Although its expected sequent benefits had been suddenly cut off, my work had paid itself, and, during its bringing out, had supported me. The prophecy of my friend H. B. had, so far, been fulfilled; and I had faith in its yet uncompleted promise, that when my subscription money should fail, some other means would be provided me. "Remember," said H. B., "I am still your banker to the same amount, and on the same terms as before: therefore draw upon me when you will. I would have availed myself of this, had it been necessary, so far as to enable me to complete an entire twelvemonth's trial as an architect on my own account, in London; for my title to that distinction was wholly confined to the simple manifestation on my brass door-plate. I had found time to work hard as a candidate in one or two competitions; but I did not then,-I have not since, and, were I still in the profession, I never should succeed. The necessities for my own personal economy always subdued me to a belief in the economical limits of the advertisers. My designs were ever such as I should have made for myself, under a determination of being rather under than over the means positively in hand; but all experience has proved, that such spiritlessly correct, such parsimoniously conscientious efforts, will be trodden down, or kicked out of the arena, by the exhibitory display of columnar and other decorative accessories, though the whole of them may thereafter be omitted for want of funds, or executed to the amount of a large bill of extras. To this subject I may, hereafter, have to recur. It is enough for the present, to say, that I neither obtained a premium for the Town Hall, at Brighton, nor for the Corn Market, at Bishop Stortford. My fishing-tackle was thrown out also, in a few other directions, and I had one or two nibbles; but, just as I seized my rod, the float lay still again on the water, and seemed, with smiling maliciousness, to wink at me, as much as to say, "I wish you may get it." It is true, a Blackheath gentleman gave me the opportunity of advertising myself, by saying, if I would give him a design for a porch, he would be at the expense of building it. The design was given, the porch built: but its influence upon the discriminating public of the locality, though including many of my acquaintances, was catholic only in respect to the approval it obtained,-the inference being, of course, that such approval was "a little more than kind, and less than critical." I was also commissioned to survey, on the part of the insured, a house that had been damaged by fire; and I had the honour of meeting a certain renowned architect, who acted on behalf of the Insurance Office. I knew not whether he was paid; being only it. There are numbers in the profession who are not only good draughtsmen and clever designers, but have an excellent practical knowledge of the inferior though important branches of the science, but who nevertheless are doomed to struggle on in obscurity; and Mr. Wightwick has, with honest candour, acknowledged in the preface of his work, that so completely are the advance-posts in the profession occupied, that young aspirants have no resource left, but to make themselves known by a patrician species of puffing; and he concludes by stating, that he has undertaken the present work as a card, a notice, an advertisement.""

sure that I was not. I had also, in my twelvemonth's work, produced designs for an "Academy of the Arts," a "Hall of Science," a "Theatre," and a "Temple to Shakspeare, and the Dramatists of the Antique and Middle Ages." In short, I had done all I could to be-Pecksniff those who might call upon me; but the callers were few indeed, and, with equal certainty, none were be-Pecksniffed.

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My landlord was a man of much gentle sympathy and feeling. He had never recovered from a nervous depression, which he attributed to the loss of his wife, whom he ever and anon alluded to, with tears in his eyes, as one of the finest women that ever God made." He would lie in bed the greater part of many days, enjoying the only relief he could find, in what he termed "a gentle perspiration." Judging from the peculiar character of the atmosphere of his room, it would appear that he followed the intimation given in the song, which speaks of keeping the spirits up by pouring spirits down,-the flavour of his bed-chamber being unmistakeably that of gin. But it was said, that any kind of beverage partaking of the alcoholic came not amiss to him. He kindly let me have the use of his cellar, i.e. of a spacious vault, in one corner of which lay its only contents,-my half-dozen, or less, of port, and my half-dozen, or less, of sherry. That dozen, in all, was my only deposit during the twelvemonth. The maidservant had brought me up a bottle from time to time, without particularly marking the extent of my stock, and supposing, that on certain occasions of her not being at hand, I had been my own butler. My "cellar book" showed, that eight or nine bottles. had been abstracted; but, on seeking another bottle, to celebrate the completed publication of the "Twenty Select Views of the Roman Antiquities" the cellar itself, with an expression of vacant significance, intimated the departure of the entire dozen! The maiden had observed, she did not think her poor master had taken quite so much gin of late, and I allowed the good honest creature I mean the said maiden-to remain ignorant of my apprehensions; but I could with difficulty resist the impression that some of my juice of the grape had been promotive of a little "gentle perspiration," or that it had been religiously quaffed to the immortal memory of "one of the finest women that ever God made."

549

THE BOX TUNNEL.

BY THE AUTHOR OF CHRISTIE JOHNSTONE."

THE 10.15 train glided from Paddington, May 7, 1847. In the left compartment of a certain first-class carriage were four passengers; of these, singularly enough, two were worth description. The lady had a smooth, white, delicate brow, strongly-marked eyebrows, long lashes, eyes that seemed to change colour, and a goodsized delicious mouth, with teeth as white as milk. A man could not see her nose for her eyes and mouth, her own sex could and would have told us some nonsense about it. She wore an unpretending greyish dress, buttoned to the throat, with lozenge-shaped buttons, a Scotch shawl that agreeably evaded the responsibility of colour. She was like a duck, so tight her plain feathers fitted her; and there she sat, smooth, snug, and delicious, with a book in her hand and a soupçon of her snowy wrist just visible as she held it. Her opposite neighbour was what I call a good style of man-the more to his credit, since he belonged to a corporation, that frequently turns out the worst imaginable style of young man. He was a cavalry officer aged twenty-five. He had a moustache, but not a very repulsive one; it was far from being one of those subnasal pig-tails, on which soup is suspended like dew on a shrub; it was short, thick, and black as a coal. His teeth had not yet been turned by tobacco smoke to the colour of tobacco juice, his clothes did not stick to nor hang on him, they sat on him; he had an engaging smile, and, what I liked the dog for, his vanity, which was inordinate, was in its proper place, his heart, not in his face, jostling mine and other peoples', who have none:-in a word, he was what one oftener hears of than meets-a young gentleman. He was conversing in an animated whisper with a companion, a fellow-officer-they were talking about, what it is far better not to do, women. Our friend clearly did not wish to be overheard, for he cast, ever and anon, a furtive glance at his fair vis-à-vis and lowered his voice. She seemed completely absorbed in her book, and that reassured him. At last the two soldiers came down to a whisper, and in that whisper (the truth must be told) the one who got down at Slough, and was lost to posterity, bet ten pounds to three, that he who was going down with us to Bath and immortality, would not kiss either of the ladies opposite upon the road.— "Done!" "Done!" Now I am sorry a man I have hitherto praised, should have lent himself, even in a whisper, to such a speculation, but nobody is wise at all hours," not even when the clock is striking five-and-twenty; and you are to consider his profession, his good looks, and, the temptation-ten to three.

After Slough the party was reduced to three; at Twyford one lady dropped her handkerchief, Captain Dolignan fell on it like a tiger and returned it like a lamb; two or three words were interchanged on that occasion. At Reading, the Marlborough of our tale made one of the safe investments of that day, he bought a "Times" and a "Punch;" the latter was full of steel-pen thrusts

and wood-cuts. Valour and beauty deigned to laugh at some inflated humbug or other punctured by Punch. Now laughing together thaws our human ice; long before Swindon it was a talking match-at Swindon, who so devoted as Captain Dolignanhe handed them out-he souped them-he tough-chickened them -he brandied and cochinealed * one, and he brandied and burntsugared the other; on their return to the carriage, one lady passed into the inner compartment to inspect a certain gentleman's seat on that side the line.

Reader, had it been you or I, the beauty would have been the deserter, the average one would have stayed with us, till all was blue, ourselves included: not more surely does our slice of bread and butter, when it escapes from our hand, revolve it ever so often, alight face downwards on the carpet. But this was a bit of a fop, Adonis, dragoon-so Venus remained in tête-à-tête with him. You have seen a dog meet an unknown female of his species; how handsome, how empressé, how expressive he becomes:-such was Dolignan after Swindon, and to do the dog justice, he got handsomer and handsomer; and you have seen a cat conscious of approaching cream,- such was Miss Haythorn, she became demurer and demurer: presently our Captain looked out of window and laughed, this elicited an inquiring look from Miss Haythorn. "We are only a mile from the Box Tunnel."-"Do you always laugh a mile from the Box Tunnel?" said the lady.

"Invariably." "What for?"

"Why! hem! it is a gentleman's joke."

"Oh! I don't mind it's being silly if it makes me laugh." Captain Dolignan thus encouraged, recounted to Miss Haythorn the following:-"A lady and her husband sat together going through the Box Tunnel-there was one gentleman opposite, it was pitch dark; after the tunnel, the lady said, ' George, how absurd of you to salute me going through the tunnel.'-I did no such thing!' -'You didn't?'-'No! why?'-'Why, because somehow I thought you did!"" Here Captain Dolignan laughed and endeavoured to lead his companion to laugh, but it was not to be done. The train entered the tunnel.

Miss Haythorn. “Ah!”

Dolignan. "What is the matter?"

Miss H. "I am frightened."

Dolig. (moving to her side), "Pray do not be alarmed, I am near you."

Miss H. "You are near me, very near me indeed, Captain Dolignan."

Dolig. "You know my name!"

Miss Haythorn. "I heard your friend mention it. I wish we were out of this dark place."

Dolig. "I could be content to spend hours here, reassuring you, sweet lady."

This is supposed to allude to two decoctions called port and sherry, and imagined by one earthly nation to partake of a vinous nature.

Miss H. 66 Nonsense!"

Dolig. Pweep! (Grave reader, do not put your lips to the cheek of the next pretty creature you meet, or you will understand what this means.)

66

Miss H. Ee!"

Friend. "What is the matter?"

Miss H. "Open the door! open the door!"

There was a sound of hurried whispers, the door was shut and the blind pulled down with hostile sharpness.

If any critic falls on me for putting inarticulate sounds in a dialogue as above, I answer, with all the insolence I can command at present, "Hit boys as big as yourself," bigger perhaps, such as Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; they began it, and I learned it of them, sore against my will.

Miss Haythorn's scream lost a part of its effect because the engine whistled forty thousand murders at the same moment; and fictitious grief makes itself heard when real cannot.

Between the tunnel and Bath our young friend had time to ask himself whether his conduct had been marked by that delicate reserve which is supposed to distinguish the perfect gentleman.

With a long face, real or feigned, he held open the door,-his late friends attempted to escape on the other side,-impossible! they must pass him. She whom he had insulted (Latin for kissed) deposited somewhere at his foot a look of gentle blushing reproach; the other, whom he had not insulted darted red-hot daggers at him from her eyes, and so they parted.

It was, perhaps, fortunate for Dolignan that he had the grace to be friends with Major Hoskyns of his regiment, a veteran laughed at by the youngsters, for the Major was too apt to look coldly upon billiard balls and cigars; he had seen cannon balls and linstocks; he had also, to tell the truth, swallowed a good bit of the mess-room poker, but with it some sort of moral poker, which made it as impossible for Major Hoskyns to descend to an ungentleman-like word or action, as to brush his own trowsers below the knee.

Captain Dolignan told this gentleman his story in gleeful accents; but Major Hoskyns heard him coldly and as coldly answered that he had known a man lose his life for the same thing; "That is nothing," continued the Major, "but unfortunately he deserved to lose it."

At this the blood mounted to the younger man's temples, and his senior added, "I mean to say he was thirty-five, you, I presume, are twenty-one"!

"Twenty-five."

"That is much the same thing; will you be advised by me?” "If you will advise me.”

"Speak to no one of this, and send White the £3 that he may

think

you have lost the bet."

"That is hard when I won it!"

"Do it for all that, sir."

Let the disbelievers in human perfectibility know that this