neas grew dark, very dark, and his reply was hurried and discourteous. He denied the overcharge at once, and asked John Ward if he meant to call him a thief. Singularly enough, Ward did not lose his temper on the instant, but mildly told him it was a question in which violence and assertion were of no consequence, but one merely of figures, and then invited him to cast up the figures with him. They then laid their heads together, not very amiably, each in his own way running up the column of the shillings. John knew that he was young, and perhaps looked much younger; but his adversary, for such he was now really become, did not know that John had been educated at a school, in which the first principle that is there taught, is to rid the bosom of fear, at once and for ever.

Phineas, in this little exploit, endeavoured to intimidate and confuse his customer; firstly, by speaking almost at the top of his voice; and secondly, by obstinately beginning to cast up from the bottom of the column, when John began at the top, and vice versa. At length, he so far forgot his sleek self-possession, as to tell Ward that he lied, and endeavoured to snatch the bill from him. This approach to violence was returned by a distinct and well-applied rap on the head; a fracas ensued two shopmen joined in the fray, whilst a third procured a constable. John still kept possession of the bill, whilst the officer kept. possession of John as his prisoner, until he placed him at the bar before the magistrate in Marlborough-street, for a violent and outrageous assault upon Mr. Phineas Macfarlane, a respectable housekeeper, against the king's peace, and all the statutes in that case made and provided.

The reader need not be told that John Ward was fined for the assault, and that Mr. Phineas Macfarlane had to refund the ten shillings, as the bill, receipted by himself, was evidence conclusive against him. To John's accusation of contemplated fraud, he had the audacity to assert, that at the moment of making out the account, he had been forcibly struck with the unction of one of Doctor Watts's divine songs, from which the trifling mistake had arisen, and that it was a wicked libel upon him, to accuse him, for his character was well known, of a premeditated fraud in the transaction. He was believed, and John was reprimanded by the magistrate.

Now John Ward retired from this seat of justice with what he thought only a just measure of anger against all parties, not excluding himself. This last person, indeed, he set down as a most incomprehensibly stupid ass, to allow himself thus to be foiled by a lank-haired, oily-headed sanctimonious pretender to honesty like Phineas.

In all the seaports of her majesty's dominions, and in those also of all foreign parts, the midshipman will be found, so far as in him lies, to be a gregarious animal. If they, the midshipmen, cannot hunt and defend themselves, and, we are sorry to add, offend others, in flocks, they will in pairs; and the more hardly, and the more sternly that adversity presses upon them, the closer is this spirit of alliance between them, and the more affectionately and truthfully held and cherished.

John Ward had a companion and a friend, that even the horrors of midshipman's half-pay, could not alienate from him. There was a great discrepancy between the fortunes of these two; for whilst John Ward saw no other prospect before him, than that, after having spent the little money that still remained to him of his pay, and that derived from prizes, of going and offering his services to navigate the mercantile

navy, his friend had already been made a sleeping partner in his uncle's large wholesale tobacconist establishment in the Borough. Never was there a more wakeful sleeping partner than Harry Haldrum; indeed, no one knew when he slept-in the night it certainly was not, as all the fraternity of the old watch at the west-end of the town were willing to testify upon oath, with, or even without a consideration. In fact, he was one of those young gentlemen, who, from his connexion with trade, was not so well assured of his own gentility as he wished; therefore, at times, to secure the appellation of "gentleman" as much to himself as possible, did his best to act quite unlike one. With the exception of this foible, he was, however, a good fellow.

Hal heard his old shipmate's account of his tribulation, in a rich, soiled silk dressing-gown, with a golden tasselled velvet cap, of the most vivid green, on one side of his head, with a veritable Havannah cigar in his mouth; and, as the narrative grew more interesting, so the more furiously he smoked. By the time that it was finished, so was the cigar nearly; and, as the tale of woe ceased, he flung down the remnant, burning as it was, upon the rich carpet, and crushed out the lighted ashes by twisting them under his heel, with a gesture and an emphasis that Ward well understood, as a wish to be using the lankhaired physiognomy of Phineas Macfarlane in the same fashion.

66

'Well," said John Ward, "now that you have heard my wrongs, what shall I do?"

"I'll go and give him a good starting—that is, I mean, a towelling." Haldrum kept his word-fastened a quarrel upon him, and beat him unmercifully.

It might have been a fortnight after this conversation, when one fine morning, John Ward presented himself to his old friend, Hal Haldrum, at his locale in Duke-street. The meeting was a painful one to both parties. John had come to announce to his friend, that circumstances had compelled him to adopt as his dernier ressort, the resolution of embarking as the first mate of a West-Indiaman; and Harry had the offer of assistance in his heart, and it trembled on his tongue, and yet he knew not whether a present relief would not be an ultimate disaster. "There is no disgrace in it," said poor Jolin, doubtingly, and with a hectic flush: "and yet I think it would have broken my father's heart, had he been living to see it."

"No, John, no-it would not, though he lived and died a naval officer, he would have gloried in his son honestly serving his country in the mercantile navy, rather than to have seen him idling away his time on shore, in wanton dissipation, if he had the means, or in disaffected poverty if in want-he would, perhaps, rather see him the right-minded resolute fellow that you are, than such a harum-scarum, good-for-little fellow as myself-a useless consumer of the good things of this life— a something worse than an unprofitable or idle member of one of the busiest communities in the world."

"The large snuff-manufactory in the Borough."

"No more of that, if you love me, John; it is not I, but my capital that does the good work there; sink the shop, I shall reform by and by, and marry. Yes, marry-why do you start?—I am not so freshcoloured and fine a looking fellow as you-yet I'm straight enough, and have got a trick of the eye that may take a girl's fancy-especially

when I can throw in some thousands as a make-weight, to so light a bargain as myself-I wish I had your good looks, however."

"And I your money."

"Upon my soul, I would change-so you see, after all, that your lot is preferable to mine."

"But I don't see it."

"Then I will put the case, and if you will only keep your eyes open it will be visible enough. Now, here's Mary Macfarlane."

"Macfarlane! What! the daughter of Phineas Macfarlane, of Swallow-street-the man whose nose you cracked?”

"Not his daughter, but his cousin his ward also—or at least lately was so splendid girl, Jack-such manners-and a great fortune in the bargain!"

"What, and has it passed through the canting man-mercer's hands, and remains great?"

"There were two other guardians, my boy; and I don't know how many trustees! Now, she shall help me in my case. Suppose you and I were to bid up for her?"

“I!!!"

"Yes, you-with your Grecian countenance, mountain colour, and laughing English blue eyes-and then there is that worst of all devils," called persuasion, in the very tone of your voice. You! why not you? Well, supposing we both strove for her, and I won her, as most likely I should."

“Thank you," said John Ward, a little more mortified than he ought to have been, considering his late modest disclaimer.

"Don't thank me, Jack, but thank my two or three thousand a year, as it may be. So you see, my income would have done what plain honest Hal Haldrum could not. Put the case the other way, that you won her and there'd be an end to the argument; so stick yourself, Jack, on either of the horns of the dilemma, and there you'll be a happier fellow than I."

"Well! if I must be empaled, I should like it to be on a golden horn -but all this is but sorry comfort to me; you won't get her, because you don't deserve her, though your money does; and I should not, though I do deserve her (mind, the assertion is yours, not mine), because I have no money to make my deserving palatable,"

"That's more than you know-you shall try, however."

"Impossible! The Thomas and Nancy,' confound the owner's taste, what names they give their ships! The Hooker sails, Hal, in a fortnight from this day."

"Time enough, my boy-you shall try."

"And you'

"Oh! I've tried that is to say-I've tried if there would be any use in my trying; but you know, Jack, mine are not qualities to be estimated at first sight-to get sterling gold you must dig for it." "And the lady won't dig?"

"She won't hold spades-and because she has diamonds in one hand, she holds her single heart tightly in the other."

"A pretty metaphor-but why have you left out clubs ?"

"Because, Jack, I have not wit enough to bring the sticks in-nor myself either the greatest stick of all-but you shall see Mary to-night!" "Positively?"

"Most positively and assuredly. You shall make love to her-she shall make love to you-you shall win her-you shall, indeed-and like myself, put Phineas's nose out of joint."

"You are more than ever mysterious."

"The canting fellow takes some advantage or benefit under his uncle's will-and he has wrung some sort of condition from the lady's ignorance-he has a kind of claim upon her, which many people allow -and he parades it finely."

"And she-I am deeply and foolishly interested-"

"Hates him as much as I do, and the inquiry whether' short-cuts is riz, or returns is fell.' We shall all meet to night."

Having a spare bed, it was arranged by Haldrum, that his friend should live with him till he sailed, and that, at least they should spend the time as merrily as possible together.

That very evening, dressed out, with the assistance of Henry's wardrobe, in the very height of the fashion, the mate of the merchant-ship, Thomas and Nancy, repaired, with his friend, to a brilliant party at. Alderman Heavisides's, situated in one of the streets adjoining to Bedford-square. This community of habiliments is a cockpitonian practice, founded upon the first and most universal of principles, necessity. There was no fastidiousness displayed on the part of Ward, at being thus rigged out under false colours, by his friend. The law of meum et tuum, in coats, waistcoats, and shirts, has a very latitudinarian construction, according to the midshipman code.

Upon his first introduction to the party, John Ward made a sensation. He was, by far, the handsomest man in the rooms. His only failing, that of being over-dressed, was a recommendation to the circle in which he found himself. There was nothing, either good or bad, high or low, in the name of Ward; and when Harry introduced him as a travelled gentleman, just arrived from foreign parts, every one pronounced the stranger as decidedly aristocratical. The alderman was impressive in his welcome, and Mrs. Heavisides, his respectable lady, fussy on the exaltation of her happiness in making his acquaintance.

Mr. Phineas Macfarlane was not yet authorized to make one of this distinguished party, being still a shopkeeper, and carrying on his business by retail. But he had his hopes, and they were sanguine ones. His cousin, decidedly the finest specimen of humanity of the two or three hundred present, was in the midst of her circle in the full blaze of her beauty. In magnificence of appearance and faultlessness of form, no one, either male or female, approached her, with the exception of John Ward. This was felt by all present, and the crowd unconsciously and simultaneously made way for him, as, accompanied by his friend, he was introduced to her.

Henry Haldrum was received with a bantering familiarity, and John with a slight blush, a tribute of surprise to the exceeding elegance and comeliness of his appearance. He had the freshness of the healthful sea upon him. He was the native rose amidst the exotics. He was superior to, and unlike every other man present. Mary was struck, but it was not with love.

After the bore of introduction, and its few murmured and unintelligible words had passed, John Ward fell diffidently back, and was soon snapped up by one of the accomplished belles of the room. Any thing like a country-dance, or a threesome or foursome reel, the mate of the

merchantman could have mastered, but he knew nothing about the figures of the quadrilles; so, with the natural suavity of the born, not the made gentleman, he preferred conversation.

The alderman's lady was in tortures, lest she had not the newest and most fashionable figures to display, in order to attract his attention; to gain his approbation, she despaired.

Henry Haldrum put in practice one of those disagreeable things called hoaxes, upon Miss Macfarlane. We never could discover in what a hoax differed from a lie, excepting that, to the height of mendacity it adds the extreme of folly. However, in whatever light Henry might have regarded it, he gravely told the lady that his friend was not only a man of fashion, nearly allied to many members of the peerage, but that he was a person of an immense fortune also, and that his expectations were still greater; he mentioned a sum allotted to him as a yearly income during his minority, that actually startled Miss Macfarlane, and caused several very prudential mothers to edge forward towards the mate of the merchant-ship.

John Ward was overwhelmed with introductions, and nearly died the death of a fly in a phial of honey-water; being almost poisoned by the sweets of civility and salutation. More than once the words, "Who am I?" trembled upon his incredulous lips, as one being uncertain of his identity.

"It is very pleasant, however," thought he, " and I will enjoy it so long as it may last."

Full of this wise resolution he made his way to where existed the greatest attraction, near the side of Mary Macfarlane, and the two very soon forgot, that a ball-room was not a solitary grove, and that welldressed ladies and gentlemen were better provided with organs of observation than tall trees and flower-bearing shrubs.

We will, just now, say no more, than that Miss Macfarlane being of age, and in the supposed full enjoyment of her fortune, was provided with a discreet, yet poor aunt, who, by a secret sympathy with her niece-for not a word was spoken on the subject-invited John Ward to call upon her the following day, in order to benefit by his opinion of the exact genus to which a favourite ugly macaw of hers belonged.

The two friends are at breakfast together on the following morn-both of them, at first, in high spirits. Those of Hal rose gradually as he chuckled over the successful hoax that he conceived that he had played on the previous night; whilst poor Ward's fell, in the same proportion, as he began to reflect that he had been permitted to contemplate a transient, yet strongly coveted happiness that was wholly beyond his attainment.

"You certainly will call, happy and thrice happy Jack. Here have I been dangling in her train for nearly two years, and have never yet had my calling upon her connived at.'

"Connived at!" said Ward, astonished that any thing like artifice should be imputed to one whom he considered so pure and so perfect. "I am firmly resolved. I will not go."

"Yes, connived at. The thing is fully understood. But don't be too proud, Jack-your sails draw beautifully from the royals to the courses; but I furnished you with the wind that sends you ahead at this spanking rate."

"You!"

"Yes, I—I owed her something; for if she have not quizzed me to