might himself be the thief. The agent had a fair reputation, and was supposed to be in good circumstances. I therefore, without more hesitation, brought the action. My client left town, and proceedings went on in the usual course, till the sittings approached. I then thought it high time to take instructions for my brief, and subpoena John. It was also necessary to prove the safe carriage of the parcel till its delivery; and to collect this evidence, I put myself into the mail, and proceeded to my client's residence in the country. I obtained all the evidence I wanted in the course of two or three days, but he must needs have a party to meet me at dinner the day before I left him. It consisted of five or six of the neighboring gentry and their families, and the splendor of the sideboard on which his plate was now set out for the first time since its return from the jeweler, naturally led the conversation to the approaching trial. Many and bitter were the comments made on the assurance of the agent in carrying matters to such extremes; and many and cordial were the good wishes for a safe deliverance to the host.

"Ay, ay," said Mr. Hubblebubble, joining

in the chorus, "I'll get some satisfaction for my kick now, or the devil's in it. What costs will he have to pay? eh! Sharpe ?"

"The costs on both sides, I should think, will be near two hundred, taking in the five witnesses I sent up to-day."

"Two hundred! is that all? well! 'tis some comfort to make him pay two hundred pounds for smart money; mind you lay it on thick, Sharpe: don't spare the fellow."

Here John, who had just entered the room with a bottle or two of very choice claret, in which his master wished to drink to our success, came close to his elbow, with the look of a famished pointer caught in the larder, holding the silver-mounted claret jug in his hand, and whispered into his ear in a semi-audible tone, "Master! Master! can I speak to you, Master?"

Speak out, fool! what's the matter? is the cellar robbed?"

"The bonds, master!-the action-the claret -the bonds-" hesitating between each word as if it choked him, and apparently as much afraid to finish his explanation, as the said pointer to finish his meal in the face of the angry cook,

"What do you stand jabbering there for, like a crow in the colic? speak out, Sir!"

"I've brought the claret, Sir, 'tis the right sort, Sir, I'm sure, as sure as I packed the plate chest, master! but the bonds,-the bonds, Sir, -the claret jug,—”

He obviously dared not proceed, and gaped open-mouthed at his master, who returned the gape with interest, having some undefined presentiment of evil, but too tipsy to arrange his ideas: I guessed the solution, and came to their common assistance.

"I suppose you removed the false bottom of the plate chest in getting out the jug, and there found the bonds?"

"Exactly so, Sir. Miss Letitia thought they would be safer there than in the parcel, and put them in while I was in the kitchen!"

Hubblebubble was sobered in an instant, though one universal titter, more painful even than the kick, pervaded the room: it was too much for mortal patience; he pushed back his chair-put down the untasted claret-and alternately staring first at John, and then at me, slowly and painfully drawled out the question,

"Two hundred pounds, did you say, Mr. Sharpe? two hundred pounds for costs?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Then why the devil didn't you think of this before, Sir?"

But the laugh was too hearty, and too well merited, to allow ill-humor to remain. Before the claret was finished, the kick was acknowledged to be deserved, and the action was settled by that night's post.

It would have required more than ordinary acuteness to have escaped this catastrophe, and I cannot to this day confess to error on my part, but this was not a common case. I will mention one of more frequent occurrence.

Every Cantab, however steady his career, and I must acknowledge that mine was not remarkable for sobriety, is sure of falling in with some wild acquaintance, who in after years stands in great need of assistance in one way or other. It is an easy transition from academic "gaiety" to metropolitan dissipation; and the dissipation of young men "on the town," has gradual, but certain stages from difficulty to shifts, from shifts to gaming,from gaming to the depths of ruin. One of

these unhappy wretches called on me in the stage of shifts; his brother had remitted him three hundred pounds from India, by a good bill on merchants in the city. The spendthrift took the bill to his agent to be discounted; the agent declined discounting it, but retained the bill till it arrived at maturity, and received the money. My client applied for it, and was refused; he came to me with this story, but he told me nothing else; it was "a clear case." I demanded payment by letter, and obtained no answer. I called on the agent half-a-dozen times, but he was never at home. I arrested the man, but he put in bail, and defended the action; his attorney was not less cautious than himself. I could get no information—no clue to the intended defense; the days of special pleading had not yet burst upon us in all their glory, and the plea left me as ignorant of the case as I was before. I catechized my client with determined scrutiny.

"What did he say to you when you gave him the bill ?"

"He would see about it."

"Were you alone?"

"Scamperdale was with me."