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The attorney's clerk declined to lay himself open to an action for illegal arrest, so the policeman went home, and put on his uniform.

I was thinking of continuing my remarks by giving one or two hints with regard to the most popular kind of fraud of the present day, I mean the Joint Stock Company plan; but as I am at present engaged in one or two frauds of this description, and hope to realise much profit by them, I feel constrained, from obvious reasons, to refrain.

We cannot allow this curious production to go forth to the world, without pointing out that a great many more virtues appear to be required successfully to practice the science of knavery, than are necessary for the practice of common honesty.

THE BALLAD OF THE "RHINOCEROS."

BY WALTER C. BRYCE.

[The writer desires to state that the picture drawn in these verses is, of course, of the past. It requires this explanation to justify incidents now, in all probability, wholly unknown in merchant vessels.]

I had read my Peter Simple and my Tops'l Sheet Blocks too;
I'd also read my Basil Hall, and captains not a few,
And, although a simple landsman, my ambition was to be
Familiar with the pleasures and the perils of the sea.

So at last when my employers, Messrs. Bishopsgate and Co.
(They're the eminent importers in the Borough as you know),
Allowed me a vacation, my intention long had been

To devote it to the study of the Mercantile Marine.

And I rigged myself in serges, with buttons big as plates,
And I bought a "Naval Necktie"-one of Belcher's "six an' eights,"
And I sought a distant seaport, remarking on my way
As a fit occasion offered "Avast," "What cheer," "Belay."

There I swept the far horizon with my scientific eye
(That's the costly "achromatic " I'd been fool enough to buy),
And if I spied a vagrant plank, or buoyant packing-case,
I reported it as "flotsam" to the Coast-guard of the place.

At last I met a "party"-"Let us liquor, mate," he said,
"You air a natʼral mariner, a Neptoon born and bred;"
And I owned the soft impeachment," for, to tell the truth, I thought
That this "party" might afford me the experience I sought.

True, his coat was somewhat dirty, and he had a pinky eye,
And his bearing altogether was equivocal and sly;
Yet I might pick up a wrinkle ;-and whoever would despise
Useful knowledge for its jacket, and the colour of its eyes?

So we "liquored." And what follows is exactly like a dream
Of a smoky little pot-house, and a swelter and a steam,
Then a drinking, and a dancing, and a fighting; then again
A persistant oscillation like the rocking of a train.

Which it was. For I was going, with my benefactor, down,
In a semi-drugged condition, to another seaport town,
And I woke up rather dizzy, in a pair of pants and shirt,
Shipped on board of the Rhinoceros, and could'nt well desert.

For the good ship the Rhinoceros was standing right away
On a pleasant three month's voyage to Calcutta and Bombay,
With my name on her agreement-(I'm a pretty fairish clerk
But in this peculiar instance, I had signed it with a mark);

And a friendly voice requested me at once to "bear a hand”
Or he'd extricate my vitals in the very sight of land;
And another more benevolent-(its owner being drunk)
Said he'd cut me into ribbons, and he'd pickle me for junk.

Well the thing was done 'twas certain. So I reasoned in this way, After all the British sailor is entitled to his pay;

But my friend, with fond prevision, had "annexed" my first advance And had left me to subsist upon a shirt and pair of pants.

For, alas, the suit of serges, with the buttons big as plates,
Not a doubt some manlier beauty with its splendour decorates !
And, alas, the "achromatic "I was fool enough to buy,
Not a doubt by now is fitted to some new observer's eye.

Then I thought of Newton Forster, and I looked above the "trees,"
Where the rather-ragged banner braved the battle and the breeze;
And I said, let others cavil for the niceties of rank,
Though I havn't any stockings, still I tread a British plank;

And I said at least my fellows are the countrymen of Drake,
Though inadequately shirted, I but follow in his wake;
After all a twelve month's voyage is but relatively long,

Let me still retain the " light heart" with the "breeches" of the song.

But, alas, a fresh deception to that other one succeeds,
For the crew of the Rhinoceros are mostly Danes and Swedes,
Save myself the sole exceptions are a 'prentice-lad from Ayr,
And a small, squint-eyed Milesian, bred a tailor in Kildare;

And the mate is an American, whose favourite caress
Is a marlin spike or rope's end on my insufficient dress;
And the skipper's a Colonial, periodically dumb

From an over-application to the mysteries of Rum.

And I swear if the Rhinoceros but once can reach the shore (We had all but reached the bottom when a little past the Nore,Only saved from a collision by the other vessel's shout,

For the lights of the Rhinoceros were in the cabin, out;)

I say, if Fate befriend us, and the rations only last

(We have been at sea a fortnight and they're going very fast, For the fresh meat that the owners, per agreement, should provide To anticipate the killing most unconscionably died;)

Let me only have the option, though disrated, to return
To my forfeited vocation in the Borough Road concern,
And no earthly power shall make me so unutterably "green"
As to study further details in the Mercantile Marine.

SUBURBAN TRAGEDIES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "A QUESTION OF HONOUR."

In search of a house a little way out of town I came to a place which we will call Suburbopolis, new, gay, and pretty, with dozens of quaintlybuilt villas, bright with stone facings, red brick mosaic, and gilt ironwork, and surrounded with shrubs and trees, as though the place had sprung up in the middle of an old forest: which was not far from the truth. I soon found that the sole way to acquire one of these eligible residences was to apply to the Estate Agent, a man of boundless importance, who looked me over from head to foot, as if taking my size, and when I mentioned the moderate figure which I was prepared to spend yearly in house rent, remarked, with a nod of his head, "Ah, I thought that would be about it." "Cissy, my dear," he added to a pretty girl about twelve, with a small brother in her arms and a small sister holding on to her skirts, "just run down to No. 11, Lime Lane, and say that I must know whether they are going to stay, as there is a party after the house. No, stop here, I will go myself."

Whether it suddenly occurred to the parent that his wife was out, and that he would rather have the walk than the care of the babies, one or two more of whom put their heads through the door occasionally, I don't know, but at all events he went and left me with Cissy. Whether the way to Lime Lane is very long I have not yet discovered, but he left me with Cissy for a long while, during which I improved her acquaintance and that of several of her brothers and sisters in a rapid way with the aid of a packet of sugar-plums. Cissy liked sugar-plums, she was not too old for that, but she was old enough to be a very great help to a mother of a large family, and she had a pretty face and a wise little head of her own. She liked stories, too, and I told her one or two, and then asked her, half in fun, to tell me one in return; but Cissy evidently did not readily see jokes, and was accustomed to do what she was asked, and so, to my surprise, she told me several, one after the other, in a simple, quiet, earnest way. They were not pretty stories nor satisfactory stories, they began nowhere in particular and sometimes had no end, but they were very suggestive, and, as they interested me and led me to much speculation, I have tried to recall one or two of them exactly as Cissy told them. Suppose then, reader, that you have just asked Cissy to tell you some stories, and she answers, as she answered me :—

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