'Give me a penny, thou 'prentice good,

Relieve a maid forlorne!'

'Before I give you a penny, sweetheart,

Pray tell me where you were born.' 'Oh, I was born at Islingtoune.'

'Then tell me if you know

The bayliffe's daughter of that place?'
'She died, sir, long ago.'

'If she be dead, then take my horse,
My saddle and bridle alsoe;
For I will to some distant land,

Where no man shall me knowe.'

'Oh, stay! oh stay! thou goodly youthe,
She standeth by thy side;

She's here alive, she is not dead,

But readie to be thy bride.'

Why, that one line—

She's here alive, she is not dead,

would move the Olympian gods more than anything which Jem Baggs ever uttered.

But revenons à nos moutons: I was describing the butchers. I was saying, before I began to wander and stray like a lost sheep, that they were genial, generous men. How thoroughly they enjoyed the banquet, and what large sums they wrote after their names when the subscription-lists were handed round! I gathered from some of

the speeches, and from morsels of conversation which fell from the tables, that one of the tradean old and respected member, it would seem-had just fallen into difficulties, and the amount of delicate commiseration which was expressed by his prosperous brethren was something touching. I wondered, if I fell into difficulties, whether my friend Verbiage of the Weekly Flasher, would regret it. Not he. 'Poor chap-and at his age,' said one of the Benevolent Butchers, 'it cuts like a knife;' and then I saw him quietly put his name down for an additional donation of ten pounds. I'll make the solemnest affidavit my friend V. wouldn't do that.

Although not quite so great as we think, after all we Englishmen are a great people. Every trade among us has its halls, its charitable institutions, its staff of honorary officers. You can't run ten miles out of town without counting ten sets of almshouses on the road. While Charity-which the old masters painted so thin and wan-stands thus plethoric, who can help having Faith and Hope? Tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, apothecaries, ploughboys, lawyers-all have their houses of retirement when age or misfortune overtakes

them. The Press alone, I think, is without its retreat. Even the heavy villain of the Victoria has, since Mr. Dodd offered to come down with the dust, a chance of a college into which he may retire when Providence is no longer ke-ind, when the ske-y is overcast, and when asthma and weak knees have permanently overtaken him.

C

V.

QUEER CALLINGS.

HAT a relief it is on occasion to become

W

trite and Tupperish-to deal in ancient

proverbs that have been thrown about with a chink for ages,-to brandish old truths as (I read in the daily papers) some of Garibaldi's men have for their weapons old Roman swords found in the Tiber-bed! After which I shall be pardoned for repeating that one-half of the world. doesn't know how the other half lives. Putting aside the unfortunates-and I could run 'em off by the score-who, in a living sense, don't live at all,—the schemers, the projectors, the adventurers, and others of that ilk-I purpose to build up a column in honour of one or two strange characters whose trades are not to be found in any Directory.

Mind, the better order of adventurers,-the lucky dogs (or cats rather, for they always alight on their feet, and when rubbed most hardly the wrong way show with all the more brilliance !) would be worth a sketch. I have noticed that your lucky dog is common to all parts of the world. You meet him in Labrador and Leicester Square in Piccadilly and under the Pyramids. He is the man who occupies a theatre for a season, takes the benefit (of the act), and henceforward walks through life with a free ivory to the boxes.

But not with this class am I about to deal? I know the subject is alluring; but would you have it from us or from our Masters? There are a set of strange men, however, that I know, following Queer Callings that I don't, that I wish to intro

duce to you.

First, young Gelderquirk who lives-and lives well-on the circumstance of having a friend in the City. Whenever I am short of cash—and I have been so now for some five-or-six-and-twenty years, the disease of impecuniosity having fastened on me before I was well out of tops-and-bottoms -I go to Gelderquirk, give him an oblong slip of paper with an amount over and above by a few