legs under dee cross tings of dee chair, ven dee rascal pot-boy geev me such a tump on my back, calling 'cos clear;' so I am verry frighten; I jump up, but could not, my feet vere caught; so I tumble down veed dee cheer on dee top of me. Vell, dee boy, full of laugh, pull dee chair out of me. Ven I look at myself I found my knees out of my trowser, and I was all burst behind."

I laughed heartily; poor Hammers joined me.

"Well, did your friend find you in that state?"

"He found me in dee afternoon, ven I did not know vat for to do, for to go out for to geev a lesson; and ven he saw me, he shook me by dee hand, clap me on dee shoulder, and said he had been looking for me for tree year; dat I vould never vant for anyting-dat his old fiddling friend, who stuck to him in prison, vould never be forsaken. He call for a cab, put me in, drive me to a tailor, and you now see how I am." "When do you start with your friend?"

"To-morrow."

About two months afterwards Hammers called upon me. "What!" I said, 66 so soon back ?"

"Yes; and I shall stay back."

"Why?" What's the matter; has your friend offended you ?"

"Friend! he is no friend; he ees von great hypocrite; von grand rascaille."

"Stop, stop, Hammers. Let me hear what he has done; then you must be guided by me.

The friend wanted to use

though poor, was a

would melt him to

It was as I at first suspected. Hammers for his own purpose; and Hgiant in independence. A generous act tears a mean one would fire his soul with indignation; neither starvation nor any earthly fear could chain the tongue of the irritated musician."

"Never mind, Hammers; I suspected as much. Be only steady. I think I can get you a leadership at

VICTIM.

"Can you? But how did you suspect that rascaille?”

45

In giving me his history, you told me one act that he committed out of prison, and one he committed when there; and from these two acts I knew he was a bad man. Errors of the heart never lead a man to commit cold, calculating treachery."

I succeeded in installing Hammers at the head of a small band, where he received unqualified praise, and gave great satisfaction. This, however, was of short duration. One afternoon, he met one of his old public-house acquaintances, and Hammers allowed himself to be persuaded to call upon the landlord of

who was an amateur violinist. Hammers, amid hearty welcomes, was led into the parlour, a large glass of grog was placed before him, and a fiddle was put into his hand. Hammers played, the company cheered; the company sang and Hammers accompanied each song, to the delight of the singer. Time was up; but Hammers was in his glory. He remained, and consequently lost his situation.

Hammers returned to his old ways, and continued in them, till disease attacked him; then he was an object of pity; a walking shadow- a miserable wreck of man! Past teaching and past fiddling, with a soul too proud to beg, his position was deplorable; but Providence kindly interceded, and through the influence of the late Prince Consort, Hammers was admitted an indoor patient of the Brompton Hospital, where in the chapel his soul found vent in the strains which he poured forth on the organ, till death stepped in, and closed the career of a man that might have been a useful and an ornamental member of society! Alas! Poor Hammers! He indulged in folly; and deeply did he drink of the cup of bitterness?

Poor Hammers! though dead, he yet lives in my memory; though forgotten in the concert-room, my thoughts often revert to him and to the days gone by, when the airs are played which he first moulded into harmony.

Again, I repeat, be careful in the selection of your companions. The fall of poor Hammers may be traced to his confidence in the pretended benevolence of a man, who was generous when he was poor; who was lavish to a lordly degree, because duped creditors had to pay the bills of fare; to his confidence in a man who, when poor, used him for his own purposes, and when rich, tried to do the same: but Hammers found that the ways of the rich man were different from those of the poor one; and, when too late, discovered the nature of the man who had lured him from the path of honour and integrity.

The other man that frequented that hotel-the murderer Courvoisier was the wretch who cut the throat of his kind, indulgent master, Lord William Russell.

A strange fact, my son, attended this dreadful murder,—a fact which will show you that crime discharges its shafts not only at the intended victim, but spreads misery in the homes of families the most remote.

Did the crime of Courvoisier end in the murder? No. It rendered a man an idiot, a wife husbandless, and a child fatherless. It did more-it reduced a family to poverty, to which the father fell a victim, and caused his wife, after a vain struggle to earn a livelihood in London, to leave her native land for America, where she hoped to gain a sustenance for herself and her fatherless offspring.

"You ask, how was that?"

Courvoisier had so artfully effected the murder and robbery, that his counsel declared him, before his God, innocent, and acquittal would have been the result; but Madame Piolaine, at the eleventh hour, stepped forward, and pointed out the man who had left a parcel containing the plate of the murdered nobleman. At her look Courvoisier trembled. That look cost him his life. How much did it cost the poor woman? That look rendered her homeless, shook the reason of her husband,

who ended his days in a madhouse, and left her penniless, a widow and a mother, in, to her, a cold world.

Thou startest, my boy, and any other reader may start; but though strange, the fact is not less true.

The hotel of M. Piolaine was supported by foreigners; and, because the inhuman murderer happened to be a foreigner, they shunned his house, and his interested neighbours alleged that Piolaine had brought one of their countrymen to the gallows —that he had sold his countryman for a promised reward. Piolaine denied having given up the parcel with a mercenary view; he maintained that the foul deed was so monstrous that, had Courvoisier been his own brother, he would have felt himself bound to bring him to justice.

This would not do; his house was marked, and the finger of scorn was pointed at him. For a period he struggled on, thinking that time would bring about a change—but no. He became a bankrupt: fled to Boulogne, where he became a touter, and soon afterwards ended his days in a madhouse.

His industrious wife, who was an Englishwoman, returned to London with her orphan boy, opened a shop, which did not answer, and at last left for America, in the hope of earning a livelihood there.

I met a third man at that hotel. Who could have foretold the coming greatness of that man? It was he who invited my little tailor (Merlet) and my quasi-English pupil and fencing master (Guillaume Léon), with others, to a trip on board the Eagle, and when on board declared his intention of taking Boulogne. For that act he was called a fool, but Napoleon never was a fool; he was as wise and sagacious as a private gentleman as he has proved himself to be as Emperor of the French.

66

'Well, Merlet," I said to my little tailor, on his return, "how did Napoleon act when he found that he was deceived,

CHAPTER VII.

PARIS-BOYHOOD'S HOME-DEBUT AS AN EDITOR-POOR JANET A MOTHER'S DEATH-THE OLD DUKE-A DIVIDED HOUSE.

IME rolls on! I had, with the view of increasing my knowledge of French and of the French people, determined on a trip to Paris. Gal. gave me leave of absence, and bright was that morn and light was my heart when I leapt on board the packet-boat

destined to convey me to the Gallic shores. There was a strange medley on board; a variety of character, and some of it not of the most reputable kind. A rich young lord, with whom were members of the Prizering; those pugilistic monstrosities that continue to blur the face of social morals in England. One was flying from his country, having, what the Ring called it, "pinked his man.” Brutalised by the long habit of attaching honour to a profession which is in itself a disgrace, these men committed several unbecoming acts-forcing passengers to drink champagne; and one of them threw a glassful in the face of a respectable old man who refused to drink. I called out "Shame!" and appealed to the nobleman to "assume the gentleman, and use his influence. He did so. One of these men-brutes was evidently bent on making a victim, and had fixed his eyes on a respectable-looking person in green spectacles. I defeated the intention, and to his mortification and displeasure, I took the young man with me to a respectable hotel, when he kindly thanked me for my interference, as he acknowledged himself that, for want of moral courage, he certainly would have accompanied the young lord and his brutalised companions.