whom should I then meet on my way home but, positively, my eye-glass acquaintance of Downing Street. Fancy his being out before nine o’clock in the morning! It was an unparalleled occurrence.

“Hullo, Horner!” I sang out, “’morning, old fellow. Compliments of the season!”

“Bai-ey Je-ove! Lorton, how you stawtled me—’do!”

“You don’t mean to say,” I asked, on getting closer to him, “that you’ve actually taken to early rising?”

“No, ’pon honah, I asshaw you, my deah fellah, no!” he replied, quite excitedly. “No, I asshaw you, no,” he repeated.

“Well, then, what on earth makes you come out at this early unearthly hour?” I said.

“Oh—ah! you see—ah, my deah fellah,” he answered, “it was all those confawnded little bahds and the bells kicking up such a raow; that, ’pon honah, I couldn’t sleep and so I came out. I asshaw you it was all those bweastwy little bahds and the bells!”

“At all events, I must congratulate you on your reformation,” I said.

“Yaas? But it was all those bweastwy little bahds and the bells, you know; and it’s only once a ye-ah you know, Lorton,” he added.

“So you will never do so again till next time—is that what you mean, Horner?” I asked.

“Yaas! But, bai-ey Je-ove, I say, Lorton, my deah fellah, were the Clydes those ladies in hawf-mawning, eh?” said he, smiling feebly in his usual suave manner. He thought he had got hold of a grand joke at my expense.

However, I was not in the least angry with him. I felt too happy to have lost my temper with any one, especially Horner, whom I generally regarded as a poor creature to be tolerated rather than blamed.

“Did you ever hear, Horner,” said I, “how Peabody made his first fortune?”

“No, ’pon honah, I asshaw you, no.”

“Well, then, I’ll tell you, Horner,” said I. “It was by minding his own business, my dear fellow.”

“Bai-ey Je-ove!” he ejaculated, adding, after a pause, “Weally, Lorton, you dawn’t mean it?”

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