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vocabulary appearing to have no reference whatever to the possession of boys and girls.

Upon this Master Pultuney damned the expense, and went on cutting harder than ever.

"Here's a jolly fat fagot for you, now, my boys," exclaimed the last mentioned young gentleman, after he had sliced away with great determination for about five minutes; "now, Skinner, lend a hand." Thus addressed, Skinner lent two, by the aid of which a fire was laid in such a manner, that any housemaid in the three kingdoms would have died of envy if she had seen it.

A fragment of a Greek Testament was then applied to the candle and subsequently to a corresponding fragment of the same work that appeared between the bars of the grate, which process having been gone through, a little flame was excited and a great deal of smoke. One of the boys, with a decided mechanical turn, then ingeniously converted a volume of Herodotus, which was rather limp at the hinges, into that useful domestic appurtenance, a pair of bellows, and the hinges of the Herodotus got limper and limper as the room filled delightfully with smoke. The chimneys in schoolboys' bed-rooms are not used to this sort of thing, and if they do not perform their functions quite so well as they ought to do, it must be remembered that they are "out of practice," which is an excuse for doing any thing badly.

"Confound it," cried Vincent Vaux, as a tre

mendous puff of smoke burst right into his face, "what, the devil, are we to do?"

Thus appealed to, Peregrine Pultuney replied with an unmoved countenance, "Why, if the fire insists upon smoking, I vote that we do so too."

“Ha, ha, I vote we do," echoed a young gentleman, who was generally sick at the third whiff.

"After supper, gentlemen, after supper," observed Horatio Styles, who was head boy of the school, and president of this great assembly. "I vote we begin at once, hang the smoke," he cried philosophically, for in the first place he was very hungry, and in the second he had got a long speech by heart, which he found himself rapidly forgetting.

"Well, then," said Peregrine Pultuney, suiting the action to the word, as he spoke, "suppose we take off a few of these coals, cut up what remains of the side of my bed, make a wood-fire of it, put on the kettle and sit down to supper."

"Suppose we do," said five or six voices, and forthwith it was done. A window was partly opened and the smoke partly escaped. Then they sat down to supper, but not partly, for there was a remarkable unanimity on that score, and they all sat down together.

Horace Styles at the top of the table in the doctor's chair, Vincent Vaux at the bottom, and Peregrine Pultuney on the right hand of the president, conversation very exhilarating, wine, of course,

execrable, a circumstance which on these occasions, no one ever thinks of finding out. Lobsters remarkably fine, and almost fresh-veal pie exquisitely seasoned, and every body in high spirits, except one young gentleman with weak nerves, who every now and then would cry out "hang the doctor," declaring at the same time that he didn't care if they were found out, not he, for what was a flogging, a declaration that informed every one present that he thought it was a great deal.

The conversation was certainly very brilliant, "feast of reason and flow of soul," in the highest possible perfection, every body took wine with every body, and the more they drank, the faster they talked, which is one of those moral phenomena for which we could never satisfactorily account. "What is the best way of cating this pie," asked one young gentleman, who prided himself upon the excellence of his witticisms.

"With a knife and fork, I should think," replied Peregrine Pultuney, drily.

"No-no-that's not it," said the witty young gentleman, feeling very disappointed at Peregrine's literal acceptation.

"What is it then?" asked two or three voices"one of your eternal puns?"

"With the greatest veal-ocity to be sure," exclaimed the puerile punster, as he looked round for applause.

"Oh! oh!" groaned his comrades, like well bred

members of parliament, who don't think it stylish to speak, but are great hands at shouting and groaning.

"What a bore it is, Pultuney, that you're going to leave," said another young gentleman, who was getting very friendly in his cups.

Peregrine Pultuney made an observation on the mutability of human affairs, and helped himself to the tail of a lobster.

"Peregrine, a glass of wine-not bad Sherry this, is it?" cried the nervous youth, who had exhibited such supreme contempt of the doctor's flagellations.

Peregrine Pultuney knew very well that the wine in question was the worst Marsala, but as he was only a guest, he contented himself with imbibing it "gingerly," and giving his head a sort of knowing jerk when any young gentleman appealed to

him.

"Well, now," continued the nervous young gentleman, with a sort of convulsive smile, "this is what I call fun: who cares for the doctor, I say, with such wine on the table?-Hallo! what noise was that?" and the hand of the victim of weak nerves was arrested half way to his mouth.

"Only the clock striking;" cried two or three voices together, and the nervous boy continued very bravely, "well if we are found out, it does not so much matter. I don't think he'd flog us, do you?-he wont flog Styles or Skinner; and he

couldn't well flog one without flogging us all," and this reflection seemed to afford a wonderful consolation to his mind, for he helped himself plentifully to cucumber, and " hanged" the doctor again.

Thus the supper passed most agreeably and satisfactorily to all parties; there was nothing of the lobsters left but the shells, and nothing of the veal pie but the dish-all hands were employed in removing the fragments of the feast, the dirty plates restored to the old press, clean tumblers placed on the table, and before the president was located a new wash-hand basin, surrounded by two or three black bottles, a whitey-brown paper bag of sugar, six lemons, and a knife. The cigars being distributed into small groups containing three or four each, were stuck into wine-glasses and placed in different parts of the table, and the olives having been emptied into a soup-plate, were deposited before the "vice," with an especial injunction from the facetious young gentleman not to make away with them all.

The punch was made, tasted, altered two or three times, and at last declared to be excellent. The hot water, having been decently smoked, gave the beverage "a taste of whiskey," which most of the young gentlemen declared a decided improvement, and especially a young import from the Emerald isle, who made a mystical allusion to potheen, and apostrophized some favourite animal,

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