Know some that needn't fear to compare with him—eh! Tit?"—and Huckaback winked archly at his friend, meaning him, however, to consider the words as applicable to the speaker.

"Ah, ha, ha!—a pretty joke! But come, that's a good chap!—You can't be reading both of those two sheets at once—give us the other sheet, and set the candle right betwixt us!—Come, fair's the word among gents, you know!"

Huckaback thus appealed to, did as his friend requested; and the two gentlemen read and smoked for some minutes in silence.

"Well—I shall spell over the advertisements now," said Titmouse, very emphatically; "there's a pretty lot of them—and I've read everything else—(though precious little there is, here besides!)—So, here goes!—One may hear of a prime situation, you know—and I'm quite sick of Tag-rag!"

Another interval of silence ensued. Huckaback was deep in the ghastly but instructive details of a trial for murder; and Titmouse, after having glanced listlessly over the entertaining first sheet of advertisements, was on the point of laying down his half of the paper, when he suddenly started in his chair, turned very pale, and stammered—

"Hollo!—hollo, Hucky!—Why"——

"What's the matter, Tit?—eh?" inquired Huckaback, greatly astonished.

For a moment Titmouse made no answer, but, dropping his cigar, fixed his eyes intently on the paper, which began to rustle in his trembling hands. What occasioned this outbreak, with its subsequent agitation, was the following advertisement, which appeared in the most conspicuous part of the "Sunday Flash:"—