INTRODUCTION.

"WHEN I was a boy," said

my

uncle

"Coachman has come for orders, Sir," said a servant, who had just entered the room.

Gentle reader,-I must inform you that I was my uncle's favourite nephew, and that he was fond of telling a long story. What uncles are not-and what nephews think not the same-favourites, or otherwise? And sometimes, far be it from me to say often, of one "decies repetita," which, being interpreted for the benefit of the-the ladies-means a tale ten times told. When, therefore, he began, "When I was a boy," and, as a preliminary (for he did so, gentle reader), took off his spectacles, and proceeded, with more than ordinary deliberation, to deposit them in a shagreen case, which he had informed me, on several occasions, had been in his possession for the last thirty years, and had belonged to his great-grandmother (of blessed memory, and