"Yes," said Daly-"hen's work. Every Sunday, there and upon that velvet cushion did I lay an egg, and as regularly did poor Carbo Cockletop carry on the process of incubation to a certain degree by sitting on itfalling gracefully upon his seat without looking before, or rather behind him, down he went→ squash went the egg; and so absorbed was he in the might of his own majesty, that, like a heroic general in a different field of action, he never heard the bursting of the shell, nor took any notice of the event. But when the sermon was over, and Carbo came down to make the amiable amongst his congregation, the effect of the squash upon the back of his shining canonicals was good the field sable and the egg proper were beautiful heraldry; and homeward he walked, wholly unconscious of the absurdity of his appearance. And this I did seven consecutive Sundays with undiminished success."

"Ah,” said I, "such things I could have laughed at once-but-"

"I perceive," said Daly, " things are altered

since I was behind the parson, and you have been before him; however, I am a Benedick too -eh ?-thank your lucky stars!

"I hope," said I, "that your prospects will brighten. I am sure your book ought to secure you money and reputation. I only wonder how you, with your habits, could have undergone the fatigues and privations incidental to such a journey as that which you have so accurately detailed."

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Fatigues!" said Daly ; “privations !—why my dear Gilbert, you don't suppose ever went to any of the places I describe-not a bit of it! I never was out of the infernal town, which, I wish to my heart, I never had been in, except as I remember my visits to Sir Frank Blazeaway, the commodore, in his frigate. Frank is as fine a fellow as ever stepped-fights like a devil, and drinks and plays as well as he fights."

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My dear Daly," said I, "all these things are very well in their way, but you ought to reflect."

"What, as my looking-glass does when I

shave," said Daly, "to warn me how time creeps on-or rather gallops. No, I hate reflection, Gilbert. Sufficient to the day be the evil thereof; and although some great man, I forget his name at the moment-no matter—says, • He that never looks back will never gain wisdom enough to look forward,' I go no farther than the present

"But, the book," said I; "how do you reconcile the calling it your journey into the interior ?"

"'Tis mine, 'twas his,'" said Daly, “and I hope will be slave to thousands.' I talked to a man who had been there, or somewhere else, and I read other men's books of travels. I knew they had never been where they said they had been; and I consider a matter-of-fact detail made off-hand is a work of infinitely greater ingenuity than the common-place report of an actual journey. Rely upon it, my Qualch will become a fashionable dish before a twelvemonth is over our heads, and I shall be lionised all over London for having caught a glimpse of the

Bogieminnicombo Mountains, which never were discovered, and having ascertained the direction in which a river that nobody ever heard of does not run."

"I hope you may, but——”

"Oh,” said Daly, "you are sceptical—you have pulled up and are steady-I must continue dashing at something. True, my creditors are not dead, but they must be pacified. I can't kill myself a second time, and take the benefit of the act'-I mean of innocent suicide-the knob on my nose is too well known now. Still, nil desperandum is my motto; and I back myself three to two, like the winner at White's, that I fall on my legs at least as long as I have a plank left to stand upon."

"Exactly so," said I, not forgetting what I had seen some years before at the Old Bailey; "but now," I continued, really anxious about him, and feeling rather glad that I had an opportunity of offering him some assistance which I had not done in the morning, "what do you really and seriously propose?"

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His answer was checked by the return of Wells, the expression of whose generally cheerful countenance told me better than words, that matters looked badly with the invalid.

"The boy is dying," said Wells; "he is delirious, and Sniggs is convinced an effusion on the brain will take place. Nothing can be

worse."

"Nothing, indeed," said I. "This will be a dreadful blow upon us all; and, to say truth, I do not think when the case comes to be looked into, that Sniggs will get much credit on the score of carefulness, in allowing such a patient access to strong spirits like cherry brandy.”

"Especially," said Daly, who-would rather lose ten friends than one joke, however good the one and however bad the other-" especially a boy whose addiction to bounce was notorious."

"Ah, Mr. Delaville," said Wells, "those who have never suffered an affliction of this sort may jest upon it: for my part, I am sure you will forgive me; I had hoped to pass an agreeable day and evening with you and my