The rest on 'em was the okkurdest creetures at eatin' as I ever see, rammin' their phawks into their mouths like mad. So I made one more trial to make things pleasant with the old lady. "Mind you don't prick yourself, Mrs. Hawkey," I says, smilin'.

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Pray do not distress yourself on my account," says she, as pleasant as a vinegar-bottle havin' words with a pepperbox.

I was werry nigh garspin', for I hadn't had a drop to drink, so I ses to the feller in the black coat, "I'm thirsty," says I. "What'll you take, sir?" says he. "Anythink you've got in the house," I says; and if he didn't give me a dose of the sourest muck I ever put to my lips, I'm a Dutchman.

So I made up my mind to punch his head just as I was a leavin' of the house.

Well, then the old fellow as had spoke to me on the fust floor began a talkin' about "fleebottomy," which I suppose is Latten for flower, for it seemed to be all about buds and plants, and the old major says, quite fine—

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"That there last lekture o' yourn at the Institushun," says he, was werry instructiv' and even entertainin'.' They've got a way o' talkin' that's somehow different from ourn, but, if you're sharp, you soon ketch hold on it.

"It would ha' bin more so," says the other one, pat enuff with his arnser, "If I'd 'ad the advarntij of your Injun experience."

That reg'lar tickled the old major; he quite seemed to warm up like, and begun chattin' away a good 'un. His talk hadn't much to do with flow'rs as I could see, but it was about everythink else, and I suppose it's all fleebottomy. It was all about Injer, and punkers, and doolies, and helefants, and tigers, and ragers some sort o' wild beast I ain't seen, but I thought I'd show him he hadn't got it all his own way. "I've been with the tigers myself, major," says I, "leastways I've seen 'em in the Sologikal Gardins."

This was the first thing I'd spoken out loud, and it reg'lar turned the larf agin the major. All on 'em tittered a bit, except him and his wife, and they looked quite wild and savij at one another, as if they was arskin' questions.

"One of their rows agin, I suppose," says I, and felt glad I'd got over my shyness, and come out so well.

Then in comes all them idle fellers and strips off two slips

o' cloth like round towels, and kivers the table with a lot o' wine in decanters and all sorts o' fruit. As for me, I was dyin' for a smoke, but I see ne're a pipe nor a bit o' baccy in the place.

The old major's wife was more spiteful than I thought, for arfter lookin' awful evil at me, she gives a kind o' glance at the rest on 'em, and blowed if the stuck-up creatures, old hook-nose and all, didn't sail right out o' the room. All the better, thinks I to myself. Let 'em stay there till I sends for 'em, if our company ain't good enough for 'em, thinks I; they'll come back soon enuff after their tantrums. Now I hope we shall have a song, I says, and I begun a thinkin' of the toasts I should give 'em if they put me in the chair.

But no; ne'er a hammer, or a chairman, or a song. They all talked away like schoolboys over their lessons instead about gettin' into Parliament and huntin' and heart, and somethin' about last month's review in Edinburgh that one old fellow said he'd seen that mornin', and nobody laughed or seemed to twig the blunder except me; but I didn't say anythink, for I didn't want to make the old boy look like a fool. As for most o' their talk, it was such a pack o' stuff and nonsense that I ain't got the 'art to put it down.

Once or twice some on 'em had a drop o' wine together, and bobbed their heads at one another like heathens, without so much as sayin' I looks towards yer, or Here's luck.

Bye and bye the old feller gits up, tired o' waitin', I suppose, so says he, "Let's go and jine the ladies," ses he, as if his sperrit was reg'lar broken. I'd harf a mind to say, “Let 'em wait till they get out o' their tantrums," but I thought o' Brockey, and I didn't.

If my old lady was to see me give in like this, thinks I, I should be a mere plaything in my own place.

Well, we went up stairs. Some other time I'll tell yer about that second part in the drawin'-room, but I ain't got the heart to do it now. I sit it out for an 'our or two, till I felt as twittery as a kitten, and then I come away.

The barrer was waitin' for me round the corner, Jem, and you was there. Never shall I forget the taste of that drop o' porter yer brought out of the can, or the relish o' that lump o' bread and the onion you give me from the pocket of yer coat. For your own privit year, old fellow, I got many things as I can't let out to the public; but this I will say, that unless I seed it myself, I couldn't ha' believed as creetures wi'

money in their pockets and eddication could be so miserable. They're deservin' of all the pity of them as knows the blessin' of a good meal, pleasant conversation, and a easy way o' meetin' one's friends, and tho' p'r'aps I may larf at 'em along wi' you, I'd be the fust person to put a trifle down for 'em at any public meetin', or get up a friendly lead or a sing-song to provide the poor things with a Christian meal o' wittles and make their miserable lives more comfortabler and 'appy.

PROGRAMME NO. 5.

SURLY TIM'S TROUBLE.

A LANCASHIRE STORY (ABRIDGED FOR PUBLIC READING).

Surly Tim is represented to have been an operative in one of the large manufactories in the north of England. He had gained the name of "Surly Tim" through his strange demeanor toward his companions, often refusing to answer their questions or perform any of the ordinary civilities, on account of which his fellow workmen had given him the cold shoulder and dubbed him "Surly Tim. But one of the partners of the firm took a great deal of interest in Tim, thinking there must be something beneath the rough exterior, and so endeavored from time to time to draw him out, but without success, until one night, as he was going home, he chanced to pass the village churchyard, and heard a noise as of a man in distress just over the fence. Getting over to speak to him, he discovered that the man was none other than Surly Tim, sitting by two graves, one the longer and the other a shorter. Shortly, being grateful for the sympathy thus extended him, Surly Tim begins to tell his story, and why it is he conducts himself as he does. It seems that some years before he had been married to a very lovely woman; but that she had previously been married to a soldier, one Phil Brent, who had beaten and abused her and finally deserted her and gone into the army, and whom she had heard by letter was killed in the Crimea. Supposing herself free again, of course, she had married Tim. He, after describing the courtship up to a little time before their marriage, says of her in his broad north-of-England dialect:

Rosanna Brent an' me got to be good friends, an' we walked home together o' nights, an' talked about our bits o' wage, an' our bits o' debt, an' th' way that wench 'ud keep me up i' spirits when I were a bit downhearted about owt, wur just a wonder. An' bein' as th' lass wur so dear to me,