handy," being only one passage off; and Peregrine Pultuney, with surprising alacrity, supplied table and chairs, amongst the latter of which he had taken care to provide the doctor's own particular for the president, with what precise object in view, we cannot very confidently state.

The next process to be gone through was a rather singular one; it consisted of removing three or four blankets from three or four beds, and hanging them up in treble folds before the windows of the room. "Necessity is the mother of invention," observed Vincent Vaux, as he turned his blanket into a shutter, and defied the doctor to see a light through it.

The lucifers were then resorted to, candles lit, and every boy in the room set himself to work most assiduously. It would have been an interesting spectacle to Asmodeus and his friend, if they had unroofed this particular wing of Dr. Radix's house at this particular moment, and seen how these juvenile "nine worthies" unrolled nine night-shirts, and took from thence nine black bottles, which they severally deposited on the table. It would have done any one's heart good, moreover, to have seen that table after it was laid out, veal pie, cold, at one end, roast chickens ditto at the other, sliced ham on one side, cucumber opposite, and two fine boiled lobsters in the middle. The arrangements were astonishingly complete and nothing was wanting but a cork-screw; and even this would not have

been missing, if Skinner had not been "fool enough to lend his knife," on the very evening that he most required its assistance. This, however, was a small difficulty, for after sundry attempts on the part of Styles to punch out the cork with a twopronged fork, and divers suggestions from Skinner to "push it in," a proceeding vehemently objected to by Master Peregrine Pultuney, that young gentleman, after a declaration that he knew a trick worth two of that, began with singular address and the back of the carving knife to knock off the top of the rims of one or two bottles in the tidiest manner imaginable, and to the general satisfaction of the party.

It was at this interesting stage of the proceedings that one of the party observed incidentally, that he felt uncommonly cold, a statement which is generally believed at twelve o'clock on a December night, when there is no fire in the neighbourhood of those who are called upon to credit the assertion. It was in fact bitterly cold-" too cold to freeze," as one of the boys facetiously remarked, and it is a singular proof of the fallibility of human memory, that when Vincent Vaux suggested that they might speedily warm the frozen current of their blood, by the assistance of a jorum of hot punch, a question was put by one of the bystanders, as to where the hot water was to come from.

Now whether it was that these juvenile roysterers being endowed with a royal taste, had it in contem

plation after the esteemed example set by his gracious Majesty George the Fourth, to weaken their punch with brandy, or whether it was, as I have before hinted, that human memory is essentially erratic, and that in the hurry and press of affairs a considerable oversight had been committed, we cannot confidently assert; but it is certain that after the interchange of a few words, it was discovered that although the brandy, the rum, the sugar and the lemons were all present in their proper localities, the water, in obedience to the Irishman's receipt, had been utterly forgotten.

The thoughts that this sudden discovery engendered in the mind of Peregrine Pultuney are only known to himself, but the effect that it had upon his actions was of the most novel and striking description. He was observed to move his bed a little way from the wall, and suddenly to disappear behind it.

At this manœuvre his comrades were not half so much astonished as they ought to have been. They neither cried out "a miracle!" nor stood petrified with astonishment, nor wrung their hands with dismay. A few classical and familiar invocations, in which the names of Jupiter, George, and Jingo might have been heard somewhat louder than the rest, were the only tokens that any uncommon sensations were experienced by the lookers on. Admiration was evidently the prevailing feeling, for some expressed an opinion that Peregrine was

the finest fellow in the world, and that they never knew such a chap, an opinion which seemed to be pretty general, for none took the trouble to controvert it. From all of which it may be reasonably conjectured, that Peregrine Pultuney's sudden disappearance, bore some reference or other to the personal comforts of those whose society he had so abruptly deserted.

In about three minutes and a half after Peregrine had vanished, any curious observer in the near vicinity of that young gentleman's bed, might have perceived an unusual appearance in that part of the wall, from which the article in question had been thrust. He might have seen something that bore the appearance of an aperture, or hole in the wall-a panelled wall, by the way, and on the floor in front of the aperture he might have seen a goodsized basket of coals, and above the basket, apparently on the other side of the wall, he might have seen the handsome face of Master Peregrine Pultuney, appearances which might have astonished the curious observer if he had not been previously informed that the boys of that "senior room" had a trap door behind Peregrine's bed, moveable at the will of any young gentleman who could extract four nails, and that this door communicated with the stairs of the washing-room, which washing-room communicated with a passage, at one end of which was situated the coal-cellar and the other end the stable. The stable led into the town, which ac

counted for the trap-door, but upon this particular occasion the coal-cellar had been the place of resort, and a very useful place too, on a December evening, with a thermometer below freezing point, and no hot water for the punch. The basket of coals having been lifted in, the trap-door closed, and the bed pushed back again, the preparations were made for lighting a fire; but here another difficulty suggested itself, they wanted some wood to lay the fire with. Of paper there was no lack, for two volumes of Livy and a Hederic Lexicon would have been ample for a moderate conflagration. But if ever there was a Ulysses "fertile in resources," it was Master Peregrine Pultuney, for no sooner did his ears catch the sound of the word wood, than he extricated a chocolate-coloured deal plank, about six feet in length, and two in breadth from the bondage to which its maker had consigned it, and although this said plank was no other than the side of Master Pultuney's bed, intended to keep that young gentleman from rolling out if he were restless, with an ingratitude almost unparalleled, he unclasped a large "hack knife" and set to slicing the chocolate-coloured board with the least possible degree of compunction. "By the living jingo," cried Vincent Vaux, "if Mother Radix were to see you, wouldn't she just be in a rage." It is a remarkable fact that all elderly ladies are invested with a brevet maternity by young gentlemen at school, the term "mother" in their