Methinks, Benjamin,” said Uncle Timothy to the laurÉat of Little Britain, as they sat tÊte-À-tÊte at breakfast on the morning after the adventure of the old harper,—“methinks I have conceded quite enough by consenting to play Esquire Bedel to the Fubsys, Muffs, and Flumgartens. A couple of lean barn-door fowls and a loin—or, as Mrs. Flumgarten classically spells it, a lion of fat country pork at Christmas, even were I a more farinaceous feeder than I am, are hardly equivalent to my approaching purgatory. You bargained, among other sights, for Westminster Abbey. Now what possible charm can the Poet's Corner have for the Fubsy family, who detest poets and poetry quite as much as ever did the second George 'boedry and bainding!' Then came the British Museum. I will now take leave to have my own way. Your eloquence, persuasive though it be, shall never talk me into a new blue coat and brass buttons.”

“Depend upon it, Uncle Timothy, Mrs Flurngarten will—”

“I know it, Benjamin. That full-blown hollyhock of the aristocracy of Mammon, who has a happy knack of picking a hole in everybody's coat, will not spare mine. Let her then, for economy's sake, pick a hole in an old coat rather than a new one.”

“The honour of our family is at stake,” urged the laurÉat. “Respect, too, for Mrs. Flumgar-ten.”

Uncle Timothy whistled

“Sic a wife as Willie had,

I would na gie a button for her.

“But suppose, Benjamin, I should be so insane so stark, staring, ridiculously mad.” Here

Uncle Timothy paused to see what effect his budget of suppositions had upon Mr Bosky's nerves.

But Mr. Bosky kept his nerves well strung and his countenance steady, and let Uncle Timothy go on supposing.

“Suppose I should all at once depart from the sober gravity that belongs to my years, and exhibit myself in a blue coat and brass buttons—” Uncle Timothy again paused; but he might as well have whistled jigs to a milestone. The laurÉat continued immoveable and mute.

“Benjamin—Benjamin Bosky!” cried Uncle Timothy, nettled at his provoking imperturbability, “if, out of a mistaken civility to your country cousins, and to rid myself of these annoying importunities, I should invite the caricaturist to pillory me in the print-shops—a blue coat and brass buttons are not the journey-work of twenty minutes—for by that time I must be equipped to start: And, to swaddle myself in a ready-made fit, too long at the top, and too short at the bottom—like the Irishman's blanket! No, Benjamin Bosky! For, though of figure I have nothing to boast—” here Uncle Timothy unconsciously (?) glanced at his comely person in a mirror—“I do not intend to qualify myself for a chair on the fifth of November.”

Mr Bosky still maintained a respectful silence.

“Therefore, Benjamin, were I inclined to forego my scruples, and oblige you for this once”—as Uncle Timothy saw the apparent impossibility of obliging, he spoke more freely of his possible compliance—“the thing, you see, is absolutely impracticable.”

Mr. Bosky looked anxiously at the clock, and Uncle Tim quite exulted that, while starting an insurmountable obstacle, he had dexterously—handsomely slipped out of a scrape.

At this moment a tap was heard at the door, and the old-fashioned housekeeper—a sort of animated dumb-waiter—brought in a blue bag for Uncle Timothy.

A carpet-bag is generally significant of its contents. Though now and then things not legitimately belonging to it will creep into a carpet-bag. But in a blue bag there is more room for conjecture. A very equivocal thing is a blue bag.

Uncle Timothy, after reading the direction thrice over, untied the blue bag, dived his hand in for its contents, and the first thing he fished up was a bran new blue coat, with brilliant brass buttons.

After turning the garment round and round and examining it attentively, he laid it aside, dived again and captured a rich black satin waistcoat.

The waistcoat underwent a similar scrutiny, and then took its station beside the blue coat.

A third dive brought to the surface a claret-coloured pair of continuations of a very quiet and becoming cut, to which was pinned a respectful note from Mr. Rufus Rumfit of Red Lion Square, stating that the suit had been made exactly to measure, and hoping that it would meet with Uncle Timothy's approbation.

“Pray, Benjamin,” inquired the satirical-nosed gentleman, “is this Rufus Rumfit at all given to drink? He talks of having taken my measure: he had surely taken more than his own when he hazarded such an assertion. Some would-be old beau—for the habiliments, I see, are of a mature fashion—is burning to disguise his person in this harlequin suit. My life on't, Mr. Rumfit will soon discover his mistake and be back again.” And' Uncle Timothy began to tumble the blue coat, black satin waistcoat, and claret-coloured continuations into the blue bag with all speed.

“The clock strikes. I have no time to lose.”

During this exhumation of Mr. Rumfit's handiwork, the LaurÉat of Little Britain had been coaxing a favourite parrot, with whom he generally held converse at breakfast time, to talk: but the unusual sight of so much finery had completely absorbed Poll's attention, and he remained obstinately silent, leaving Mr. Bosky to tax his ingenuity how to prevent laughing outright in Uncle Timothy's face. But the affair admitting of no longer delay, he threw himself into a theatrical posture, and exclaimed,

“'Thou wert not wont to be so dull, good Tyrrel.'”

In an instant the scales fell from the middle-aged gentleman's eyes, and he exclaimed seriously, and trying to look reproachfully, “This, Benjamin, is another of your Tomfooleries.”

Mr. Bosky pleaded guilty; but urged, in mitigation, the rusty old black, and the brilliant bright blue: concluding with a glowing panegyric on the tout ensemble, which he declared to be the masterpiece of Mr. Rumfit's thimble and shears.

Uncle Timothy was in no humour to put himself out of one: and when, after a few minutes trying on the suit in his tiring-room, just to see—out of mere curiosity—if it did fit, he returned in full pontificalibus, a middle-aged Adonis! he seemed moderately reconciled to his new metamorphosis, and rang for the old-fashioned housekeeper.

Norah Noclack was a woman of few words. On her entrance she started, stared amazedly, and uttered the interjection, “Ah!” with the further additions of “Well, I'm sure!”

“—That with a cap and bells, a dark lantern, a pasteboard red nose, a chair, and half a score of ragged urchins to shout me an ovation, I should make an undeniable old Guy! Eh, Norah?”

The ancient housekeeper shook her antediluvian high-crowned cap and streamers in token of dissent, and Mr. Bosky was unutterably shocked at the impossible idea.

“Well,” added Uncle Timothy, strutting to and fro with mock dignity,

“'Since I am crept in favour with myself,

I will maintain it with some little cost!'

“Here, Norah, run and buy me sixpenny-worth of flowers to stick in my button-hole. No dahlias, or hollyhocks.”

Mr. Bosky suggested a sunflower.

The satirical-nosed gentleman looked a trifle serious, and the laurÉat stood self-reproved.

Norah Noclack soon returned with a modest little bouquet, consisting of a last rose of summer, a violet or two, and, what was peculiarly appropriate, heartease.

A contest had very nearly arisen about Doctor Johnson's club, as Mr. Bosky irreverently called it, which was Uncle Timothy's constant companion. This valued relic had been accidentally mislaid, and there being no time to look for it, a handsome black cane, with a gold top and silk tassel, was its substitute. Mr. Bosky then dutifully tendered him a smart new beaver, intimating that the old one had that morning been converted into a nursery by his favourite pepper-and-salt puss. At this crowning specimen of the laureates ingenuity, Uncle Timothy smiled graciously, and being now gaily equipped, prepared to sally forth, when a knock of some pretension announced the presence of the august brotherin-law of Mrs. Flumgarten, one of the pleasure-taking tormentors of Uncle Timothy!

“The devil!” muttered the middle-aged gentleman. “The deuce,” “the dickens,” “rabbit it,” “drabbit it,” “boddikins,” or when anything intolerably queer excited him, “od's boddikins!” were the only expletives that escaped from the lips of Uncle Timothy. But “the devil!” Even Mr. Bosky looked momentarily aghast, and the old-fashioned housekeeper, shaking her head and shrugging up her shoulders, attributed the appalling words to the supernatural influence of the blue coat and brass buttons.

“Charmin' vether this is! Fine hautum mornin's these are!” grinned Mr. Muff (his tongue too big for his mouth, and his teeth too many for his tongue,) with a consequential, self-satisfied air, that seemed to say, “Beat that if you can.”

Uncle Timothy coolly remarked that the sun was just out; and Mr. Bosky, that the post was just in.

“Ven I began to dress me the vind was nor'-nor'-east, but it soon changed to sow-sow-west,” was the next profound remark volunteered by Mr. Muff.

“Then,” said the laurÉat, “you and the wind shifted at much about the same time.”

The Muffs, Fubsys, and Flumgartens, could not understand a joke, which they always took the wrong way. The intelligent master mason, nothing moved, inquired, Anything new in Lit-tie Britain?”

“The barber's freshly painted pole * over the way,” replied Mr. Bosky.

“Or in Great Britain?” continued Mr. Muff.

“The moon,” rejoined Uncle Timothy.

The brother-in-law of Mrs. Flumgarten was at a dead lock.

Sounding the depths of his capacious intellect, his cogitative faculties were “in cogibundity of cogitation.” He soon rallied with, “How's the generality of things in general?”

It was now Uncle Timothy's and Mr. Bosky's turn to be posed! But the interrogator relieved them by suddenly recollecting the object of his mission—“I'm come, Mister Timviddy-”

“If, sir, you mean to address me,” said the satirical-nosed gentleman, “my name is not Timwiddy, but-”

“Timkins,” interrupted Mr. Muff.

“Anything you please,” rejoined Uncle Timothy, with the most contemptuous acquiescence. “Call me Alexander, Wat Tyler, Abelard, Joe Grimaldi, Scipio Africanus, Martin Van Butchell.”

“Ve vont quarrel about Christun names, Mister Timtiffin. Plain Timvig vill do for me. The Muffs and all that's a-skin to'em is not over-purtickler about names.”

Here the poll parrot, that had been listening to and scrutinizing the intruder from head to foot, struck up the old song,

“Don't you know the muffin man!

Don't you know his name?”

“A comical sort of a bird that is!” remarked the master mason. “I'm come, I say, Mister Tumvhim to fetch you to Mrs. Flumgarten; for she says it's werry mystified, but you gay-looking, dandyfied, middle-aged gentlemen, (Mrs. Flumgarten hates gay-looking, dandified, middle-aged gentlemen,) are awful loiterers by the vay. You can't see a smart bonnet or a pretty turn'd ankle, but you old galhant gay Lotharios must stop and look after'em; and that, she says, is werry low—and the Muffs, Fubsys, and Flumgartens hates vhat's low.”

Uncle Timothy made a low bow.

“Mrs. Flumgarten von't go to the Museum: she could abide the stuffed birds and monkeys; but she can't a-bear old war-ses, and old bronze-eyes. She hates, too, them Algerine (Elgin?) marbles.”

The middle-aged gentleman inwardly rejoiced at Mrs. Flumgarten's antipathies.

“And she von't go to the play, for Mrs. Flumgarten hates your acting nonsensical mock stuff; and she don't think she'll go to the Fancy Fair, for Mrs. Flumgarten—it's wery funny that—hates fun.”

At this moment, Mr. Bosky's Louis Quatorze clock struck a musical quarter, and the parrot responded with two lines from one of the laureat's lyrics;

“Quick! quick! be off in a crack;

Cut your stick, or'twill be on your back!”

and a tag (the schoolmaster had been abroad in Little Britain!) for which my Lord Mayor—the conservator of city morals and the Thames—would have fined him five shillings.

“That Poll parrot swears like a Chrishtun!” Mr. Muff then took hold of Uncle Timothy's arm, adding, “If ye don't make haste, Mrs. Flumgarten vill look as bitter as a duck biled vith camomile-flowers.”

Within my solitary bow'r

I saw a quarter of an hour

Fly heavily along!

Mr. Bosky's quarter flew by the “fast flying waggon that flies on broad wheels!”

“Ha! ha! 'no creature smarts so little as a fool.' Well said, Alexander the Little! Poll—pretty Poll!

Pretty Poll! let's you and I

Something merry and musical try,

Is my voice too high? too low?

Answer, Polly, yes or no!

Not a word, undutiful bird,

For barley-sugar and sugar-plums—fie!”

But Poll's eyes still goggled at the door through which Uncle Tim and his finery had vanished. An almond or two from that magazin de comfitures, Mr. Bosky's waistcoat pocket, soon revived in the abstracted bird a relish for the good things of this world. He wetted his whistle cordially with a spoonful of maraschino, and sharpening his beak against the wires of his cage, presented it for a salute. He then gave token of a song, and the laurÉat led, to the tune of the “Dandy O!”

THE QUAKER DUET.=

O Tabitha, in truth, I'm a sober Quaker youth;

Then Hymen's knot, the pretty girls, to spite'em, tye.

My heart is in your trap; you've crimp'd it, like your

cap;

And much the spurrit moves me—hum!—to—

Poll.......Tye turn tye!

And when the knot is tyed, and you're my blushing

bride,

The damsels will (for leading apes must fright'em,)

tye

The rosy bands with speed. O yes, they will, indeed!

And the chorus at our meeting will be—

Poll.......Tye tum tye!

I cannot hear you sigh, ah! I will not see you cry, ah!

My constant Obadi-ah I to unite'em; tye

Our hands and hearts in one, before to-morrow's sun—

Then take thy tender Tabitha to—

Poll.......Tye turn tye!