this conduct—

Is strange. Granted; don’t draw back; come, a cordial gripe. We are friends; we have both suffered from the same cause. There, that’s right—honest palm to palm. Now, how say you—have you ever wanted twenty pounds?

READER.—Frankly, then, I have.

Mind to mind, as hand to hand. Have you felt as I did? Did its want cloud the sun, wither the grass, and blight the bud?

READER.—It did.

But how, marry, how? What! you decline confession—so you may—I’ll be more explicit. I was abroad, far from my “father-land”—there’s a magic in the word!—the turf we’ve played on, the hearts we love, the graves we venerate—all, all combine to concentrate its charm.

READER.—You are digressing.

Thank you, I am; but I’ll resume. While I could buy them, friends indeed were plenty. Alas! prudence is seldom co-mate with youth and inexperience. The golden dream was soon to end—end even with the yellow dross that gave it birth. Fallacious hopes of coming “posts,” averted for a time my coming wretchedness—three weeks, and not a line! The landlord suffered from an intermitting affection, characteristic of the “stiff-necked generation;”—he bowed to others—galvanism could not have procured the tithe of a salaam for me. His till was afflicted with a sort of sinking-fundishness. I was the contractor of “the small bill,” whose exact amount would enable him to meet a “heavy payment;” my very garments were “tabooed” from all earth’s decencies; splashes seemed to have taken a lease of the bottoms of my trousers. My boots, once objects of the tenderest care of their unworthy namesake, seemed conscious of the change, and drooped in untreed wretchedness, desponding at the wretched wrinkles now ruffling the once smooth calf! My coat no more appeared to catch the dust; as if under the influence of some invisible charm, its white-washed elbows never struck upon the sight of the else all-seeing boots; spider never rushed from his cell with the post-haste speed with which he issued from his dark recess, to pick the slightest cobweb that ever harnessed Queen Mab’s team, from other coats; a gnat, a wandering hair left its location, swept by the angry brush from the broad-cloth of those who paid their bills—as far as I was concerned—all were inoculated with this strange blindness. It was an overwhelming ophthalmia! The chambermaid, through its fatality, never discovered that my jugs were empty, my bottle clothed with slimy green, my soap-dish left untenanted. A day before this time had been sufficient service for my hand-towel; now a week seemed to render it less fit to taste the rubs of hands and soap. Dust lost its vice, and lay unheeded in the crammed corner of my luckless room.

READER.—I feel for you.

Silence! the worst is yet to come. At dinner all things changed—soup, before too hot to drink, came to my lips cool as if the north wind had caressed it; number was at an end; I ranked no longer like a human being; I was a huge ought—a walking cypher—a vile round O. I had neither beginning nor end. Go where I would—top, bottom, sides, ‘twas all the same. Bouilli avoided me—vegetables declined growing under my eyes—fowls fled from me. I might as well have longed for ice-cream in Iceland—dessert in a desert. I had no turn—I was the last man. Nevertheless, dinner was a necessary evil.

READER.—And tea?

Was excluded from the calendar. Night came, but no rest—all things had forgotten their office. The sheets huddled in undisturbed selfishness, like knotted cables, in one corner of the bed; the blankets, doubtless disgusted at their conduct, sought refuge at the foot; and the flock, like most other flocks, without a directing hand, was scattered in disjointed heaps.

READER.—Did not you complain?

I did—imprimis—to boots—boots scratched his head; ditto waiter—waiter shook his; the chambermaid, strange to say, was suddenly deaf.

READER.—And the landlord?

Did nothing all day; but when I spoke, was in a hurry, “going to his ledger,” Had I had as many months as hydra, that would have stopped them all.

READER.—You were to be pitied.

I was. I rose one morning with the sun—it scorched my face, but shone not. Nature was in her spring-time to all others, though winter to me. I wandered beside the banks of the rapid Rhine, I saw nothing but the thick slime that clogged them, and wondered how I could have thought them beautiful; the pebbles seemed crushed upon the beach, the stream but added to their lifelessness by heaping on them its dull green slime; the lark, indeed, was singing—Juliet was right—its notes were nothing but “harsh discords and unpleasing sharps”—a rainbow threw its varied arch across the heavens—sadness had robbed it of its charm—it seemed a visionary cheat—a beautiful delusion.

READER.—I feel with you.

I thank you. I went next day.

READER.—What then?

The glorious sun shed life and joy around—the clear water rushed bounding on in glad delight to the sweet music of the scented wind—the pebbly beach welcomed its chaste cool kiss, and smiled in freshness as it rolled again back to its pristine bed. The buds on which I stepped, elastic with high hope, sprung from the ground my foot had pressed them to—the lark—

READER.—You can say nothing new about that.

You are right. I’ll pass it, and come at once to an end. My boots stood upright, conscious of their glare; a new spring rushed into my bottles; Flora’s sweets were witnessed in my dress; a mite, a tiny mite, might have made progress round my room, nor found a substance larger than itself to stop its way. My lips at dinner were scalded with the steaming soup; the eager waiters, rushing with the choicest sauce, in dread collision met, and soused my well-brushed coat. I was once more number one!—all things had changed again.

READER—Except the rainbow.

Ay, even that.

READER,—Indeed! how so?

If still impalpable to the gross foot of earth, it seemed to the charmed mind a glowing passage for the freed spirit to mount to bliss!

READER.—May I ask what caused this difference?

You may, and shall be answered. I had received—

READER.—What?

TWENTY POUNDS!

FUSBOS.

CURIOSITY HUNTERS

There is a large class of people in the world—the business of whose lives is to hunt after and collect trifling curiosities; who go about like the Parisian chiffonniers, grubbing and poking in the highways and byeways of society, for those dearly-prized objects which the generality of mankind would turn up their noses at as worthless rubbish. But though the tribe of curiosity-hunters be extremely numerous, Nature, by a wise provision, has bestowed on them various appetites, so that, in the pursuit of their prey, they are led by different instincts, and what one seizes with avidity, another rejects as altogether unworthy of notice.

The varieties of the species are interminable; some of them are well known, and need no description—such as the book-worm, the bird-stuffer, the coin-taster, the picture-scrubber, &c.; but there are others whose tastes are singularly eccentric: of these I may mention the snuff-box collector, the cane-fancier, the ring-taker, the play-bill gatherer, to say nothing of one illustrious personage, whose passion for collecting a library of Bibles is generally known. But there is another individual of the species that I have not yet mentioned, whose morbid pleasure in collecting relics and memorials of the most revolting deeds of blood and crime is too well authenticated to be discredited. I believe that this variety, which I term “The Criminal Curiosity Hunter,” is unknown to every country in the world, except England.

How such a horrible taste