of laughter, which was immediately echoed by my three youngest fellowsufferers. I was in horror. I would well nigh as soon have thought of robbing on the highway, as of laughing at an amateur in polite society; but the politeness of the newest of my new acquaintances was spread but as a quicksand around the unconscious Mr. Long. However, they extricated me with a dexterity I much suspect they owed to practice.

But this was but the beginning of a scene, the like of which I had never witnessed, wherein, inspired by treacherous praises, and all with the same indescribably ludicrous effect, little Long sang songs in character, related stories, spouted, and finally danced the Mazourka, for my own especial instruction. I omit all mention of Mr. Harrisson's thunderclad brow, his wife's lightning glances, and poor Annie's occasional laughter, which breathed more of contempt than merriment.

"Here comes supper," said, with a relieved air, our entertainer I had nearly called him; and that post was certainly usurped by his prospective son-in-law. "We have to thank you for these partridges, Mr. MVery fine shooting in this part of the world, is'nt there? You have not yet been Kaffir-land, I suppose?

In setting Mr. Harrisson right on that important point, I mentioned the near chance I had of never re-entering the British possessions. At the name of Elliot Annie's cheek flushed crimson.

"Elliot is a fine, gallant fellow," said Foster, whom I knew subsequently as one of Elliot's most steadfast friends. As may be supposed, I echoed his opinion warmly.

"I'd like to shoot him to death, like a dog!" muttered Long, in a tone of ruffianly hatred, over the supper-tray, where he appeared determined to drink as well as sing for everybody.

In a few days time I sat in council with Foster and Elliot, at the former's domicile." It is no use arguing the matter," said the officer, with most unsoldier-like despondency. "Annie has promised to wed him, and will not break her word."

"Though she may her heart," replied Foster. approve of it! Then in ten days she will be Miss

and you"

"Would to heaven

terrupted Elliot.

you could

"Very good, so you Harrisson no longer;

say I should be myself no longer!" in

"I don't much think you are as it is," retorted his friend. "But if it comes to that, the deuce is in it, if you had not better shoot Long than yourself."

"Don't put such thoughts into my head, or I will not answer for the consequences! exclaimed Elliot, starting up and pacing the room in great agitation.

"I have it!" cried Foster, suddenly, after a brief silence. "Leave the whole to me, and I pledge myself to put Long out of your way." "Out of the way!" repeated Elliot.

"Yes, out of the way, and no mistake! He may be in spirit at Witboom on the 30th; but I'll engage he's not there in body.'

"What do you propose doing with him?" I demanded, rather startled at the dubious character of the assertion.

"Send him to visit Neptune, possibly," replied Foster, with a careless air. "But never mind, there will not be any hanging in the business, though there may be some fear of it. Only let Elliot make his mind

easy, and get married as soon as he can; lest if he won't when he may, he can't when he would."

This oracular sentence was all the explanation that either Elliot or myself could obtain on the subject; and he found it somewhat difficult to make his mind as easy as directed; at which I wondered not, considering that as time progressed, so did the preparations for Mr. Frederick Long's marriage; and the one seemed as likely to be interrupted as the other. Only three days before that, which, as Long informed me, "was to make a marred man of him," I met him with a fair, quiet-looking youth, whom one bent on a riduculous action, might consider safer company than most persons.

"He-he-he! hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at Witboom on Thursday-he-he-he!" grinned the little monster, his face glowing like a newly-blown peony. "I'm on the way to join some friends on a shooting party, near the Kowie."

"I did not know you were so eager a sportsman," I remarked. "Oh, Long always ensures us plenty of sport!" replied the quietlooking stranger. 'He's such a wonderful shot. He once killed three partridges without even taking aim, by banging away with both barrels right into the midst of a covey."

66

He-he! that I did-only wonder I did not shoot more."

"We expect to meet an acquaintance of yours-Foster; you will hear from him how we get on," observed his companion Burton, with a queer glance, as we parted. It was a Chaldean page to me, so I rode on, thinking that like many other reckless persons, Foster had pledged what he found it impossible to redeem.

I must own to a strange sensation on arriving at the Harrissons' abode, Witboom, on that eventful morning, the last guest but one, and he the most important; for the bridegroom was not visible, and general embarrassment was. Time passed, the bride's parents looked abundantly uncomfortable, and people were beginning to feel that their assembling there was a ceremony likely to be followed by no other, when a horseman was observed approaching rapidly. From the usual Hottentot Mercury's letter-bag, a hankerchief bound round his waist, he produced a billet, with Mrs. Harrisson's name scrawled half legibly as superscription. She tore it open, read it breathlessly, and sunk speechless on a chair, the epistle falling from her hand-to be picked up by Annie, who at that moment, casting aside punctilio, entered the drawingroom, to learn whether a missing lover or lost happiness were most likely to be found. She glanced over the letter with a smile, then requested me to read it aloud. Here it is:

"MY DEAR MRS. HARRISSON,

"I am very sorry I cannot keep my engagement to Miss Annie, as I promised, by being with you on Thursday; but it's out of the question, as you will see by this, and I am just going to put myself out of the way very cleverly, in case the law tries to have something unpleasant to say to me on the subject. I won't say more for fear of consequences; for, as a kind friend, who is with me, says very sensibly, this might be used against me. The law's a ticklish thing to deal with, as my friend says, though he won't let me say who he is, but for all that, it won't find it easy to make me pay for what I've done, as I'm off before you get this, I won't say where, but I'm all right, I promise you. I hope Miss Annie won't fret much; but Iv'e no time to say more.

"Yours truly,

"F. LONG."

Everybody seemed astounded. Mr. Harrisson raged and stormed, and uttered many hearty wishes, which would have facilitated Long's journey to any pleasant place; and Mrs. Harrisson went forthwith into violent hysterics; while their unfeeling daughter cast herself into Miss Foster's arms, with the most thankful expression I ever saw beaming on young girl's features. Each word of that extraordinary epistle breathed deadly insult to the outraged feelings of her parents, but she was only alive to the welcome conviction that Long had renounced her hand. How it was done, or in what terms, she despised and hated him too much to

care.

Great was the wonder of the party that day at Witboom, and universal was the wonder in the large circle in which the vanished songster's lays were wont to cheer. Whither could he have gone? Had he become immaterial-melted into thin air-resolved into a voice? Though wholly ignorant, and somewhat doubtful, of the means by which Foster had put his little rival so completely out of the way, Elliot again sought the hand of Annie Harrisson, and enraged and mortified, her parents were thankful to see her fate indissolubly joined to his. Could they but have been clairvoyant enough to have beheld all that I had seen; could any disciple of Mesmer have cast the bewildered Mrs. Harrisson into a state of lucidity, and sent her enfranchised intelligence to hover round the scenes I looked on, what strange revelations might she not have made? The day after the last-mentioned meeting with Long a message from Foster claimed my immediate presence at his bivouac on the Kowie. Greatly surprised, I rode off at once, and arriving near midnight, found him keeping gloomy watch with Long and Burton. The latter explained; and it appeared that on the party dispersing, Foster had deeply wounded the irascible feelings of our entertaining acquaintance, by calling him an "idiot," merely because he had, by repeated encores, been induced to tell the same diverting story four consecutive times to the merry group that had made the welkin re-echo with their jovial laughter, at the termination of the day's sport.

"Now this was most indefensible," concluded Burton, with imperturable gravity; for I maintain that Long cannot, by any means, be considered an idiot. An idiot cannot learn to read or write; Long, on the contrary, can read English nearly as well as Hebrew, and I have seen him write I.O.U.'s many a time. Then, again, an idiot cannot discriminate bad from good; whereas Long never drinks Cape wine when he can get French, or dines twice with any man who gives him a bad dinner. For all this I can vouch; and therefore Mr. M- I think you will see the propriety of Mr. Foster's tendering an apology."

A whisper from Foster had prepared me to assert the utter impossibility of such a thing, and Long vehemently protested that none could satisfy him; so Burton called on me to arrange the preliminaries for a tragic ending of the comedy, which it was, I found, determined to write down forthwith in characters of blood or smoke. Neither would hear of losing time, so the first gleam of coming morning found us in a grassy dell, Burton looking solemn as chief mourner at a funeral, Long very fierce, and Foster very serious; while I must myself confess to a doubt as to the strict propriety of my conduct in thus lending my countenance to such a matter-not but what my countenance being one which few might wish to borrow-I set the less value on the loan.

All was ready-the pistols loaded by our quiet-toned acquaintance with the same solemn air, while I looked on, serious as himself. Long seized his weapon eagerly, and looked as though he would willingly have rushed up to his adversary and shot him without further ceremony. Strange enough, however, the parody on human nature was no coward. On the contrary, he had long burned for an opportunity to thus distinguish himself, which the universal dread of descending to his level in the world's ridicule by such an act had disappointed hitherto. But now he was to be satisfied. The signal was given by Burton, and they fired, and Foster at once fell heavily to the earth. Though anticipating some such occurrence, my heart throbbed violently as I sprang forward.

"I'm not hurt-I'am not hurt-he-he-he!" squeaked forth little Long.

Your are very fortunate!" remarked Burton, who was already bending over my prostrate principal. "Foster is done for," he continued, rising. "I though this would be the end of it; Long is such a wonderful shot!"

A convulsive twitching disturbed for a moment the features of the fallen man, but Burton heeded it not.

"Have I really killed him!" exclaimed Long, coming forward. "Are you mad?" demanded Burton, catching his arm.

you loitering here for?-to be hung?"

"Hung!" echoed the dismayed duellist.

you.

But come

away,

"What are

"Of course as sure as he's shot, you'll be hung for it, if they can catch I'll take care of you. I have ordered relays of horses on the road, as I guessed this would be the termination of the affair. I hope no one will come to interrupt us. Is that the sound of horses galloping?"

"Oh, yes!" said Long, in a fright. "Don't let us lose a moment!" and scrambling on his horse, he darted off; while Burton paused to hope that no wood-demon would get into the vacant body of our departed friend, then followed his frightened principal, as though he shared his fears.

"Let us have a cigar," said the dead man, raising himself on his elbow, as soon as they were gone. "The earth's a deuced cold place to lie on at this hour of the morning. I wonder what Long will think when he discovers that the pistol bullets were left at home?"

But he was indeed "Long in every sense of the word, in making the discovery. We soon heard of his being hurried by his kind friend to the sea-side, where a boatman was bribed into risking a hundred pounds penalty for smuggling him off at an illegal hour to a vessel bound to the Mauritius, where he remained incognito many weeks, until intelligence of Annie's marriage, and Foster's resuscitation, brought him back in person, to detail the cause of his flight. But though all besides were in convulsions of laughter at the successful ruse which had been practised, he was to the last completely mystified by an account of Foster's wonderful recovery and escape from pre-mortem inhumation, which he most unsuspectingly received, and added to the "Long" list of stories by which his acquaintances were customarily entertained.

SALMON, SALMON-FISHING, AND SALMON-FISHERS, IN

THE "FAR WEST."

BY THE AUTHOR OF 66

STORIES OF WATERLOO," &c., &c.

For the inhabitants of Cockaigne, and indeed the whole nation of shopkeepers collectively, we have a high regard: we should be ungrateful if we withheld our general estimation for the body politic of Old England; for, in our time, we have pocketed some thousands of their money. There is not a national quality we do not admire; and were a foreigner "bearded like a pard," to question the stoutness of a British arm, or gainsay the worth and beauty of England's daughters, we would be marvellously inclined to derange his capillary arrangements, and particularly so were his heretical opinions delivered at that advanced period of the evening when we have fabricated our third supply of brandy "without. We profess, have professed, and ever will profess, our fixed attachment for the Bull family-male and female, old and young; but John has his weak points, the best of men may err; and more "in sorrow than in anger we tell him that his culinary ignorance is deplorable, and of the quality, condition, or flavour of a salmon he can form or advance no correcter opinion of the merits of that fish than a donkey could were he interrogated on the genealogy of his grandfather.

I repudiate a London salmon as I would a Pensylvanian bond; in my opinion the ad valorem between the two being a question best decided by a toss-up; and yet there are unhappy men within the bills of mortality, exemplary in their lives, and better still, well to do in the world, who labour under a hallucination that in the iced importation which reacheth Billingsgate diurnally, the flavour of the genus salmo may be tested. I have dined, and right hospitable the Londoner is, when an acquaintance of five-and-twenty years has removed the alarm of giving admission to a stranger-I have dined, I repeat, when all was so unobjectionable that Ude dare not turn up his nose, or that departed dinner-growler Doctor Kitchener have taken an exception." Alas! there was always "a gap in our high feast:" for, and especially in the dear season, there would be a jowl of salmon to a certainty. As the worthy host manipulated the fish-slice, he pronounced "how beautifully fresh;" and I, sotto voce, responded-"how cursedly insipid." Yet he "good easy man," had probably paid Grove, Green, or Grundy, three shillings a pound for the imposition. But the veritable fish, had it been procurable to that company, would, after all, have been a mere flinging of pearls unto swine; for by such abominations as are intituled "Harvey,' Soy," and "the King of Oude," the exquisite flavour of the salmon would have been so effectually neutralized as to be undistinguishable from an out-of-season cod fish, or a shot herring.

On their own merits modest men are dumb," and ill doth it beseem