"She's prigged the clothes and pawned 'em for liquor," said Bill, doggedly-such being precisely what Bill knew he should have done himself.

"That she ain't" cried Dick, indignantly; "Rose ain't up to such things, and Rose don't drink liquor."

Bill's answer was to whirl his fist in the direction of his son's head; but Dick “bobbed,” and the stroke missed him, while it nearly upset Mr. William Bennoch himself.

"You young vagabone!" growled he. "You leave me alone then, can't you?" cried Dick, who was very fond of being saucy when he knew he could escape the conse

quences.

Bill for a moment entertained the idea of recommencing hostilities; but perhaps it struck him that the exertion would be too great, and so he sat still and only growled.

Dick," said he, after a pause-" have you got any money?"

No, father," was the short reply. "Don't tell lies, Dick: you know you have," cried Bill, half surlily and half coaxingly.

"Well, if a poor boy has got just one single penny, mayn't a poor chap keep it for hisself?" whined Dick.

Lend it me, Dick. I'll pay it back to-morrow."

"Oh! I dare say," said Dick: "you owe me fourpence already, and don't I wish I may get it?"

"I tell you what, Dick," continued the exemplary father, without noticing the last speech, "just go to the Grapes and get a penn'orth of gin and bring it here, and you shall have half of it, and I'll pay you back all the money to-morrow-I'll make it sixpence -there now."

Dick had a strong presentiment that he should be "done" somehow; but the temptation was too great to be resisted; and so he went on his errand.

Dick Bennoch was a thorough London boy; and the boys of London are as distinctive a class of human beings as the North American Indians. You will not find their counterparts all over the world. A Paris gamin slightly assimilates to them, but is a very different animal nevertheless. A thorough-bred London boy, like our friend Dick, is invariably dirty, sharp, and of doubtful honesty. If he be deficient in either of these distinctive marks, he is not of the true breed. Cleanliness is utterly abjured by this juvenile fraternity; a stupid fellow is sent to

Coventry, or imposed on, or made a butt of, so that he is obliged to retire from their respectable society. And then, their sharpness is of that peculiar cast that loves roguery, and finds its most pleasant exercise in cheating the unsuspecting-not exactly in downright thieving, pocket-picking, and so forth; for there is a line of distinction between the class we are speaking of and the juvenile pickpockets-but in petty roguery and chicanery of all kinds. It is the fun of the thing they love the excitement of the game, quite as much as the stakes they play for. A London boy will be happier with a penny got by a clever trick of his own, than with a fourpenny piece bestowed on him without solicitation or exertion on his part.

After all, perhaps, the only real distinction between the mere London boy and the young thief is that accident, or somebody's care (Heaven knows whose), has prevented the former from yet joining the latter. Of course they are the raw material out of which the pickpockets are formed, and it is surprising how little training they require to make them adepts in the "art of abstracting."

The London boy seldom knows how to write or read, but he is wonderfully quick at figures. Try to get the better of him in any matter of calculation, and you will soon give up the attempt in despair. How he performs his mental arithmetic it might puzzle us to say, or himself to tell you; but the results of his ready reckoning are always perfectly correct, except when they are wilfully incorrect in his own favor. There is, also, a complete freemasonry among the class: let a London boy meet a lad in the street whom he has never seen before, and he will tell, almost at a glance, but certainly after two minutes' conversation with him, whether he is of "the right sort"—whether he belongs to the honorable fraternity of London boys, or is a novice, a greenhorn, a muff."

say.

How the London boy lives it is difficult to He generally has a parent, sometimes both; for he is apt to turn thief or workhouse boy when he is an orphan. So that he generally has a home of some kind, where he will occasionally have a bit of food tossed to him as if he were a dog, and with the addition of a few ugly names thrown at him at the same time and an imprecation for not getting his own living.. Considering that he has never been taught anything useful in his life, it is scarcely astonishing that he possesses no ready means of earning his livelihood. He manages, however, to pick up two or three

shillings every week by holding horses, running on errands, and winning at pitch-andtoss with less skilful players than himself.

His notions of the distinctions of society are rather limited. All men who are well dressed he calls nobs and swells, and supposes them to be pretty much on an equality with each other, and to have every earthly thing they want. Whence come their revenues he knows not, and never troubles his head to consider. Perhaps he fancies they have their wealth all stowed away in big boxes at home, or that the Queen sends it to them; but all he does know is, that he should like to stand in their shoes, and to wear their coats and eat their dinners.

But while we are describing the class our own specimen of it has returned from the Grapes, and brought the gin.

Bill Bennoch put the mug to his mouth and gulped it all down, forgetting his promise to give his son the half of it.

"It's all a cheat, Dick," he cried-" they give you bad measure.

"Too sharp for that, father," replied Dick, chuckling; "but you see I drank my half first, 'cos I thought you might forget to give it me."

As soon as he said this he dived to escape the blow that he knew would be aimed at him, and he escaped from the room, while Bill, whose last exertion made him completely lose his balance, found himself stretched on the floor; and thinking that it would do as well as any other place, under the circumstances, he remained there.

In the morning, when Mr. Bennoch awoke, the sunlight was streaming into his room through the dirty window. The only chance the sun had of penetrating his apartment was early in the morning; and its rays happening to fall right on to the eyelids of the slumbering Bill, it is scarcely surprising that they woke him. It took him some time to make out where he was, and a great deal longer to remember how he came there. And certainly, when he looked about him, the view was far from inviting or satisfactory. Tables, chairs, washing-tubs, crockery, and pewter pots were heaped together in extraordinary confusion, and in a greater or less degree of dilapidation. He was the sole occupant of the room; for his wife had spent the night in the streets fruitlessly searching after her missing daughter; while Dick, who considered his father dangerous at present, had prudently taken up his quarters with one of his intimate pals" in the neighborhood.

A knocking at the door aroused Bill's attention.

"Come in!" he cried; and, making sure that it was his wife, he seized a broken piece of a washing-tub ready to hurl it at her head. But his benevolent intentions were frustrated by the entrance of a man, instead of his beloved spouse. The man was a gentleman, too: and his appearance formed a strong contrast with that of the drunken brute on the floor.

"Who are you?" cried Bill, with a vague idea that it might be a policeman; "I haven't been beating anybody--I've a right to smash my own things if I like, haven't I? What's

it to you? I haven't got five shillings, so it's no use taking me up before the beaks-it's only a shocking expense to the country to have to keep me in prison, that's wot it isyou know the beak said so last time himself; so leave me alone, can't you?

"Is your name Bennoch?" asked the new comer, unheeding this grand speech.

"You've got it all right in the charge-book -Lor' bless you! the sergeant knows me well enough it wouldn't do for me to give a false name: everybody knows Bill Bennoch'Staggering Bill,' the vagabonds calls him." "I believe you've got a daughter ?" said the gentleman.

'She's bolted-prigged all the linen and popped it for drink,' stuttered Bill, who seemed to have convinced himself of the truth of what he was saying.

"For shame, sir! cried the gentleman; "I tell you your poor child is in the hospital with a broken leg."

"Who's broke it?" cried Bill; one of them lobsters, I suppose-they're always breaking people's limbs, they are."

Lorimer Littlegood was dreadfully disgusted. The man was apparently dead to all feeling; for even the news of his child's sufferings produced no effect on him.

"Where's your wife?" he asked, angrily.

66

Drunk," said Bill, 'quite drunksmashed everything in the place and gone to the Grapes-she's got tick there and I haven't that's all about it."

"I wonder whether there are any neighbors of this brute that I can talk to," said Lorimer to himself. "My God! what a home for the poor child! And he was leaving the room.

"Hi! hi!" shouted Bill, “can't you stand something before you go? You see my wife's been and beaten me almost to a jelly, and I want something to set me up

again—I haven't got a mag-and no tick at the Grapes."

Lorimer banged the door in disgust, and left Bill alone.

"He's no gentleman," said Bill; "he's a hippopotamus-that's what he is;" and he lay down again with his head under the dresser and snored.

Scarcely had Lorimer got outside the house when a woman with a wild and haggard look met him.

"What is it, sir? what is it about my child, sir? the neighbors say you've come about her."

66 Are you Mrs. Bennoch?" asked Lorimer. 'Yes, yes.'

"Your little girl has had an accident," said Lorimer, gently; "but don't be alarmed; it is not serious, and she is well taken care of."

"Take me to her-please, sir, take me to her," cried the woman, frantically.

“I will—indeed, I will," said Lorimer; and in five minutes more they were rattling through the streets, side by side, in a hack cab, driving towards Charing Cross Hospital.

"I wonder what sort of child this would have been," thought Lorimer, as he saw her clasped in her mother's arms, "if both parents had been alike, drunken brutes?"

Yet Rose was scarcely so pleased to see her mother as a stranger would have expected; and her eyes wandered from her to the form of the handsome young stranger, on whom she gazed with a look of intense inquiry, yet half bewilderment.

CHAPTER VI.

AFTER THE OPERA.

ONE of the most incontrovertible of ancient laws is that which declares that no one is wise omnibus horis. Our friend Lorimer, so far from affording any exception to the truth of this maxim, exemplified it in the highest degree; for he was wise so very few hours out of the twenty-four, that the effects of his wisdom were rarely visible. People who resolve to see life-to know the world, and so forth-generally start on their expedition with the idea that they are going to have a pleasant voyage. No doubt they calculate on a few foul winds, an occasional collision, and a loose linch-pin or two; but such trifles weigh but lightly against the agrémens of travel. How different is the reality! There is little picturesque, entertaining, or pleasing, in any sense, to be found in the Life-journey;

:

at all events, after the first charm of novelty has worn off, and the traveller sees things in their proper light, instead of through the spectacles of curiosity and surprise. And by degrees weariness and disgust creep upon him he is tired of the turmoil, and out of humor with his fellow-travellers: he has found the world less good, less wise, and less amusing than he expected it: and he is far from satisfied with the part he himself has played in it. The journey is over: he takes to his bed-thinks how much better he might have employed his time-knows that it is "too late:" turns his face to the wall, andyes, the journey is over.

All this may be very trite and very true: but it will bear repetition. Every day young gentlemen are starting on this same voyage "to see life," with the same hopes and aspirations, the same anticipations of delight, as had been felt by all their predecessors on the road, though any one of those who had gone before them would have told them how completely they were destined to be disappointed. And yet they would never have believed them. When it was first said that "Experience teaches"- -no matter whom-there was more in the saying than we generally assign to it. Not only does experience teach, but it teaches the only lessons we really learn and take to heart. All the good counsel in the world— all the sound maxims-all the wise warnings -all the recorded truths-will not deter a man from an act of folly so effectually as the fact of his having once experienced the evil effects of that act. Wise heads have tried to reform human nature for some five or six thousand years-it remains pretty much as it was in the beginning. A little polish here, and a dab of paint there, to make it look better perhaps; but the substance, the core, is of the same old material yet. Well, it is God's work, after all: and it may occasionally strike transcendentalists and cynics that, perchance, poor Human Nature was intended to be what it is and always has been.

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If this little disquisition is àpropos of anything, it is of the fact that Mr. Lorimer Littlegood was remarkably like the rest of the world and if, when he does foolish and wicked actions and gets into scrapes, the reader feel disposed to be indignant with him and call him ugly names, let him or her be assured that Lorimer is no worse than his fellows, and that his biographer is sketching from life, and not drawing fancy portraits of impossible heroes.

Lorimer was now in the very first stage of

his journey. He had not even learnt that last night's champagne is never worth this morning's headache: on the contrary, he quaffed the cup with delight, and made the best of the headache with the aid of hock and soda-water. Happy youth! yes, happy if you were not destined to those abominable désillusions that remind one of awaking from some delicious dream of Paradise, to find that it is a snowing morning, the shaving water is hard, your razors won't cut, there's nothing nice for breakfast, and two creditors with very long bills are waiting down stairs to see you.

It is half-past twelve o'clock at nightwhy should we call it morning?-the Opera is over, and supper is served in a snug little room in Violette's Club. The supper is for six, and six gentlemen are there to partake of it. First, there is Mr. Lorimer Littlegoodthen there is Mr. Lavers, and Mr. O'Neil, the Count Roussillon, Tom Baker, and Captain Kelly.

The gentle reader is already acquainted with the first three gentlemen: the fourth was a French Count of multitudinous accomplishments, imposing personal appearance, wonderful resources, but unknown revenues. The fifth was a very good, straightforward, jolly country gentleman, whose only weakness was an occasional run up to London in order to mix, for about a fortnight at a time, with the very fastest men upon town, and get rid of as much ready cash in that period as would support his establishment in Suffolk during the rest of the year.

The last on the list, the great Captain Kelly-how shall I describe him? Imagine the height of everything big and astounding; picture to yourself six feet two of sinew, bone, and muscle, that would have constituted any decent boxer champion of the prize ring; conceive a very full and florid face, with the most tremendous of decidedly red whiskers, and a crop of hair of the same hue and proportionately luxuriant in curl and quantity; think of the very extreme of fashion in the shape, make, and material of a gentleman's costume; fancy a loud, rich-toned, and commanding voice, with the strongest taste of the Hibernian brogue; an air of the most perfect ease and self-satisfaction; a conviction of being able to do every earthly thing-from governing a kingdom to standing on his head, from commanding the forces at Sebastopol to playing on the cornet-à-piston-better than any other created being; an eye that never quailed, a cheek that

never blushed, a mouth that for ever smiled -add all these things and qualities together, (with fifty others that we have forgotten at the moment,) and voilà our friend Captain Kelly.

Captain of what? Of anything and of everything-sure, he'd served in the Guards and in the Ballinabraggin Militia-in the Austrian Imperial Guard and the Texan Fencibles-in the Spanish Legion and the army of the Rajah of Trinchinapoly-in the Illinois Volunteers and in the body-guard of the Grand Llama of Thibet. If you ventured to ask him where he had seen service, indeed, there was scarcely a spot of earth, from Nova Zembla to Terra del Fuego, that could escape his enumeration as the scene of some of his martial services and exploits. He would crush you beneath a mountain of names of places that it would be utterly impossible to remember the fiftieth part of, that you never heard of before to your recollection, and that would take you a considerably long time to discover in any atlas yet given to the world by geographers.

There were only two points on which Captain Kelly declined to be communicative; or would have declined if any one had been ill-bred enough to press for information -where he lived, and how he lived. It is just possible that the reader and I may live to discover both these doubtful and puzzling things.

Supper was served, and an excellent supper it was. The wine, too, was good and deliciously cool: the servants waited well, and the feasters were men who appreciated all these advantages.

Did you see Mrs. M'Shane to-night, Count?" asked Lorimer.

"Yes, I see her she is beautiful woman,' replied the Count.

"You know her history, of course ?" remarked O'Neil.

"Not entirely," replied Lorimer-" except that report says she had fifty thousand pounds, and that your extremely sensible countryman, her present husband, ran away with her in consideration of her attractions."

"That's not exactly true," said O'Neil; "she had not quite so much as that-about thirty thousand, I believe."

"I have heard, and I believe I'm right," said Lavers, "that she never had more than twenty thousand, and also that she ran away with some one else before she finally ran to win the amiable M'Shane.'

"The divil a one of you is quite right,"

cried Captain Kelly, "though my friend Lavers is nearer the mark than any of you." "What is the truth, then, Kelly? asked Tom Baker, who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation, from not being very well "up" in the latest London scandal, but who was eager enough to become acquainted with it.

"I ought to know the truth, Baker, my boy," returned the Captain, "seeing that I've been particularly well acquainted with the lady myself."

"Oh! oh! a confession from the Captain," said two or three of the party. "Tell us the story, Kelly, like a good fellow."

"It's no story, but the gospel truth, my boys," returned Kelly. May be you don't know that I ran away with Polly Flight that was, and Polly M'Shane that is, myself?"

A roar of laughter followed this announce

ment.

"It's true then," cried the Captain, " and I wouldn't mention it only among such friends as yourselves-for, of course, you wouldn't demean yourselves by repeating a word I'm going to tell you.”

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Certainly not-go on," cried everybody. "Well then, here goes," said the Captain, and first of all he drained a half tumbler of champagne. "I was introduced to Polly Flight-Miss Mary Flight, I mean-about two years ago, and every one swore she had fifty thousand pounds. Now, I'm not a mercenary man," (here the Captain looked boldly round to see if anybody was laughing, but miraculously every one kept his countenance,) "and so I didn't care for the money much: but Polly is a very pretty girl, as you'll all admit."

"Very," cried the Englishmen.

Superbe," said the French Count. "Then, you see, it was quite natural that I should fall in love with Polly Flight-and I did fall in love with her. There were two or three miserable little hangers-on, I found, who wanted her fortune-an Ensign of Foot

-a

Captain of Cavalry, with no income but his pay, and a white moustache-a parson without a living-and a landed gentleman with his estate mortgaged to the last acre of its value. It didn't take Phil Kelly long to go by such cattle as these. I pretty soon persuaded Polly that they were nothing more than a set of miserable fortune-hunters that wanted her money and not herself-and she sent them all packing in no time. When the coast was clear I made play myself, and perhaps you'll excuse me, gentlemen, from

telling you how long it took me to become the accepted suitor of Miss Mary Flight. I don't wish to brag, and it's just likely you might think I was bragging if I mentioned the time."

"Don't mention it, pray," said Lorimer.

Well, then," resumed the Captain, after another draught of champagne, "I was the accepted lover of the beautiful Polly. But Polly had a father, and, as I'm a living soul, gentlemen, this insolent old vagabond dared to oppose our union! He wanted all the particulars of my property; he wanted the dates of my commissions in the various armies in which I had the honor, and the glory too, to serve; he wanted the history of my family-I don't know what the fellow's impertinent curiosity didn't want."

"Monstrous!" cried Lavers, with mock horror; "of course, you didn't satisfy him on any point?"

"But I did," replied Kelly; "I offered him the satisfaction of a gentleman. I told him he might choose his own weaponsanything from a pistol to a handspike, and his own ground-anywhere from the Twelve Acres to the Boulogne Sands-and what did the fellow do? He called me a murderer, and he locked me out of his house!"

"And so ended your adventure with Miss Flight, eh?" said Lorimer.

"Mr. Littlegood," replied the Captain gravely, "if anybody but a gentleman that I have such a respect for as yourself had made that remark, I should have requested him to name his friend and settle time, place, and weapons. Is it Phil Kelly that would be afraid of bolts and bars? Gentlemen, I made short work of it. I asked Polly if she loved me still. Polly said she did. I asked her if she'd bolt to Gretna Green. Polly said she'd like nothing better. I asked Polly if she'd any ready money; for, you see, gentlemen, I happened to be a little hard up for ready cash at the moment, all through that confounded miscreant of an agent of mine over the water, and Polly said she had £54. I told Polly to slip it into her pocket, and slip out of the house at ten p.m. that very night. Gentlemen, there was a train for Scotland at half-past ten, and Polly Flight and your humble servant travelled by it."

Here the Captain made a pause and looked about him.

"Go on," cried his friends.

The Captain took another good pull at the champagne, and proceeded:

"We reached Scotland next morning, and