fit, if Master Peregrine Pultuney had not smiled and said, "Never mind, it's not mine."

"What is not yours, my love?" asked Mrs. Pultuney in a faint voice.

"The blood on my hand, mamma; it will all wash off," replied the young gentleman, with a feardispelling look on his face.

"How came it there?" asked his mother.

"They were impudent," said Master Pultuney, "and so we thrashed them to their hearts' content."

"Who were impudent? who were thrashed! I never knew such a boy," cried Mrs. Pultuncy in great consternation.

"The blackguards, to be sure," returned Percgrine.

Now it would puzzle any foreign student of our language to acquaint himself with the various synonyms, which correspond to the more classical word "plebeian." In different schools, in different classes of society, in different parts of the country, at different ages, and in different writers, there are so many different dialects, what with "snobs," and "clods," and "chaws," and "jigs," and various other elegant and euphonious monosyllables, the foreigner must be lost in admiration of the copiousness of the English language. "Blackguard" was the word employed by our hero, and it is a remarkable coincidence that it was the very expression

which we ourselves, at Peregrine's age, were in the habit of employing upon similar occasions.

"The blackguards to be sure," returned Master Pultuney; "they pelted our wickets, so we ran after them, chased them across the common, caught them, and to some purpose too, I should think, as the ring-leader knows to his cost. Cheap bleeding—eh, mamma?" and the young gentleman laughed.

We do not know exactly, how it is, but nevertheless we regard it as a fact, which may be pretty confidently stated, that young gentlemen living in the vicinity of a common, on which gymnastics may be conveniently prosecuted, are wont to give a pleasant variety to their sports, by adding pugilistics to the number of recreations they are in the habit of indulging in daily; and it is equally true, that in these encounters, which are rarely of an intestine nature, the juvenile mobocracy of the place are generally worsted by their aristocratic opponents. We have seldom seen a cricket match on a "common" or "green," that has not ended in a popular entertainment of this sort, the neutrality of the ground being generally considered as peculiarly applicable to these purposes.

At this explicit announcement from the lips of Master Peregrine Pultuney, his father smiled approvingly, as fathers generally do on these occasions; but his mother, on the other hand, as is the custom with mothers, looked unutterably distressed, and turned a reproachful eye on her son.

"You will be the death of me some of these days," cried the tender-hearted lady with a sigh, as her imagination made a picture in her mind of Master Peregrine with a broken head being carried home on a shutter.

"I will be the death of some few of them," returned Master Peregrine, as he clenched his fist at an imaginary blackguard.

"There never was such a boy," resumed Mrs. Pultuney; "he is never safe out of one's sight," and with a few maternal lamentations of this kind, mixed up with some scarcely intelligible threats of breaking her own heart, if her son were to break his head, the lady endeavoured to correct Master Pultuney's pugilistic propensities, and finished by giving him a kiss.

This matter having been settled and Master Peregrine having promised not to thrash the blackguards, if the blackguards would promise not to be impudent, Mr. Pultuney, reverting to the conversation that had lately taken place between himself and his wife, proceeded to inform Peregrine, that they had been talking about him.

"And you could not have had a better subject, could you mamma?" cried the young gentleman. "What spirits the boy has!" exclaimed Mrs. Pultuney, patting her son on the cheek as he spoke.

"Yes, Peregrine," resumed Mr. Pultuney, in a peculiar grave voice, "we have been conversing anxiously on a subject that lies very near our

hearts. We have been thinking that if I were to die, and-"

Here Mr. Pultuney suddenly stopped, and it might have been supposed that the thought of his dissolution-an awful thing at best-had impeded his utterance, if he had not exclaimed, with a frown and a smile,

"Now, Peregrine, my dear boy, pray do be serious for once."

The fact is that Master Peregrine Pultuney, as he stood behind his mother's chair, had raised his bat in a horizontal direction to his shoulder, and with the handle pointing outwards like the barrel of a gun, he was taking a most deliberate and sportsmanlike aim, his left eye being closed for the purpose, at a fly on his father's nose.

The fly having taken his departure in quest of some other recreation, and Mr. Pultuney having uttered his request, which it must be acknowledged was a moderate one, Master Peregrine Pultuney consented to be serious" for once."

"Take care it's only for once," exclaimed the young gentleman, as he seated himself on his cricket-bat in a manner peculiar to cricketers, but which somewhat resembles the fashion in which a frog sits on a bulrush, the seat going between your legs and making an angle with the ground.

"Better sit here, my love," said Mrs. Pultuney, moving the patent leather slipper to the edge of the

butterfly footstool, and she motioned to Peregrine to seat himself.

Mr. Pultuney then "began again,” and made a very long speech, in the course of which he impressed upon his son several most important facts, with the majority of which Master Peregrine was perfectly well acquainted before. Mr. Pultuney stated amongst other things, that he was not a rich man; that he could not live for ever; that he had not the power of saving much; that his brother had got a child, and consequently an heir; that the family therefore could not look to that particular quarter, although he had once thought it would be otherwise; and finally he came to the point, by informing his son Peregrine that he would have to work for his bread.

As there was nothing in all this very astounding to Master Peregrine, he contented himself with simply observing, "I'm quite willing, papa." Mr. Pultuney having thus got rid of all his undebatable matter, began to touch upon more delicate ground, and after much unnecessary manœuvring, he began to sound the young gentleman as to his particular views of the matter.

The young gentleman answered off hand, "I should like to go into the army."

Most young gentlemen make this answer, and when they become old gentlemen they begin to think that it was as stupid a one as they could