The next was from an old school friend: MY DEAR FORTUNÉ, Your blooming out into a minister is an unexpected godsend. This is what I should like: a substantial governorship in the colonies, which I could hold without going out there, pending a vacant prefectorate worth having. The salary would tide me over present difficulties, which are considerable by reason of unpaid rents; besides, it looks bad at this moment not to be serving one's country. I beg to remind you also that I am only a Knight of the Legion of Honor; my appointment to the governorship would be a good pretext for promoting me to the rosette. With best respects to your excellent Excellency, RAOUL DE PLUMEAUVENT. The third note came from Mlle. Cabroile, of the Théâtre des Folies Gauloises, and may as well be transcribed in its terse, original, and artistic orthography : MON CHAIR CONTE, - Maintenant queue vous voilà ministre, j'espaire que vous allez vous o. q. p. sans retard de plasser mon coussin Jules. C'est un imbecille de la plus belle o qui n'a jamai rien fait de bon à la maisson ce qui est émilion pour une famile qui se raiespecte. Ossi ce qui lui fodrait c'est un poste de 6 à 8,000 francs ousqu'y n'y aurait pas traup à faire ni d'argens à gardé crainte de désagrémens. Je vous salu avecq raispect et vous enbrasse de tout queur car on mattend pour la répétission du "Prince Poireau" où j'ai un rôlle de laiegume. Toute à vous, TA CABRIOLE. Of Mlle. Cabriole's claims the count could dispose by a few bank-notes sent in a bouquet; but how put off the old school-friend who wanted to be a governor, and the marquise, whose brother was for an attachéship? It needed all the new minister's self-control to resist the temptation of doing a little harmless jobbery on behalf of those well-loved persons; but he did resist: for the Frenchman who has got astride the hobby of performing his duty immaculately, is a being whom there is no unhorsing, attack him from whichever point you will. Nothing could be firmer set than the count's lips, as he sat in his study and marked with a bold R, which stands for Refused, all the letters that appealed to him on grounds purely personal. M. Narcisse, his valet, scarcely knew him again, and half fancied that some devilish enchantment had changed his master in a night, leaving nought of him but the outer cuticle. For gall and wormwood had it been to M. Narcisse, when, on venturing to sound his master about that little place in the customs, he had received the freezing reply, "Ask me for what money you want, either for yourself or your family; but do not presume beyond that." M. Narcisse had not presumed beyond that, for there are certain inflections of the voice which warn one off like a spiked gate; but every time he entered his master's presence, and saw him conning over and taking notes from a portentous manuscript folio, which was none other than the hardly-won Tabular List, he said to himself that this was the cause of all the mischief, and he wished that document at the other side of Jordan; as, no doubt, did many another denizen of the office, especially M. Jobus. M. Jobus, however, was on the watch. He knew that it was not mere idle reading, this daily study of the Tabular List: and that as soon as the count had learned conclusively that there were three times more clerks than there was any need for; that posts had been created both at home and abroad, which were as good as sinecures, and which had no other possible object but to lodge some protégés or kinsmen of M. Jobus: when he had learned all this, and a good many other strange things, then there would be a storm. M. Jobus foresaw it mentally, and he was taking his precautions, as a man unfolds his umbrella; nor had he long to wait. The storm did burst, and broke with violence. One morning the count told M. Jobus that he intended recommending the government to dismiss two-thirds of the employes, home and foreign, of the Cochin-China office; but that in considering which officials should be dismissed, and which retained, attention would be paid to length of service, the claim which M. Jobus seemed to have most disdained, seeing that all the names on his list were mixed up in inextricable confusion, promotion appearing to have fallen on no principle whatever, save that of repeatedly advancing certain names, and repeatedly passing over certain others. M. Jobus protested at this that he was honest and irresponsible, and the debate was of long duration. It ended by the count's declaring that he would abide by his resolve; whereat, had he not feared that it would be accepted, M. Jobus would most certainly have tendered his resignation. He did better. He bowed, and said it should be as his Excellency wished; but in his cold eye it was easy to read that there was a declaration of war. And what a war! Let us pass swiftly over the incidents of that tragic contest. The new minister, in seeking to inaugurate departmental purity, had forgotten that innovation is a weapon which, if not carefully shouldered, kicks as well as hits; in assailing M. Jobus, he had committed the further blunder of supposing that he was only attacking a man, whereas he was buffeting a principle. This is always the way with amateurs, be it in art or politics. Who plashes his yellow ochre and vermilion so gaudily over his canvas as the amateur painter? Who thunders so headlong at a fence as a gentleman rider? Who bawls with such histrionic ire as the amateur actor? Who rams his head so triumphantly against a stone wall as the amateur politician? Institutions, alas! are not things that we can go forth to do battle against with our naked fists; and M. Jobus, the permanent and irresponsible, was an institution. He was ubiquitous, was M. Jobus; he had ramifications; he extended to branches and nooks of the commonwealth where there was no expecting him. There were Jobuses in the press, Jobuses in the army, Jobuses in the church, Jobuses in society; each public office had its Jobus: for whether Jobuses by name, or by connection, or by intermarriage, or by ties of interest, gratitude, or duty, they were all Jobuses, every man of them, and held together tightly, rising up at the sound of the war-note like a gathering of Scottish clans, and presenting, not a bold battle front, but an invisible array of ambuscades, from out of which they shot, whistling their arrows from behind rocks, out of copses, from everywhere. The minister began to be attacked by the papers, not the large political journals, but the light skirmishers of the press, which, in Paris, have most influence. The Cigare observed that his trousers were ill-cut. Now, every man has his foibles, and the count's was to like well-cut trousers; so he felt the squib keenly. In society it was said that his charming manners of former days were quite vanished; that he had grown a bear, and was becoming mad; some ladies, always kind, invented that his father had died in a lunatic asylum. In the cafés, it was reported that he had only accepted office because he was ruined, having squandered all his fortune in debauchery. Among pious circles, people asked whether it were true that he was privately married, but that his wife was a person of disreputable life, who had fled from him to drink. When a man goes to war with the Jobuses he has not many bruises to show; but he is covered all over with stains, as if a million of flies had settled on him. The warfare had not gone very far, however, before the great personage, who had been the count's patron, was apprised of it. He had selected the count, of all men, on purpose to avoid these disturbances, and it was rather hard that the sagacity of his choice should be so soon belied. Nevertheless it was probably not too late to repair matters; so he sent in hot haste to bid the culprit, that is, the minister, come and see him at once, to talk over the business. "So your cog-wheels are not working quite smoothly, my dear count?" he said, in the friendly tone of one who should remark, “The governmental machine is a difficult one for a young hand to manage; but I know what it is, and will advise you." "I am in great trouble with my department, sir," answered the Cochin-China minister. "I have discovered abuses there which I should not have deemed possible; and I have been at work on a comprehensive scheme of reform, which I intend submitting to your Excellency, and to the council, at an early date." The great personage making no immediate reply, the count proceeded to recapitulate what we already know, and a great deal more that we do not know, and which can be no business of ours, being only members of the public, and consequently debarred from the right of prying too closely into official secrets, which should always be respected. Whilst he spoke, the great personage, who was standing on his hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, kept the glasses of his gold-rimmed spectacles fixed on the carpet, and a slight frown sketched itself between his eyebrows, and he seemed to be musing, "How fallacious are appearances! Here is a man we relied on to be soft and affable with everybody, to make us friends, and to let things in general be; and here he comes, stirring up a war amongst our own people, just as if we had not enemies enough as it is." "I do not say that right is not entirely on your side," he replied, in that measured tone which those only can conceive who have ever heard an experienced statesman speak. "Indeed, your conduct in this affair quite bears out the high opinion I had formed of your political aptitudes, before inviting you into the ministry. But, my dear count, there are cases where we must act with extreme caution. M. Jobus is a very valuable servant; he has been in his post, I think, almost half a century; and half a century is a long time. Then we could not introduce reforms into one department without doing so in all. It would look as if the ministers were trying to outbid each other in public favor, which would be most undesirable. Again, the reforms you suggest would require money, a great deal of money, and we can afford none: the budget is the subject of my most anxious cares. I lay awake from thinking of it, last night." "But it is precisely because the budget is so overcharged that I wish to reform and retrench," exclaimed the perplexed count. "It cannot surely want money to stop waste; to dismiss people who are doing nothing; to abolish posts that are sucking up gold that is so precious." "To abolish posts is always a serious matter," answered the great personage, lifting up his coat-tails, and speaking with gravity. "We could not dismiss anybody, you know, without compensation. Two millions of francs would be necessary in your department, alone. Twenty millions if we generalized your scheme. Where is all that to come from?" "Two millions twenty millions!" echoed the count, aghast. - most forci The great personage followed up his advantage:I admit that all you urge is very forcible, ble. What you tell me of despatches of great value remaining unnoticed; of officials in foreign service being snubbed for conveying information, or for suggesting inventions or improvements; of salaries remaining accumulated in M. Jobus's hands, and of employés being afraid to draw them lest doing so should hinder their chances of promotion, - all that is very striking and very new to me. But it is not good that the public should be led to suspect these things, my dear count: it produces a bad effect. My great aim at this moment is to found an enlightened republic; and we have need to be united, for our enemies would catch, with pleasure, at any rumors of departmental abuses. Abuses of this nature should always be reformed en famille, quietly. By and by, at some future time perhaps, when we have a great deal of leisure on our hands, we will inquire into all this, and operate gent y. Meanwhile they talk of the clerks in your department striking work this, of course, must be prevented at all hazards. As a personal favor to me, my dear colleague, make friends with your people; and, as regards M. Jobus, the best policy, you will find, is to be forbearing; for, as I have said, he has really held his present post almost fifty years!" The clock on the mantle-piece struck twelve. "That is luncheon time," broke off the great personage gayly. You will stay and try some Yeddo wine that has been brought me by the Japanese ambassadors very curious it tastes like Malmsey." After tasting the Japanese Malmsey, the count walked back to his office. In passing the Boulevard de la Reine, he could not restrain a shrug at the thought of the mob who had swept, rabid and hungry, along there, eighty years before, to bring Louis XVI. and his wife to Paris, saying that once the "Baker" was in the capital, bread would follow. Somehow he fancied that at that date the irresponsible Monsieur Jobus, already in the flesh, and already permanent in his department, must have been watching the proceedings from behind a curtain, and chuckling to himself that it was a merciful, though mysterious dispensation of Providence, that the people, in performing revolutions, should always light upon the wrong culprits. Then he pictured M. Jobus, reading of the execution of Louis XVI. in the Moniteur Universel, looking on from his window at the flight of Charles X., figuring as spectator at the downfall of Louis Philippe, raising his hat to the Empress Eugénie on her way to the railway station on the 4th September, 1870, and repeating to himself, after each of these catastrophes, "It is certainly a great comfort that I should be permanent and irresponsible." He imagined that the sentry who saluted him, eyed him askant, as if reflecting, You're a poor creature." A black dog, perhaps M. Jobus's dog, sitting on his hind quarters in the yard, beside a gray dog, set up a bark at his approach, and appeared to be saying, "That is the man who thought to uproot M. Jobus; at which the gray dog was seized with a prolonged fit of hilarity. He wrote a lengthy and dejected letter to Mme. de Claire, confessing all his troubles, his deceptions, his despondency. He explained that he had done violence to his nature to seem other than he was, to be puritanical and unbending, and that it had all broken down. He thought of the talisman "Pritchard," which he used to wear on his locket, and felt it would be wise to have a new locket, emblazoned with that same motto. What, indeed, did discussion or worry on political matters lead to? Government and policy were always the same, for Government and policy were M. Jobus. She answered, "Persevere; but there is no need for puritanism. Be yourself. Results are not attained in a day; and, as for M. Jobus, I suppose he will yield to Time, like other crumbling monuments." V. So M. de Ris persevered, not by attacking M. Jobus, but by letting him alone. The great personage had given him to understand that the shortest cut towards abolishing M. Jobus would be to found an enlightened republic; so he devoted his energies to the enlightened republic, devising by day and night how such an institution might best be raised. The time for opening the session was fast approaching; and the large political papers, as already observed, had not assailed the Cochin-China minister on the clerk question, from not knowing accurately, as yet, to which party he belonged. They were waiting. If he turned out a Monarchist, the Republicans would lead the assault by taking the part of the poor ill-paid clerks, whom it had been sought to turn out of house and home without indemnity, whilst bloated, over-paid officials (i.c., himself) revelled in anti-democratic splendor, &c., &c. If, on the other hand, he proved a Republican, then the Monarchists would open their batteries upon him by lamentations over M. Jobus, who was an institution of the past, and had been persecuted solely on that account. The count resolved to embody his views in the form of a programme or constitution, which he should submit to his friends in the cabinet, and then advocate publicly, whenever he had a chance, in order that no doubt whatever might remain as to what his sentiments were. Plato, This project of constitution began to absorb all his leisure. He read treatises of political philosophy, Stuart Mill, and essays in the Revue des Deux Mondes. He took in English periodicals, he sought out Englishmen and Americans in society, and sounded them as to the charters of their respective liberties. Mr. Washburne procured him a copy of the United States Constitution; Lord Lyons presented him with Hallam and a fac-simile of Magna Charta. The clerks in his office began to breathe. The terrific spell of work that had fallen upon them when that direful tabular list was being drawn up, loomed backwards in the distance like a forgotten nightmare. They found time to read the news of their country, play pitch and toss, and crack walnuts during office hours, as in the good old days; and save that they continued to be civil to the public, nothing was changed from what it had been of yore. The young gentleman in the blue-striped shirt-collar and with the double eye-glass was even re-instated in his cane-bottomed chair and his emoluments, on expressing contrition for the past, and promising not to put his tongue in his cheek for the future. The count had never been brusque with his subordinates, even when the reforming fever was most strongly on him. He was always courteous and unassuming; but he now fell perceptibly into his old manner of letting things drift as they listed, and judging them all with a smile. He bought a new locket, with the name "Pritchard" embossed rather larger than before, and in rubies, to be more conspicuous; the use of it was to keep his temper within bounds whenever he held interviews with M. Jobus. That gentleman continued to rule and be useful, as in his palmiest days. To be sure, when there was an appointment to be filled up, the count endeavored to select the best man that he knew; but he had sent his hobby, Puritan, to its stable, and was determined not to risk quarrels with lady or other friends for the empty satisfaction of being treated by everybody as a Jack in office. Thus, his school comrade, M. de Pleumeauvent, obtained the governorship he wanted; Mme. de Rosecroix was promised a post for her brother; and when a minor vacancy arose for which he knew of no eligible person, he abandoned the nomination to M. Jobus, who always knew of somebody. Needless to add, that watermelons began to travel once again through the streets under the custody of dragoons, and that cork-soles, heaps of newspapers, and novels were despatched about the country with the government frank, as if nothing had ever happened to check the practice. In this way time flew by until the opening of the session, a day or two after which M. de Ris completed his plan of a constitution, and had it neatly copied out on foolscap by his secretary, skilled in précis writing. It was a bright December morning when, with the document in his official portfolio, the Cochin-China minister went to attend the cabinet council where he intended producing it. There was to be a question put to the Cochin-China minister that afternoon, by an honorable member of the right, who wished to know whether it were true that a post of dignity in Cochin-China had been bestowed upon a convict who had escaped from the hulks (ie. to a republican who had been transported to Cayenne for his opinions under the second empire, and had fled thence). As the count would have to vindicate his appointment, he had conceived that no opportunity could be more fitting for a public profession of his new faith; and he explained this his astonished colleagues, who, not having come prepared to hear a new constitutional programme read to them, sat in blank dismay round the council-board when the count drew out his manuscript, and perused it aloud with evident satisfaction. PROJECT OF REPUBLICAN CONSTITUTION FOR FRANCE. 1. Two Chambers, viz, a Senate elected by the Councils-General, and comprising certain ex-officio members, and a legislative body of three hundred members, elected by universal suffrage, for a term of three years. 2. The Senate to be renewable by thirds every two years, so that the term of oflice of each Senator shall be of six years. The ex-officio members of the Senate to be the President of the Republic on leaving office; ex-cabinet ministers of five years standing; the Chief Judges of the Cour de Cassation, Cour des Comptes, and Tribunal de Commerce; the Procureurs-Généraux of the Cour de Cassation and Cour des Comptes; a member elected out of cach of the five classes of the Institut de France; the Doyen and sab-Doyen of the Faculty of Medicine; the Archbishop of Paris, and four prelates elected by the Episcopacy; and the three senior Generals and Admirals on active service. 3. A President of the Republic elected by the two Chambers for a term of seven years, and not re-eligible.* 4. Complete separation of Church and State. 6. Trial by jury in civil cases, where desired by either of the suitors; and abolition, in criminal cases, of "l'instruction secrète." 7. Municipal independence; each Municipal Council to elect its own Mayor. 8. Appointment of Prefects for a term of five years, subject to good behavior; and abolition of all sub-prefectorates. 9. Compulsory military service for all able-bodied citizens. 10 Compulsory education. 11. Payment of such Senators and Deputics only as shall make an affidavit that their income is below twenty-five thousand francs. 12. Establishment of divorce, and simplifications of the marriage laws; men to be considered of age at twenty-one, instead of twenty-five, and free to marry at that age without sanction from parents. There were some three score more articles that followed the above, which were only the more prominent items of a programme that embraced reform and re-constitution, in all its branches, the recasting of the judicial system alone absorbing a couple of dozen paragraphs. Never had the members of the cabinet twirled their pens so disconsolately over their blotting-books. Why was this new Cochin-China minister always breaking out in fresh places after this fashion? Most rueful of all to behold, too, were the Republican ministers. If this programme were pushed to a division in the cabinet they could not well help supporting it; and this must lead to a trial of strength, after which one or other section of the cabinet must retire. And they were all so comfortable where they were, and the compromise system, that had been in force for a year, had worked so well; and there really was so little need for sensational programmes, or for reform in any shape! An icy silence followed the reading of the document, and the great personage sitting at the head of the table wiped his brow despairingly with his silk handkerchief. The count had not quite been able to understand the silence, but he understood the handkerchief; one has not been a man of the world all one's life for nothing. He rose with an agreeable, though very superficial smile, and said their Excellencies would have time to think about it. Then the council being over, he went out and drove to the House. But he knew that his days in the Cabinet were numbered, perhaps even his hours. If not sacrificed by the compromise proclivities of his colleagues, he would retire of his own free will; for what could he do in a cabinet where every effort of patriotism on his part was rebuffed? It must be noticed that the count, being a Frenchman, was little imbued with the parliamentary spirit, based on mutual concessions, and the strong pull, the long pull, and the pull altogether system. He was little able to perceive the ludicrous feature of a minister arriving with a constitution on foolscap, and demanding all his colleagues to swallow it entire, under pain of cabinet dismemberment. He did not stop to inquire what it would come to if every minister drew up a constitution, nor how far government would be possible, if each minister absolutely refused to consider office tenable unless all his schemes were submitted to by the rest. He entered the House, and made a very freezing answer, in fifty words, to the honorable member who wished to know about the Republican who had escaped from the hulks. Then, with his portfolio under his arm, he went to walk about the Galerie des Tombeaux, which acts as principal lobby. A minister inspires so much respect to the French mind that deputies uncovered themselves right and left as Count de Ris passed, and many pressed forward to give him news of the Count de Chambord, or of the Count de Paris, or of Chiselhurst, hoping that such might please him, and perhaps induce him to make a statement indicative of Mon * M. de Ris's idea in fixing seven years was probably this. That during a term of four years a President has scarcely the time to give full play to his abilities; besides which. Presidential elections in excitable countries should not be too frequent. Seven years is a term neither dangerously long nor inconveniently short. A French President howev er, should never be re-eligible, for re-e.ection in France would be the certain prelude to monarchy. archist tendencies. M. Gambetta, also, having somehow heard that he had got to loggerheads with his colleagues, came and shook his hand very cordially. But the count was not thinking of Chiselhurst, and he had but a moderate faith in M. Gambetta. He was looking for some man of sober sense, by conversation with whom he could refresh his excited mind. He stumbled across an English newspaper correspondent, who was skurrying along with a note-book in one hand, an umbrella in the other, and a field-glass at his side. He knew this gentleman, and stopped him. "If you wished to found a republic in England, monsieur," he asked, "how should you do it?" "We have a republic," smiled the correspondent: "every country where freedom exists with a respect for the law is a republic. The style of the person who nominally governs matters little." "Then, how do you define republicanism?" "It is indefinable," answered the Englishman; "but is practicable to those who hold to substance instead of shadow." The correspondent vanished, he and his field-glass; and the minister walked on until he came to the model of Bayard's tomb, where, scribbling notes in a book resting on the head of that warrior, stood a chroniqueur of the Cigare, M. Timoleon Tartine. It was M. Tartine who had written that the count's trousers were ill-cut. He would have escaped if possible; but the count had taken him unawares, so he brazened it out. "I know I have been attacking your Excellency," he laughed; "but I had a grudge against your tailor, an old enemy of mine." "You shouldn't attack those who are for freedom of the press, as I am; besides, trousers are not politics." 66 They are French politics," answered M. Tartine; "but," added he in huge disgust, "freedom of the press, who cares for that, M. le Comte? Every day of my life, and of a Sunday in church, when I go there, I pray for a press-law which may make of journalists something higher in the social scale than they are now. Some years ago, I held my head high; I had been twice imprisoned, and every line I wrote was gold. Now my editor tells me every day that he didn't quite like that last article of mine. And why? Is it that I write worse? Not I; but four years ago it was despotism; and as you dared not say much, every thing that you did dare say was listened to, even when it was bad grammar. Give me back despotism and Ste. Pélagie; that's the only enjoyable government for a chroniqueur." The minister laughed. "France and England: there we have them. It will perhaps be an up-hill work to rear an enlightened republic with such caryatides as M. Tartine." He had got so far in his soliloquy when a silver-chained usher touched him on the arm and handed a card," A lady desires to see your Excellency." The card was Mme. de Claire's, who wished for places in the strangers' gallery for herself and Miss Lucie. She was in her brougham in the courtyard, and had come very bravely dressed in the hope of hearing M. de Ris speak. So she said, smiling, whilst Mlle. Lucie held out her tiny gloved hand. He told them it was too late, for he had in all likelihood made his first and last speech as a minister. "And why? He explained briefly, and she listened with her large, liquid eyes so open that he could see himself in them. He felt a little ashamed of himself for having so poor an account to give of two months' power. "But it was not power," added he apologetically. "It has been like stiff ploughing on a hard land, which I now see is sterile. It is no good casting Republican seed there." "Oh, if only I had the chance!" she exclaimed, naïvely, and then checked herself, blushing. But the words were out, and he was not slow to profit by them. She did not ask, "Shared with whom? nor was her expression so discouraging that he felt it necessary to tell her. The Boulevard wits in Paris say that Madame la Comtesse de Ris will make an excellent Republican minister, when her husband takes office again; for, on the whole, he thought it better to resign for the present. Every time he took his seat at the council-board, his colleagues looked apprehensively at him, as if they feared he was going to draw a new constitution from his pocket, or, worse than all, suggest some new reforms. A MUSCULAR HYPOCHONDRIAC. WELL-MEANING moralists, and young curates, and, in fact, all persons addicted to the abuse of metaphorical language, are a little hard on feminine beauty. They can never touch on the vanity, brevity, and superficiality of things in general without pointing their dull platitudes by the most unfair allusions and comparisons to the fair sex No doubt the perfect bloom of "all those endearing young charms" is soon impaired; but beauty is not the only thing which culminates to decline. Other charms than those of beauty have a scarcely less ephemeral duration. The charms of muscle, for instance, the glory of the calf, That play of lungs inspiring, and again Respiring freely the fresh air, that makes Swift pace or steep ascent no toil, — all these are things which endure in their glory and perfection but for a season, a base sea-side season. Why, then, can we not have a little variety in our teacher's parables? Why not leave the epidermis of the fair, and have an occasional tilt at the muscle of the strong? Granted that our dear enslavers may be none the worse for an occasional reminder that their empire is limited-in time, for it is fleeting; and in space, for it is but skin deep. But, O Hercules do not our "barbarized athletes" need a word in season too? Possibly the ball-room belle sets too high a value on her charms, and is too deeply cast down by their decline; but not her emotions, when she feels she is a budding “wallflower," not the depression of the gentleman in Wordsworth," who daily travels further from the east," not the forlorn misery of the love-sick Guppy, can approach the pathetic desolation of the athlete, who feels that he is increasing in the wrong place. To feel that the days are at hand in which he shall no more emulate the baboon on the trapeze, or the flea on the vaulting bar; that he must soon abjure the rectangular delights of standing at ninety degrees to a chair; that he can no more hang on to a bar by his toes or the back of his neck; that, in short, he must soon abandon the high pedestal, from which he has hitherto contemned his less fortunate, because flabbier fellowcreatures, is to feel reduced to the level of a retired pugilist, whose example he may almost as well follow, and open a public-house. Henceforth, nothing can effectually assuage the melancholy of the ex-gladiator; but such transient gleams of sunshine as gild his blighted life are when he is judge or starter at some athletic meeting; but even then he feels that he is only a sort of male chaperon, and the reflection is full of bitterness. I do not thus borrow the language of the preacher because I have felt in my own case how bitter it is to retire into private life. Personally I am not muscular, nor ever was. I have always been able to pass a fifty-six pound weight without the slightest desire to push it up from the shoulder; I have always been perfectly continent in the matter of dumb-bells and Indian clubs. To scull from the barges to Sanford, with an occasional fantasia in a scratch four, was the extent of my powers and the summit of my ambition. I was rather thinking of- or at-my old college chum, Joe Rullock, with whom I was spending a few days a short time since. In our old Oxford days, Joe was to me a sort of self-appointed committee or keeper, considering it his mission to interpose his brawny person between me and all sorts of imaginary dangers; and so, in course of time, I came to play an academic Phil Squod to his Capt. George; I used to steer him to Iffley, to measure his throws with the hammer, or take his times when he ran at the Marston ground. In short, he loved me because he looked on me as so helpless and feeble, though I am not really feebler than Dr. Beddoe's average man, - and I loved him that he did pity me. I did, indeed, sometimes endeavor to protest against his mild and benevolent despotism, but he always calmly waived me off with, "Pooh! my dear fellow; leave it to me; you know you are not strong." What made my tame acquiescence in this bondage the more ridiculous was, that I was Joe's senior in years and standing. It was, therefore, but natural that, when I put on my gown, I should leave my protector behind me. But this natural course of events annoyed him greatly, and caused him as keen a pang as a hen who rears a duck feels when her protégée takes to the water. But I went my way, and left Joe in a halo of cricket, and long throws, and tremendous puts, living a life of incredible hardship on raw meat, but perfectly recompensed by his inches round the chest, and his generally lumpy and tuberous condition, and the unanimous commendations of the sporting-press. I Ten years elapse between the prologue and the next act. I had been serving my country in India, and Joe had retired to his comfortable patrimony, where he settled down into a model squire. From time to time reports reached me, through Bell's Life, of his prowess in cricket; and occasionally he favored me with a letter. But after a while, without any diminution of kindly feeling, our correspondence fell through, and the notices of my friend in the oracle became rarer and rarer. At the end of ten years, came home on leave for twelve months; and I lost no time in getting to Ashlins, where Joe gave me the warmest of welcomes. He had developed into a magnificent specimen of an Anglo-Saxon, deep in the chest, broad in the shoulders, firmly set on long, massive thighs, with a full yellow beard rippling over his honest, serious, sun-browned face. His figure, perhaps, was verging on the portly; but, as yet, he was safe from any curter epithet than portly. He wrung my hand with his old remorseless gripe, and patted me on the back with the old Oxford air of protection; so that I felt at home immediately on the old footing of the feeble dependant. I observed, too, at luncheon, that my friend's old prowess with the knife and fork still clung by him. Huge slices of beef crumbled beneath his molars, like corn in a mill; and quart pewters, the trophies of his legs and arms, streamed with bright ale. Afterwards, he smoked his venerable meerschaum, with that deliberate and grave enjoyment of which none but physically powerful men are capable. Luncheon over, a walk to the covers was proposed; and we were soon immersed in that discursive chat, dear to long-parted chums. Unfortunately for our quiet enjoyment, a five-barred gate threw its malignant shadow across our path. I need scarcely say that I had no more imagination apropos of a five-barred gate, than Peter Bell of a yellow primrose. And I have my private opinion that Joe also had, by this time, got into a way, when alone, of walking through gates, when possible, rather than vaulting over them. On the present occasion, however, the association of ideas, I suppose, was too strong for him; for he put his hand carelessly on the gate, and struck his knee heavily against the top bar. "Foot slipped," explained Joe; and again he went at the gate, with the same result as before. A shade of annoyance crossed his face, as if it were a humiliation to have to take a run at such a mere bagatelle as five feet six. He felt, however, that he had gone too far to recede with honor; so he took a run, and again succeeded in heavily banging his knee. The saddening conviction now began to dawn on poor Joe's mind, that he could not get over the gate at all. The truth was horrible, but irresistible; and the moan of the fallen athlete was as touching as Wolsey's lament to Cromwell. 66 Oh, hang it! Tom," he said, with a mournful shake of the head; "this is too sickening! This is the approach of the sere and yellow with a vengeance. I give you my word, I once got over six foot seven at Mac's. And now I have to sneak over five foot six like a girl in petticoats! No offence meant to you, you know, because you never were strong. But to slip through one's six ages into the slippered pantaloon by thirty-five! But it's all those confounded gymnastics." I "Confounded gymnastics;" and from those lips! could not believe my ears. No. The pope might deny his own infallibility, and Bass might advocate a Maine Liquor Law; but Joe Rullock, the mighty gymnasiarch, the hero of a hundred “grinds," * the unwearied haunter of the palæstra, could never give the lie to his whole past life, and deny his own gymnastics. "Come, Joe," I said, soothingly; "you're riled, old fellow. You must be chaffing about the gymnastics." "I tell you," he repeated, with solemn emphasis, "it's those cursed gymnastics. They bring you into an unnatural state of training and muscular development; and the consequence is, that you break down twice as early as other men. Look at me: at five and twenty I was a sort of Milo; at five and thirty I am a wreck." It was no use trying to argue Joe out of his position; besides, I had no wind to spare for talk, as it was all I could do to keep up with this poor wreck, striding along at five miles an hour. But, not being a wreck myself, I soon began to exhibit symptoms of distress at this rapid pace, whereon Joe graciously proposed that we should sit on a gate and chat. Being anxious to divert him, if possible, from the unhappy train of reflections in which he was evidently indulging, I started a hobby that I hoped he would deign to ride. "Made any long scores lately, Joe?" I inquired. "What at?" snapped Joe. "Why, cricket, of course.' "Cricket! Do you think a man can make a score with a pot like mine? No, sir; I'm too fleshy for that sort of fun; too fat, sir. Do you know that I weigh fourteen stone seven? And what have I to thank for it? Those infernal gymnastics. They put on great lumps of muscle at high pressure, which, directly you return to a natural, normal life, turn to fat." I tried to assure the poor fellow that his case, as yet, was by no means desperate that he was far from a Banting; but he would not be comforted. "I tell you, I ought to know best, Tom. It has been coming upon me some time now. I had long had some uneasy suspicions on the subject, but I was brought up sharp about two years ago. I was taking a team to play the opening match of the season with the Stalkshire Hedgehogs. Well, sir, when I came to put on my bags, I found I had precious hard work to draw them on; my thighs seemed to be in tights, and the buttons altogether refused to meet. At first, I thought they had shrunk in the wash; or possibly I had got a pair of my brother's, by mistake. But when I tried another pair, I found it was still the same; and then I realized the stern fact, that I was growing a pot. Since then, I have seldom played, except with our own fellows; and I shall give it up altogether next season." This failure of my best-meant efforts dismayed me excessively, for I saw that I had to deal with a perfect hypochondriac on the subject of muscular atrophy. He persisted in regarding himself as a shattered athlete, and was perpetually "facing the infernal facts," as he phrased it. The slightest thing set him off; he would go off on the very faintest scent. For instance, when his eldest boy, as fine a lad of eight years old as ever a man called son, was brought in after dinner, I stumbled on the unlucky remark, "that he was a perfect little athlete." Joe was down on me like a knife. "Don't talk like a fool, Tom. Do you want to vitiate the the poor little fellow's mind already? I once caught that boy playing with a dumb-bell, and I gave him a good licking for it. And if ever," he continued, sternly fixing the boy with his eye, "I catch Joe on the bars, or playing the tomfool in any such way, I'll skin him! Remember that, Joe; for I mean it. Gymnastics have caused your poor "Grinds," college slang for athletic sports. |