me half as much as the carriage for two hundred — I won't pay it." We feel our utter inability to describe the storm that here ensued-the indignation of Mr. Butler, the abuse of the porter. At length, when the tempest was at its height, Jonas laying his three right fingers on his left hand, exclaimed in a voice of deep determination-"Very well-very well; all I say is, this, fellow-all I say is this; I'll pay the imposition-pay it with pleasure, if—if you can show me the philosophy of it." The man stared as at a magician-growled an oath-took the proffered lesser sum, and left the house. Poor simple fellow he was brow-beaten by an unintelligible phrase for though a porter to a coach-office, he could not describe the philosophy of an imposition! But to the object of Mr. Butler's call on Adam.

To the old gentleman the world was one large easy chair, wherein he might eat his venison, drink his port, take his nap, or, when he pleased, philosophise in grateful equanimity. He had, however, one tender care-in the newly-breeched person of his nephew, Jacob Black; a boy whom he was determined to make a practical philosopher. "Ha!" he would say, as he looked down upon the nascent victim, "the statue is there, if we can but cut it out." And Adam Buff was chosen as the moral sculptor.

The sound of feet was just audible on the stair

case, and Mr. Butler turning in the passage, saw Buff stealing as softly down as though his landlady was sick, and he feared to disturb her. Buff was a heavy man, and yet he trod as upon the points of nails, and shrugged his shoulders, and vainly tried to compose his wrinkling features. So walks a saint who hath lost his outer cuticle.

Mr. Butler and Adam turned into the street. “A dreadful fire last night," said Mr. Butler.

Buff clapt his finger to the top button of his coat, lifted the collar a little about his neck, and answered -"very destructive, indeed."

Butler and Buff walked on. One moment, thoughtful reader. Behold the pair as they recede: could you not, even without our preface, divine from their habits, their separate bearing, the distinctive character of each? Look at Jonas Butler; a thickish, middle-sized person, in lustrous blackhis hat as smooth and jetty as a raven's wing—a line of cambric snow above his coat-his foot, taking the pavement as it were his own freehold-and, in every limb and gesture of the man, self-comfort, self-content. Now, look at Adam; though a full head higher than his patron, he does not look so tall-he does not walk, but touches the earth as if by sufferance; and there seems at work in his whole frame, an accommodating meanness to lessen himself to the dimensions of his companion. To walk

at his full height seems to him a presumption—he bends and limps out of pure courtesy; to make nothing of himself would be little more than to show a due respect to his associate. Never mind Buff's coat-that is a vulgar sign and type of misery-heed not his hat, that hath braved as many storms as a witch's sieve-shut your eyes to the half-sole of the left shoe-but look at the man, or men, and tell us, if ye do not look upon a prosperous patron who has lured a starveling from his garret by the savoury steam of a promised dinner. Is it so? Yes, sir, it is. Fie, reader! fie: it is a philosopher leading a philosopher!

Walk on, dling his hoop, now sometimes at thy side, sometimes before, sometimes behind thee; frown not on him-he is not what he seems. No; he is not a smutch-faced schoolboy, but fortune in disguisethe hoop is her dread wheel; and thou, henceforth, art her chosen leman.

Adam Buff! and for the urchin trun

"Sir, he has not a shirt to his back!" How

often does this avowal convey the dreariest picture of human destitution. All our sympathies are expected to be up and crying for the victim. A whole nunnery might have wept for Adam; yet was he in his dearest want, most rich. It is true, the conflagration of the preceding night had put our hero

to the coldest shift that poverty can lay on human flesh; and yet, like thrice-tried gold, he came forth pure and glittering from the fire!

CHAPTER II.

"HA! the fire!" exclaimed Mr. Butler, pausing and directing the attention of Adam to the smoking ruins. "Bless me! very extensive, indeed," and the two stood, and meditated, though with very different feelings, on the devastation. Mr. Butler eyed the scene with the tranquillity of a philosopher who had lost nothing by the calamity; glancing at the blackened walls and smouldering rafters with admirable self-possession. Adam, however, was made of weaker flesh; for there was visible emotion in his face, as he tried to make out the attic of his laundress from the fifty domestic nooks, now laid open to the profanation of the public eye.

"A fine property but yesterday, and now," said Mr. Butler, taking snuff, "a heap of ruins."

"Gone to tinder," cried Adam, brooding on his own peculiar loss.

"Yes it is hard, to have our household gods played upon-to see our home, filled with all home's

sweets, blazing like the pile that burns the phonix,”-observed Mr. Butler very profoundly. "To be stripped, perhaps, to the skin in this inclement season," and Butler looked on Buff, who shivered at the touching supposition. "And yet, Mr. Buff, what is nakedness, when we have philosophy?"

Adam was about to answer in, doubtless, a deeply feeling strain, when an alarm of a falling wall suddenly brought the crowd upon him. Mr. Butler had already taken to his heels, showing that philosophy can sometimes run like an ostrich-but Buff, either not possessing so much philosophy, or having greater bulk, was slower in his motion, and thus unluckily impeded the retreat of a gigantic drayman, who revenged himself of the impediment, by dealing out to Adam an impressive blow on the cheek. Many of the mob who saw the outrage, saw that the blood of Buff was up, for he turned round, looking death and instinctively clenching his fists. "A fight! A fight!" exclaimed the crowd in a burst of pleasure, and some providently called for "a ring." The drayman stood prepared-Mr. Butler, who had philosophically looked on, approached Adam; it was an eventful moment for Buff, who stood breathing heavily, and measuring the figure of his assailant. "Better strip, sir,” said a disinterested counsellor from the crowd-whilst

another, who had stuck his tobacco-pipe in his hat