"Oh, you are a valet, then, to some nobleman ?" "A valet! Indeed, sir, I am not. I am not a servant. To be sure, I make coats and waistcoats for gentlemen." "Oh, you are a tailor?" "A tailor! Do I look like a tailor? I assure you, I never handled a "goose, other than a roasted one." "What By this time they were all in a roar. are you, then?" said one. "I'll tell you," said Stuart. “Be assured, all I have said is literally true. I dress hair, brush hats and coats, adjust a cravat, and make coats, waistcoats, and breeches, and likewise boots and shoes, at your service." "Oh, oh! a boot and shoe maker, after all!" "Guess again, gentlemen. I never handled boot or shoe, but for my own feet and legs; yet all I have told you is true." "We may as well give up guessing." "Well, then, I will tell you, upon my honour as a gentleman, my bona fide profession. I get my bread by making faces." He then screwed his countenance, and twisted the lineaments of his visage, in a manner such as 4Samuel Foote or Charles Matthews might have envied. His companions, after loud peals of laughter, each took credit to himself for having suspected that the gentleman belonged to the theatre; and they all knew he must be a comedian by profession. To their utter astonishment, he assured them that he was never on the stage, and very rarely saw the inside of a theatre or any similar place of amusement. They all now looked at each other in utter amazement. Before parting, Stuart said to his companions : "Gentlemen, you will find that all I have said of my various employments is comprised in these few words: I am a portrait painter. If you will call at John Palmer's, York Buildings, London, I shall be ready and willing to brush you a coat or hat, dress your hair à la mode, supply you, if in need, with a wig of any fashion or dimensions, accommodate you with boots or shoes, give you ruffles or cravat, and make faces for you." 1 Stuart. Gilbert Charles Stuart, a celebrated portrait painter. He was born in Rhode Island, America, in 1756. He painted the portrait of George the Third, and Louis the Sixteenth, and many of the chief men of England, France, and America. He died at Boston in 1838. 2 goose, a flat-iron used by tailors, to smooth seams. bona fide (Latin), in good faith. ▲ Samuel Foote, born in 1720, an actor and writer of comedy. His conversation was very amusing. Dr. Johnson, who had a power of refusing to be pleased against his will, met Foote for the first time at a friend's dinner-party. The doctor assumed his most ursine (bear-like) manner, but it was no use, "I was obliged," he says, "to lay down my knife and fork, throw myself back in my chair, and fairly laugh it out. Sir, he was irresistible." 5 Charles Matthews, born in 1776, a celebrated comedian. Matthews was a wonderful master of personification and mimicry, and while imitating every one he never lost a friend, or hurt the feelings of the most sensitive. à la mode, according to the mode or fashion. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note, We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him ; Few and short were the prayers we said, But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed, And smoothed down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, But little he'll 'reck, if they let him sleep on But half of our heavy task was done, When the clock struck the hour for retiring; Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and 13gory : We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone- 4 Wolfe. 'Corse, corpse; dead body. ramparts, the walls around fortified places. farewell shot. It is usual at a soldier's funeral for guns to be fired over the grave by his comrades. hero. Sir John Moore, commander of the English forces in Spain, 1809. He was forced to retreat before a very large number of French; and 5 at last, under the walls of Corunna, whilst the troops beat back the French on all sides, he fell mortally wounded by a cannon ball. bayonet, a short pointed instrument of steel, something like a dagger, fitted to a gun. martial cloak, soldier's cloak. 'morrow, the British troops were to embark on the following morning. 8 the billow, the sea. upbraid, reproach; blame; censure. 10 reck care; heed. 11 random, chance; hazard; the gun was fired without aiming at any place in particular. 12 sullenly, with obstinacy; without thought of yielding. 3gory, covered with blood. 14 carved not a line, did not carve or inscribe his name, etc., on a tombstone. 9 13 TILL within the last century, the existence of this magnificent animal was doubted by Europeans. In their first reports of this creature, travellers said they had seen an animal with the skin of a 1leopard, the head of a 'deer, a neck graceful as the swan's; so tall that three men standing on each other's shoulders, the topmost one could scarcely reach its forehead; and so timid and gentle, that the bark of a puppy would send it bounding away at a greater speed than that of the hare or greyhound! People shook their heads, and refused to be deceived by any such "traveller's tale." We know, however, that their report was true, and further, that closer acquaintance with the giraffe reveals still greater wonders. The tongue 3protrudes a foot from the mouth, and is used as a feeler, a grasper, and an organ of taste; the nostrils are oblique and narrow, and surrounded by 'mus "An animal with the skin of a leopard, the head of a deer timid, and gentle." (p. 174.) cular fibres, by which they can be hermetically 'sealed; thus the sand which the suffocating storms of the desert raise in clouds can be effec |