discharge of a pewter inkstand, which followed, and only just followed, the exit of the self-emancipated clerk. The fit of rage at the ingratitude and assurance of Mr. Scrubb was renewed ere that week expired; intelligence being brought in, that on either door-post of a neat and newly painted house, in the same street, a few steps lower down, had that morning been displayed a brass-plate of considerable dimensions, on which was engraved these words, " Mr. Orlando Scrubb's offices.”

It was all very well to wonder where Mr. Scrubb got the money-to insinuate that the widow was his friend—that the young lawyer's funds came from "the bar," and that he belonged to one "Inn" already. They could not rail his name off the door-posts. There was "Orlando Scrubbs' offices" on two brass-plates, and there was he also, getting on as rapidly as Nisi and Prius themselves. What was worse for Mr. Winks, Scrubb, acquainted with all his secrets, and knowing all his connexions, came in at once for a large slice of the business, and was hourly working for more of it. Fierce was the war of the lawyers; bitter the abuse which the elder heaped on the younger for endeavouring to undermine his connexions, and poaching on the manor where he had been employed as keeper; and loud the complaints of injured innocence in the person of the younger, whom his late employer, ungrateful for years of service wholly unremunerated, was hourly seeking to ruin.

A year had thus elapsed, when Messrs. Somebody, the eminent brewers of that day, suddenly became bankrupts. Now it happened that Messrs. Somebody had supplied the widow's house with beer, and it happened too that through the interest of somebody else Scrubb was appointed solicitor to the estate.

A job of that nature was a much greater catch then than it is under the modern system; besides, the brewers were no ordinary bankrupts. It was an immense start for Scrubb; it was a certain fortune to a young man, and Winks of course went wild. Scrubb was ten times the scoundrel he was before, and war to the knife was the word. The parish badge, the muffin-cap and yellow leathers were revived; all the ingratitude, all the treachery of the affair was explained to every new comer; and sneers and cries of shame were lavished upon Scrubb wherever his late patron's influence extended. Scrubb, however, was not thin-skinned; he went on working his commission like a man unconscious of molestation or insult, when, one summer morning, to the surprise of every shopkeeper round about, in he walked, into the old office of his old patron, Mr. Richard Winks, and asked if that gentleman were within!

The first explosion past-"I confess," said Scrubb, "that I have been inconsiderate, nay, I will own unjust to you."

"Unjust!" interrupted Mr. Winks. "Did I not take you, a ricketty little scrap of a boy, off the hands of the parish-strip you immediately of the disgraceful garb I found you in-the breeches were dirty yellow, I remember, and the coat a ditch-green; and did'nt I rig you out in finery like the son of the Lord Chancellor-did'nt I supply you with money to spend your nights in taverns, and cram into you all day as much law as I had myself-only you've forgotten every letter of it; and then did'nt you, just when you were beginning to be of use to me, start up in opposition almost next door, trading in my name, using up

my tricks, laying down my traps, and inveigling away my clients under my very eyes. Unjust! Why you are the most unjust, ungrateful-"

"No:-no," said Orlando, with firmness, and with a touch of strong feeling in his accent, "I am not ungrateful. I wish to show that I do remember what I owe to your patronage and your instructions. I wish to be at peace, and came with the view-"

"What, juggle now!" again interrupted Mr. Winks; "it won't do ; you can utter no word of apology that I will accept."

"I don't come with words; my acts shall speak. You are aware, Mr. Winks, that I am working the commission of bankruptcy in the important case-",

"I know; the brewers!" said Mr. Winks with bitterness," and I have no doubt will squeeze out your thousands, where an honest solicitor would be satisfied with his mere hundreds !" And the lawyer's looks plainly declared that honesty was not the pleasanter policy of the

two.

"The same, sir," returned Scrubb. "Now it is of that commission I would speak. It is an immense firm, and the interests at stake are enormous. I am not experienced, and hardly feel myself, just yet, quite equal to it; I am not rich, and it may involve perhaps a larger outlay of cash in the working-perhaps a little larger outlay-than I can conveniently draw from other business. Now then, sir, for my conditions of peace, and my proof that I'm not utterly ungrateful. This great commission I will make over to you-this sacrifice I incur for your friendship. Reimburse me any trifling expenses I have incurred up to this time, and I at once substitute your name for mine, and hand you over the documents. Am I ungrateful?"

Mr. Winks, having rubbed his eyes, proceeded to rub his hands; he rubbed them again, and then thrust them into the farthest extremity of his huge waistcoat-pockets. He then took them out, and seized one of Mr. Orlando Scrubb's, exclaiming, "Dick, my dear boy, I have wronged you. You have some noble feelings, and can indeed make a generous return. We are friends for life, even if we are doomed to be rivals!" And for a minute it, seemed more than probable that Mr. Winks would drop a tear, or tears.

Mr.

A few hours sufficed for the completion of the contract. Richard Winks was placed, with respect to the estate of the great bankrupts, exactly in the position of Mr. Orlando Scrubb, and the latter gentleman received from his friend a draft for two hundred and sixty pounds which (as per vouchers delivered) he had expended in working the commission.

The brewers were supposed, previous to their failure, to be enormously wealthy; and when they stopped, which was the result of an accident, every body was certain that they would pay fifteen shillings in the pound. But the new solicitor speedily discovered what the old one had discovered first. The secret was startling-incredibleyet it was true that there would not be a sufficient return to the bankrupts' estate to pay the costs of working the commission! and he had paid two hundred and sixty pounds to the self-sacrificing solicitor who had found it out before him!

More than half a century elapsed before these two attornies spoke to

each other again. They were neighbours all this time; they filled offices in the same county; they both prospered, amassing large fortunes. They transacted legal and other business together by deputy, or letter, but they never spoke, until a few years since, at some parish meeting of trustees or commissioners, two white-headed and infirm old men, whose lives had been one feverish tumult, one restless race for a prize that brought no recompence, who stood now tottering on the edge of the grave, too weak either to support or to injure one another, agreed to shake hands and part in peace; burying in the forgiveness of a moment all memory of the past. The past! Their existence was even then-the past. Reconciliation only came when their lives had no future.

A TALE OF A TRUMPET.

BY THOMAS HOOD, ESQ.

“Old woman, old woman, will you go a-shearing?
Speak a little louder, for I'm very hard of hearing."

Of all old women hard of hearing

The deafest, sure, was Dame Eleanor Spearing!
On her head, it is true,

Two flaps there grew,

OLD BALLAD.

That serv'd for a pair of gold rings to go through,
But for any purpose of ears in a parley,

They heard no more than ears of barley.

No hint was needed from D. E. F.

You saw in her face that the woman was deaf:
From her twisted mouth to her eyes so peery,
Each queer feature ask'd a query;

A look that said in a silent way

Who? and What? and How? and Eh?

"I'd give my ears to know what you say!"

And well she might! for each auricular

Was deaf as a post-and that post in particular
That stands at the corner of Dyott-street now,
And never hears a word of a row!
Ears that might serve her now and then
As extempore racks for an idle pen,

Or to hang with hoops from jewellers' shops
With coral, ruby, or garnet drops;
Or, provided the owner so inclin'd,
Ears to stick a blister behind;
But as for hearing wisdom or wit,
Falsehood, or folly, or tell-tale-tit,
Or politics, whether of Fox or Pitt,
Sermon, lecture, or musical bit,
Harp, piano, fiddle or kit,

They might as well, for any such wish,

Have been butter'd, done brown, and laid in a dish!

She was deaf as a post,- -as said before-
And as deaf as twenty similes more,
Including the adder, that deafest of snakes,
Which never hears the coil it makes.

She was deaf as a house-which modern tricks
Of language would call as deaf as bricks-
For her all human kind were dumb,

Her drum, indeed, was so muffled a drum,
That none could get a sound to come-
Unless the Devil that had Two Sticks!
She was deaf as a stone-say one of the stones
Demosthenes suck'd to improve his tones;
And surely deafness no farther could reach
Than to be in his mouth without hearing his speech !

She was deaf as a nut-for nuts, no doubt,
Are deaf to the grub that's hollowing out—
As deaf, alas! as the dead and forgotten-
(Gray has noticed the waste of breath,

In addressing the “ dull, cold ear of death"),
Or the Felon's ear that was stuff'd with Cotton-
Or Charles the First, in statue quo;

Or the still-born figures of Madame Tussaud,
With their eyes of glass, and their hair of flax,
That only stare whatever you "ax,”

For their ears, you know, are nothing but wax.

She was deaf as the ducks that swam in the pond, And wouldn't listen to Mrs. Bond,

As deaf as any Frenchman appears,

When he puts his shoulders into his ears :
And-whatever the citizen tells his son-
As deaf as Gog and Magog at one!
Or, still to be a simile-seeker,

As deaf as dogs'-ears to Enfield's Speaker!

She was deaf as any tradesman's dummy,
Or as Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy,
Whose organs, for fear of our modern sceptics,
Were plugg'd with gums and antiseptics.

She was deaf as a nail-that you cannot hammer
A meaning into, for all your clamour-
There never was such a deaf old Gammer
So formed to worry,

Both Lindley and Murray,
By having no ear for Music or Grammar!

Deaf to sounds, as a ship out of soundings,
Deaf to verbs, and all their compoundings,
Adjective, noun, and adverb, and particle,
Deaf to even the definite article-
No verbal message was worth a pin,
Though you hired an earwig to carry it in!

In short, she was twice as deaf as Deaf Burke,
Or all the Deafness in Yearsley's Work,
Who in spite of his skill in hardness of hearing,
Boring, blasting, and pioneering,

To give the dunny organ a clearing,
Could never have cured Dame Eleanor Spearing
Of course the loss was a great privation,
For one of her sex-whatever her station-

And none the less that the Dame had a turn
For making all families one concern;

And learning whatever there was to learn,
In the prattling, tattling Village of Tringham-
As who wore silk? and who wore gingham?
And what the Atkins's shop might bring 'em.

How Smiths contrived to live, and whether
The fourteen Murphys all pigged together-

The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners,
And what they boil'd for their Sunday dinners-
What plates the Bugsbys had on the shelf,
Crockery, china, wooden, or delf?

And if the parlour of Mrs. O'Grady

Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady?

Did Snip and his wife continue to jangle?

Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle?

What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brown?
And the weekly score they ran up at the Crown?
If the Cobbler could read, and believed in the Pope,
And how the Grubbs were off for soap?

If the Snobbs had furnish'd their room up-stairs,
And how they managed for tables and chairs,
Beds, and other household affairs,

Iron, wooden, and Staffordshire wares;

And if they could muster a whole pair of bellows ?

In fact, she had much of the spirit that lies

Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys

By courtesy call'd Statistical Fellows

A prying, spying, inquisitive clan,

Who have gone upon much of the self-same plan,
Jotting the Labouring Class's riches;

And after poking in pot and pan,

And routing garments in want of stitches,

Have ascertain❜d that a working-man

Wears a pair and a quarter of average breeches!

But this, alas! from her loss of hearing,
Was all a seal'd book to Dame Eleanor Spearing;
And often her tears would rise to their founts-
Supposing little scandal at play

'Twixt Mrs. O'Fie and Mrs. Au Fait

That she couldn't audit the Gossip's accounts.
'Tis true, to her cottage still they came;
And ate her muffins just the same;
And drank the tea of the widow'd Dame,
And never swallow'd a thimble the less
Of something the Reader is left to guess,
For all the deafness of Mrs. S.,
Who saw them talk and chuckle and cough,
But to see and not share in the social flow,
She might as well have liv'd, you know,
In one of the houses in Owen's Row,

Near the New River Head, with its water cut off!