"I can ride without holding, you snobs," was Sam's reply. The master of the hounds now rode up to Sam, and treated him to such a specimen of the English language as surprised him amazingly. In due course of time the fox was killed, and Sam had the fortune to be in at the death. He saw some whispering, and people looking at him. At length one of the green collars approached him, "I think, sir, this is the first time that you ever was out hunting?" "It is, sir," said Sam.

Instantly the inside of the fox was rubbed on his face.

Sam swore, and kicked, and rushed after the offending green collar with his hunting whip, but the rest of the sportsmen threw themselves between them, saying, "It's all fair; everybody is blooded to the fox the first time he comes out hunting. We were all blooded ourselves."

Sam rode home, pondering to himself the peculiar language used by masters of hounds, and the singular manner that fox-hunters have of welcoming a new member of their fraternity. When he got home, he threw himself in an arm-chair, saying, "Mother, this genteel society is a werry rum thing. Genteel people swear a good deal more than they do about Barbican, only they uses rather different words." After a pause, he added, "I wonder, mother, whether it would be werry difficult to learn. They have some very nasty tricks among them too." But he made no farther allusion to the initiatory process.

After tea, that evening, a sort of cabinet council was held, which old Sims opened in the following set speech:

"I am a gentleman. I knows wery well that it's not on account of my family or of my edication. It's all along of my money, that's what it is. Now I'm thinking, if we were to give these genteel folks a regular good feed, in the money-no-object fashion, these fellers would treat us with more respect and attention, particular when they seed that them as weren't civil would not get no feed. We'll advertize the bill of fare as is to be, in the county paper, a fortnight before the time, same as the Lord Mayor advertizes his 'n." Lawyer Craggs shook his head.

"Well, Mr. Craggs, if it ain't the genteel thing to put it in the paper, Sam can drop hints out hunting about turtle, and venison, and champagne, and peacocks, and guinea fowls, and salmon, and all that sort of thing."

"I'm afraid that your scheme wont succeed," said Mrs. Sims. When folks hears of the dainties, they'll all be wanting to come, and we shall make more enemies by those we leave out, than we shall make friends, by feeding those that we ax."

Old Sims, however, overruled this objection by observing, "then we'll only have to give them another tuck out."

The landlord of the "Cock and Bottle" was written to to send down a London cook.

Craggs undertook to provide all the delicacies, which he knew how to provide cheaper and better than anybody else.

Letters of invitation were sent to the aristocracy of the county, and in due time the answers came in. "Lord Woodland presents his compliments, and regrets that a previous engagement must prevent his having the honour of waiting," &c.

'Why," said Mrs. Sims, "Sir Henry Heath says the very same words."

"Daresay they dine together," said Sam.

"Mr. and Mrs. Howard are both indisposed. Just the influenza," said Sally.

"Here's a rum 'un. What's the meaning of this: "Captain Pratt has not the honour of Mr. Sims' acquaintance."

"What a silly man," said Mrs. Sims, we do not want to know about his acquaintance, but whether he will help us to eat our dinner or not. Acquaintance is easy enough made."

"The letter signifies," said Craggs, with a legal air, "that Captain Pratt won't come."

"Here's another letter. I suppose that it is another 'can't come.' No. Mrs. Gorgon, Miss Gorgon, and Miss Julia Gorgon, will have the honour of waiting upon Mr. and Mrs. Sims to dinner.'

"

Mrs. Sims then threw herself back in her chair, convulsed with laughter. Waiting upon us! ha! ha! Waiting, ha! wait, ha! ha! why, we wanted her to eat.”

Craggs had great difficulty in explaining to the grocer's family that Mrs. Gorgon had only adopted the usual form of accepting an invitation.

"My! what a queer thing genteel society is surely."

"What's to be done now, missis?" said old Sims to his wife; "we've nobody coming but that she dragon; we want a whole lot of people to eat such a dinner as I have ordered. We must have some of our Barbican folks down by the rail, that's what it is."

"There's Butcher Swiggins; he'd eat enough for two, and a tolerable genteel-looking man besides, and Brown and Tomkins both genteel-looking people."

"I should like to ask some of my young friends," said Sammy; "just Jack Tippens and Blue Benjamin."

They'll do nicely," said Mrs. Sims. "We'll just think of one or two more; they can come down by the rail in time for dinner, and those that are obliged to be in shop in the morning may go back by the mail train."

"Madam," said Craggs, respectfully, "I am afraid-but I really don't think that all the friends you have mentioned have got a single pair of silk stockings among them."

"Body of me!" said Mr. Sims, "and is it absolutely impossible to eat a dinner without silk stockings."

"In genteel society, absolutely impossible."

66

Hang me, mother!" said Sammy, "if I do not think that there is nearly as much sour as sweet in this genteel society."

"Stockings or no stockings," said old Sims, "I will ax my party." And what is more, the party all arrived; and a very nice set Mrs. Gorgon, Miss Gorgon, and Miss Julia Gorgon found upon their arrival. Well, dinner passed off very joyously with the majority of the guests, many of whom when asked to drink wine, preferred gin.

Old Sims and a steady old friend of his, Joe Brown, followed soon after the ladies into the drawing-room. This, however, was only a signal for the others to proceed to business. Gin and punch was generally preferred to wine. Sam produced a box of cigars, with pipes for those that preferred them. They had promised old Sims not to sit long, and they kept their word; but, making the best of their time, they contrived to make themselves royally drunk before they got into the drawing-room, where Mrs. and the Misses Gorgon were very much astonished at the broadness of the jokes that were

sported by Sims's metropolitan friends. As soon as their carriage was announced, Mrs. Gorgon rose to depart.

Swiggins, Sam, and Blue Benjamin insisted on helping them on with their shawls; and, according to the custom of Barbican and Long Lane, each embraced his lady, and gave her a spanking kiss. Miss Julia gave a screech as if the world was coming to an end. Miss Gorgon clawed a piece out of her admirer's cheek, while the old lady hallooed out murder.

"There's a spree for you, old six-and-eightpenny!" said Sammy, clapping Craggs on the bag.

Mrs. Sims expressed to Craggs a fear that they had, in some particular, transgressed the customary usages of genteel society.

Craggs said it was nothing;-folks were always apt to be a little merry after a good dinner. Not so, however, Mrs. Gorgon, who went open-mouthed through the county, complaining of the company that she was asked to meet at Primrose Hall, and the horrid and indelicate treatment that she had met with.

The Simses were in consequence cut by their neighbours, and they saw no visitors but those that came down from Barbican or Long Lane. Meanwhile Old Sims was buying shares in one railway, and selling them in another, according to the direction of Craggs, who told him that he would double his fortune in a few months' time.

At length came the railway crash,-down went shares to nothing. Old Sims was ruined. He wrote to Craggs for an explanation. Craggs in reply sent in his own bill for fifteen hundred pound. All the time he had spent with the Simses he had charged at the highest rate of professional attendance. The mask was of no further use to him, so he threw it down.

Sims then went to another attorney, whose character for integrity stood high, and begged him to look into his accounts.

"I fear you're ruined," said Mr. Vellum, after he had gone through the paper.

"And pray, Mr. Vellum, what do people generally do in my circumstances ?"

"They go abroad, sir,-universally go abroad, generally to Boulogne, indeed, always go to Boulogne ;-very agreeable place, I hear-provisional directors club there, for which you are qualified -very agreeable-view of the sea-billiard-room, and all that sort of thing. Everything is very genteel there."

"I hate and detest all genteel things," said Sims.

Vellum at length wound up the accounts, and found a small residue. Sims had enough left to yield him sixty pounds a year when invested in the funds, besides two hundred pounds to stock his shop with again. Everything he had was sold, except one bottle of champagne that he took with him to town. His shop had been let for a year. When the lease was at an end, Sims purchased the stock of his tenant, and the next day appeared behind the counter; and everything appeared the same as if he had never left it.

When dinner-time came, he opened his bottle of champagne, and all his family drank success to the old shop. When the bottle was empty, he pitched it through his back window, and laughed joyously as he heard it crash upon the pavement.

"There's the last of our genteel life, and I'm glad of it." "Amen," said his family.

WE have been leading such a life of gaiety and excitement, at Madrid, that I find I have actually allowed forty-eight hours to pass without writing to you, and telling you as usual all that has happened here. These forty-eight hours have passed like a perpetual mirage; I can scarcely say that I have seen, yet I believe that I have seen fêtes, illuminations, bull-fights and ballets, and a host of other extraordinary things, all succeeding each other with as much rapidity as the scenes of a theatre, which are changed at the whistle of the scene-shifter. When you last heard of us, we were pushing our way along one of those gloomy corridors of that modern tower of Babel called a circus. At the end of this corridor a light burst upon us so suddenly that for a moment we drew back quite dazzled; those who have never lived under the burning skies of Spain cannot imagine how intensely brilliant the light of the sun is here, nor can those who have never heard the tumult of a circus, form any conception of the uproar and disturbance which reign there. Picture to yourself an amphitheatre in the style of the hippodrome, but capable of containing twenty thousand persons, instead of fifteen thousand, who are all disposed upon benches one above another, for which different prices are asked as they are more or less sheltered from the sun.

Spectators who take what are called sun-tickets, are exposed to its full heat during the whole time the bull-fight lasts. Those who can afford to purchase sun and shade tickets, have such a position given them, as that by the daily movement of the earth they must be sheltered part of the time from the burning rays of the sun. The shade-tickets are of course those which are generally sought after, for they ensure complete protection from the heat from the beginning to the end of the spectacle. I need scarcely say that we took care to secure the last description of tickets. It would almost be impossible for you to imagine the extraordinary sensation which we experienced on entering this glittering circus, our first impulse was to start back a step or two, so completely dazzled and bewildered did we find ourselves; never had we seen so many parasols, fans, and pocket-handkerchiefs in agitation at the same moment, never had we heard the hum of so many voices; the scene presented to us was certainly one of the most curious we had ever witnessed. I will endeavour to give you some idea of the appearance of the arena at the precise instant we arrived. We were exactly opposite the toril; a boy belonging to the circus, decorated from head to foot with ribbons, had just received from the hands of the alguazil the key of this door, which he was preparing to open. The piccadors already seated in their Arabian saddles, with their lances couched, had placed themselves on the left of the bull, which seemed eager to rush out; the rest of the quadrille, that is to say, the chulos, the banderilleros, and the torero stood on the right hand side, dispersed about the arena like pawns upon a chess board. First I must explain to you what the office of the piccador is, next that of the chulo, the banderillero, and the torero, and, as far as possible, I will bring before your eyes the theatre upon which they were going to perform their different parts. The piccador, who,

* From the French of Alexander Dumas.

according to my idea, runs the greatest risk of any of the combatants, is mounted on horseback, bearing his lance in his hand ready to receive the bull's attack. This lance is not a regular weapon of war, but merely a sort of spur, the steel point at the end being of only sufficient length to enter the depth of the animal's skin; its use is to increase the bull's fury, in order to expose the piccador to a more fierce attack on account of the agony which the animal endures. The piccador runs a double danger, the chance of being crushed by his horse, or gored by the bull. His lance is his only offensive weapon, and by way of defence, he wears leggings of steel, mounting nearly to the thigh, covered with pantaloons of skin. The office of the chulo is to draw off the animal's attention to himself whenever it is on the point of exhausting its fury upon a fallen horse, or upon an unhorsed piccador. The banderillero takes care that the rage of the bull does not cool, it is his business, when he perceives that the animal is about to shrink from further exertion, worn out by the torment it endures, to drive the banderillas into its shoulders. The banderillas are formed of little rings through which are drawn paper of different colours, cut out in the same form as that which adorns a boy's kite; these rings are driven into the flesh by means of a piece of iron resembling a fish-hook. But the torero is the principal actor in the scene, to him the circus belongs, he is the general who directs the combat, the rest instinctively obey his least gesture, even the bull is subjected to his power; the torero can lead him where he desires, and when the moment arrives for the last struggle between himself and the bull, it is upon the spot that he has chosen, reserving to himself all the advantages of sun or shade, that the exhausted animal receives the death-blow from the fatal spada, and expires at his feet. If the fair mistress of the torero be in the circus, it is always in that part of the arena nearest to his lady-love, that the bull receives his death-blow. There is to every combat two or three more piccadors than are required to take part in the conflict, in case the piccadors are wounded, there are as many banderilleros, and as many chulos. The number of toreros is not fixed; in this bull-fight there were three, Cuchares, Lucas Blanco, and Salamanchino. Piccadors, chulos, banderilleros, and toreros were all richly attired, they wore short jackets of blue, green, or rose-colour, embroidered with gold and silver, waistcoats similarly embroidered of the most brilliant colours, but still blending harmoniously with the rest of their dress, their small-clothes were knitted, and they wore silk stockings and satin shoes; a girdle of the brightest hue, and a little laced black hat completed their elegant cos

tume.

From the actors let us turn our attention to the theatre. Round the arena, which is as magnificent as a circus in the time of Titus or Vespasian, is a partition of thick boards six feet high, forming a circle in which are enclosed all the persons I have been describing, from the piccador to the torero. This partition, called the olivo, is painted red in the upper part and black in the lower. These two divisions are of unequal height, and separated by a plank painted white, which forms a projecting edge, and serves as a stirrup to the chulos, banderilleros, and toreros, when pursued by the bull, on this they place their foot, and by the aid of their hands they are able to spring over the barrier. This is called tomar el olivo, that is "to take the olive." It is very seldom that the torero has recourse to this shelter, he may turn away from the bull, but he would consider it a disgrace to fly from him. On the other side