A TAR IN TROUBLE.

WHILE in the office of Recorder Genois yesterday, a police officer, big with brief authority, entered, leading in a "Son of Neptune," who looked as dispirited as if he had been cast among the unfriendly savages of the Friendly Islands.

The police officer said something sotto voce to the Recorder -a rather pretty young woman, with dimpled cheeks, who sat within the railings, made a pantomimic motion to an old woman with wrinkled cheeks who was by her side—the sailor looked imploringly at Dimpled cheeks, gave a hitch with his sinister hand to his pantaloons, and expectorated a portion of the juice of the tobacco quid from his mouth. Poor fellow! he seemed to say, "Here I am like a bark driven on the breakers, without compass or chart; I hung out my flag of distress, but instead of that trim and well-beloved craft (dimpled cheeks) coming to my assistance, she sent that there piratical-looking cruiser (the police officer) to haul me into harbour."

"John Connor ?" said the Recorder.

"Aye, aye, your honour," said John, advancing up to the desk of that functionary in a rocking, walk-the-deck kind of gait. John at that moment appeared every inch a sailor. His trousers were blue, and of capacious width at the extremities; his jacket was of a like colour, and cloth, and was plentifully supplied with pearl studs; his black silk handkerchief was loosely tied in a swivel knot, and the collar of his check shirt was spread out over his shoulders.

"Connor," said the Recorder, "this woman here, Ann Hays, says you have been to her house, and threatened to commit murder. What have you to say to the charge?"

"Why, Lord love your honour," said Connor, again ejecting a quantity of tobacco juice, and twirling his little glazed hat round on his thumb; "why, Lord love your honour, Ann is the little 'painter' that I got hitched on to my bows in Boston four years ago. Murder her! I'd as soon a stove in the bul warks of my own existence."

Ann Hays.-"Well, your honour, I'm afraid of my life of him."

"Oh, Sir, it has shivered the timbers of Jack Connor, and never, never more does he expect to see his sails filled with the winds of domestic content!"

66 Ah, Nancy! Nancy!" said John, drawing the cuff of his jacket across his right eye, and wiping away a tear that stood in its corner-" Ah, Nancy! I have encountered many a breeze since I left you four years ago in Boston, but this blow does more injury to the rigging of my heart than all I have yet had to contend with;-to be let into shoal water by the false lights of an enemy is bad, but to be deserted and disowned by a craft that one took in convoy with him for life, is a little too much for the timbers of my constitution :—it is, Nancy!"

Recorder. "This language is altogether too figurativetoo technical for me. Can't you speak, Connor, in a manner in which I can better understand you ?"

A

Connor." Certainly, your honour. Then, keeping right ahead, without making a tack either to windward or leeward, I will read over the log-book of my life, as I have it in my memory, since first I hailed Nance. As I said before, your honour, we got braced in Boston about four years ago. chaplain, I forget his name, but here's his certificate,"-producing the certificate of their marriage-"made it all taut, and I felt as happy as if I was sailing before a three months' trade wind. I unfortunately got on a spree and put to sea-first in the U.S. ship Ohio, and then in the frigate Columbia. During my cruise I never forgot my Nance, and many a time in the silent watches of the night used I to look aloft, and fancy I could see her pretty dimpled cheeks and bright eyes smiling on me among the stars; and often did I fancy, as the wind sung through the rigging, that I heard her sweet voice say, 'I'm true to you still-true as the compass to its point, Jack Connor.?"

"But it hasn't been so, your honour; for when I came home with my pay in my pocket, to throw into her apron, I found she had hauled in her anchor and put to see with a lubber, who knows nothing about any thing except boiling duff and making lobscouse. Oh, sir, it has shivered the timbers of Jack Connor, and never, never more does he expect to see his sails filled with the winds of domestic content."

Here Jack applied the cuff of his blue jacket to his eyes again, and "mopped up," as it were, the tears, as they sprung out one after another.

Nancy then undertook to tell her story in her own way; from all of which we learned that they had been married in Boston, as Jack said; Jack ran off to sea, and she ran off to

New Orleans with a French cuisinier, under whose "protection" she now is and wishes to remain.

Jack remains in the calaboose till he "ships" or finds some one to go security that he will keep the peace. The moral atmosphere that surrounds him at the present time looks decidedly squally.

A MISTAKE:

OR, THE BROKEn pledge and the FAT GIRL's portrait.

OPPOSITE the St. Charles Hotel there stands at the present writing, or did stand on Friday night, a painting of the fat girl in a blue frock, white apron, and pantaletts. As an artistical production it is nothing to brag of. It can never be mistaken as an emanation from the pencil of a Raphael or an Angelo, still it is a likeness of a human being, the softest of the softer sex; in fact the colouring for flesh and blood is laid on thick, and by a man high, or up a tree, it might be mistaken for a breathing being. We are told that there be those who,

"See Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt,"

and of like perverted vision is Michael Grace-a most graceless fellow is Mike-for he thought, on Friday night, that the picture of the fat girl was the fat girl herself-that the counterfeit presentment was the original.

"Ah, thin, you're welcome down stairs, darlin'," says Mike, addressing the painting (the fat girl, be it remembered, is exhibited in a room over where the portrait hung.) You're welcome down stairs, a-lanna. O, blud-in-ages but it's yoursel' is the fine armful; but what signifies what you are now to what you'll be when you are twenty. Why be jakes you'd make a wife for a man that 'ud be as big as Finn McCoul." (Here the canvass was agitated by the wind.) Oh don't go off in a huff, a cushla," said Mike; "dl a word I sed of you but what's thrue, for as the ould song ses:

'Was I Paris, whose deeds were various,

Or if, like Homer, I could indite,

I'd sound your praise and your fame I'd raise,

I'd thrate your frinds and your foes I'd fight."

Mike sung this in a key so loud that it attracted the ear of