your honour, the thing is an impracticable impossiblity! You see, sir, that she is no figure-no cut, but all shuffle!"

Here Eugenia began to weep, and Mrs. Ringwood began to apply epithets to Mr. Twing-such as "good-for-nothing fellow," " ," "impostor," "betrayer of innocence," and all that—to suffer which was deemed by the Recorder beneath the dignity of his court, and so he had her silenced. He ordered Mrs. Ringwood to give to Mr. Twing his silver-keyed flute, and advised her to sue Mr. T. in a civil court for the amount which she claimed as due and owing her. Mr. Twing chassé-ed out of the room as gracefully as if he were going through the second figure in Paine's quadrilles, and Mrs. Ringwood left, emphatically affirming that she would never more let such a good-for-nothing scamp enter her door.

THE FANCY NOT FANCIED.

BILL SMITH, a fellow who looked like a flash Bowery boy, was brought up yesterday before the Recorder on the complaint of a little oldish man who called himself Alfred Granger. Bill wore a small, straight-leafed hat; a short skirted coat with brass buttons and pockets outside; he sported a Belcher handkerchief, and a remarkably large, brooch in his shirt bosom.

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What is the nature of your complaint?" asked the Recorder of Mr. Granger.

66

Why, I charges this here man with being a himposter," said Granger. "You see as how I have got a son who is a wery promising young man-a wery promising young man indeed; he has great genius, only it wants to be brought outto be developed, as the phrenologists say. He makes the prettiest kind of paper kites, and paints wings and all on 'em. Well, you see, thris here man introduces himself to me as a professor of the arts and sciences, and one that could paint and draw, and do any thing that nobody could do; and he says to me, says he, won't you have your son taught a few lessons, says he my terms will be moderate. I doesn't mind about the terms, says I, but I think he is rather old; yet I know he has taste and fancy. He aint too old, said he, and I fancy he's just the sort of a feller to make one of the fancy. Well, we agrees, and I leaves him in the room with my son, telling him to commence on a landscape scene. Would your honour believe that when I returned I. found this here Smith and my son boxing one another for the bare life, though neither of them

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179

seemed in a passion, and they both wore gloves as large as

bed pillows."

"What is this for ?" I asked.

"It's only a set-to,” replied Smith.

"Is this what you calls the fine arts ?” said I.

"No, I calls this the noble art of self-defence," said he.

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I thought you were master of the sciences," said I.

"Don't you call this science?" said he.

"You told me you could draw," said I.

"So I can," said he, and he hits my boy a blow on the nose that brings the blood from it.

"Don't you call that drawing, old feller," said he; and he turns round and squares up at me, and he says “Where'll you take it."

"I'll not take it nowhere," said I, running out; "but you'll catch it, that you will, when I bring you up before the Recorder; and here he is now, your honour."

As the Recorder adopts the old fashioned custom of hearing both sides of a story, he thought he would hear Mr. Smith before deciding.

Smith declared that Granger gave a very erroneous version of the transaction. He professed, he said, the science of pugilism, and taught it agreeably to the most approved rules of the ring. He agreed with the plaintiff to give his son lessons in the noble art of self-defence, and these were the only professions he made about his knowledge of the arts and sciences. As for painting, he said it was never mentioned, nor did he believe that Sir Joshua Reynolds, if he were alive, could make a painter of the young man; he's a regular thick head, your honour, and won't even make a good boxer.

The Recorder, finding that Mr. Granger "mistook his man” in the person of Mr. Smith, and that the misunderstanding originated in his commendable zeal to foster and improve the genius of his son, he discharged the case, cautioning Smith at the same time against giving any more lessons to young Granger in opposition to the wishes of his anxious parent.