PATCHWORK.

WANT OF EARNESTNESS.

ISAAC BARROW (1630-1677) could not tolerate people who looked on life merely from the grotesque or ludicrous point of view. If it is true,' said he, 'that nothing has for you any relish except painted comfits and unmeaning trifles, that not even wisdom will please you, unless without its own peculiar flavour, nor truth, unless seasoned with a jest, nor reason, unless cloaked in fun, then in an unlucky hour have I been assigned as your purveyor, neither born nor bred in such a frivolous confectionery. The insatiable appetite for laughter keeps itself within no bounds. Have you crowded to this place for the purpose of listening, and studying, and making progress, or only for the sake of laughing at this thing, and making a jest of that other? There is nothing so remote from levity which you do not instantly transmute into mirth and absurdity, and let a discourse be such as to move no laughter, nothing else will please, neither dignity, nor gravity, nor solidity, neither strength, nor point, nor polish.'

B

PETS.

Human nature is not thoroughly base, it must have something to cling to; for instance, a husband or a wife, a father or a mother, a son or a daughter-if it can't have these, it puts up with an uncle or even a grandmother. The same with la belle passion, but I will not enter on that now, it is too suggestive, and would take far too long. And it is the same with friendship. Some people are entirely dependent on their friendships, they cling to the beloved as ivy embraces the oak, and they do not look unlovely as they so cling. I believe those who have this capacity are not the less happy for it. Life runs very pleasantly for them, their hours dance

away with down upon

their feet! There are others, again, who are much more independent, if they cannot find a human being handy, they put up with a pug or a cockatoo. I know one or two very worthy people who find old chinamonsters, or even a rare postage-stamp, all-sufficing, but I think I have never come across any one who was entirely self-contained.

I have a friend who is blessed with a charming wife and very fine children-he is a model husband and father, but his heart is so capacious that he has also found accommodation for a huge brute of a Patagonian poodle, and this too in a not by any means capacious establishment. The animal came to him

from that country as a puppy, and it increased in weight and size at such a bewildering rate that it almost took his poor wife's breath away. She hopes 'Fang' has at last done growing. The enormous beast, who under that murderous name makes the earth to quake beneath him, and the population to tremble before him, is supremely good-natured, but, I suspect, he is out-of-the-common stupid, and he is useless too, for, as you may suppose, he is nothing of a mouser. The house is a fair size,

But if it's entered by a rat

There is no room to bring a cat.

'Fang' completely fills every chamber! and he empties it, too; for does not one whisk of his tail make hay with those little occasional tables, and the objets d'art that cover them? those tables which are so much in the way, and which might well be called traps to catch unwary visitors. It would be interesting to see the

statistics of Fang's butcher's account.

His gracious mistress (it would seem a mockery to call anybody his master) is not fanciful, but 'Fang' is so monstrous, and has such a threatening black jowl, that if any one of the children is out of sight longer than usual, she cannot get rid of the idea that perhaps 'Fang' has swallowed it. My friend is not a giant, and therefore, as he and his pet are inseparable, if I should ever chance to meet the dog without his master (it is impossible I could ever meet the master

without the dog) I should feel sure that the dog had made one gulp of him. It is diverting to see my friend return from a walk, and squeeze back into his house, for the hall will not hold him and his pet at the same moment.

Fang's master (I believe he is known in the neighbourhood as Fang's slave) lives within an easy walk of the metropolis, and he delights in the humours of the capital, and the grateful capital simply adores him, but we never see him now! Poor fellow, he is such a slave to his pet that he is afraid to leave him at home, he cannot shunt him, and he dares not take him with him to London. We never see our poor friend now. See how disastrous it is to have bowwow on the brain!

The following story of a pet is not to be read by anybody who is more than twelve years old :—

I have another pair of friends. They possess a delightful pet-a tame rook. He quits his own kind, by preference, to visit these fascinating but featherless bipeds. I happened to be staying with them in Cheshire. The hour was very early morning. There was a tap-tap at my window-what could it portend? Like the adorer of la belle qui fût Heaulmière, I have tapped at other people's casements before now! I know the sound, in fact, and appreciate the situation. I listened consciously and I opened the lattice coyly, and I was on the point of peeping out, when in

flapped the rook, and in a perfectly well-bred manner immediately made himself at home with my soap-dish. His visit at an end, out he hopped again, and proceeded to call on one or two other friends; and, at breakfast, we were able to compare notes about him, and bear testimony to his discreet behaviour.

The same evening I saw him in the lofty elm-trees, flopping about and cawing with his natural nestfellows, who, 'deliberate birds and prudent all,' were tearing each other's habitats to pieces.

I must now tell you how it was that my friends first made the rook's friendship. It would appear that at a very early age he was kicked out of 'the family tree,' and broke his leg. My benevolent friends succoured him, made much of him, and, when he was strong enough to fly, he, for a time, returned to his wild life, but he did not forget them, he often came back, and paid them a more than flying visit. He also made friends with the parrot, which although a cynical fowl, afterwards did him a good turn, and in this wise. One day, while he and the parrot were on the lawn together, a bird of prey suddenly swooped down, and without doubt, if it had not been for poor Polly, would have carried him off, there and then. But, as it happened, the parrot set up an unearthly screech-screech, whereupon the kite dropped his victim and vanished. Since that day the bond between my friends, and the parrot, and the rook, has been continually drawn closer.