of land as well as the poor innocent emigrants, and be obliged to settle

in foreign parts?"

Ah! why, indeed, Miss-except

"Except what, sir ?"

Why, that Embezzlers and Swindlers, by all accounts, are such very bad Settlers.

But Mr. Pryme?

CHAP. V.

That little bald, florid, fidgety personage was still sitting on his high stool at his desk, snuffing, coughing, winking, and pretending to examine a topsyturvy account-book-sometimes, by way of variation, hashing up a new pen, or drumming a fresh march with his fingers

Mr. Grimble was making some private calculations, which had reference to his future income-tax on a slip of office-paper

Mr. Trent was dreaming over an imaginary trial, in which he was a witness, at the Old Bailey

And Mr. Phipps was fretting over the predestined capture of the infatuated Cashier-when all at once there was a noise that startled the clerkly trio from their seats.

The nervous Mr. Pryme, by one of his involuntary motions, had upset his leaden inkstand-in trying to save the inkstand he knocked down his ruler in catching at the ruler he had let fall the great journal —and in scrambling after the journal he had overturned his high stool. The clatter was prodigious, and acting on a nature already overwrought sufficed to discompose the last atom of its equanimity.

For a moment the bewildered author of the work stood and trembled as if shot-then snatching his hat, and clapping it "skow-wow anyhow," on his head, rushed desperately out of the office.

"Thank God!" ejaculated Mr. Phipps, drawing a long breath, like a swimmer after a dive.

"I say, Grimble," exclaimed the Junior Clerk- it's a true bill!"

But Mr. Grimble was already outside the door, and, running down the stone-stairs into the hall, seized on the first office-messenger that offered.

"Here-Warren!-quick!-Run after Mr. Pryme-don't let him out of your sight-but watch where he goes to-and let me know."

CHAP. VI.

Now according to the practice of the regular drama, which professes to represent the greater stage of the world, whenever a robber, murderer, or traitor has escaped, it is a rule for the theatrical policemen, constables, runners, guards, alguazils, sbirri, or gendarmes, to assemble and agree to act in concert-that is to say, by singing in chorus that the villain has bolted, and musically exhorting each other to "follow, follow, fol-de-rol-de-rol-O!" without a moment's delay. An arrangement perhaps very conducive to dramatic convenience and stage effect,

but certainly quite inconsistent with the usages of real life or the dictates of common or uncommon sense.

Messrs. Grimble, Phipps, and Trent, however, were not theatrical, so instead of joining in a trio or a catch, they first held a consultation, and then proceeded in a body to the Secretary, to whom they described the singular behaviour of Mr. Pryme.

"Very singular, indeed, said the Secretary. I observed it myself, and inquired if he was in good health. No-yes-no. And Mrs. Pryme? Yes-no-yes. In short, he did not seem to know what he was saying."

"Or doing," put in Mr. Trent. "He threw a shovel of coals into the iron safe."

"With other acts," added Mr. Grimble, "the reverse of official." "Tell him at once," whispered Mr. Trent.

"In short, sir," said Mr. Grimble, with a most sepulchral tone, and the face of an undertaker, "I am sorry, deeply sorry and concerned to say, that Mr. Pryme has suddenly departed."

"Indeed! But he was just the sort of man to do it."

The three clerks stared at each other, for they had all thought exactly the reverse of the little, bald, florid, ex-cashier.

"Short-necked, sanguine, and of a full habit, you know," continued the Secretary. "Poor fellow!"

"I am sorry, deeply sorry and concerned to say," repeated Mr. Grimble, "that I mean he has absconded."

"The devil he has !" exclaimed the Secretary, at once jumping to his feet, and instinctively buttoning up his pockets-" but no-it's impossible!" and he looked towards Trent and Phipps for confirmation.

"It's a true bill, sir," said the first, "he has bolted sure enough." The other only shook his head. "It's incredible!" said the Secretary. quaker, and as correct as clock-work! spected his books?"

"I have, sir."

"Well, sir?"

66

"Why, he was as steady as a Mr. Grimble, have you in

"At present, sir, all appears correct. But as the accounts are kept in this office it is easier to embezzle than to detect any defalcation." Humph! I do not think we are worse in that respect than other public offices! Then, if I understand you, there is no distinct evidence of fraud?"

"None whatever, sir," replied Mr. Phipps.

"Except his absconding," added Mr. Grimble.

"Well, gentlemen, we will wait till ten o'clock to-morrow morning, and then if Mr. Pryme does not make his appearance we shall know how to act."

The three clerks made three bows and retired, severally pleased, displeased, and indifferent at the result of their audience.

"We may wait for him," grumbled Mr. Grimble, "till ten o'clock on doomsday."

At this moment the door reopened, and the Secretary put out his head.

"Gentlemen, I need not recommend you to confine this matter, for the present, to your own bosoms!"

But the caution was in vain. Warren, the messenger, had given a hint of the affair to a porter, who had told it to another, and another, and another, till the secret was as well buzzed and blown as if it had been confided to a swarm of blue-bottles. In fact, the flight of Mr. Pryme was known throughout the several offices, where, according to English custom, the event became a subject for betting, and a considerable sum was laid out at 6 to 4, and afterwards at 7 to 2, against the reappearance of the cashier.

CHAP. VII.

"Well, Warren ?"

"Well, Mr. Grimble, sir?"

The three clerks on returning to their office, had found the messenger at the door, and took him with them into the room.

"Well, I followed up Mr. Pryme, sir, and the first thing he did were to hail a cab."

"And where did he drive to?"

"To nowheres at all-coz why, afore the cab could pull round, off the stand, away he goes-that's Mr. Pryme-walking at the rate of five miles an hour, more or less, so as not easy to be kep up with, straight home to his own house, number 9, where instid of double knocking at the door, he ring'd to be let in at the hairy bell.

"Very odd!" remarked Mr. Grimble.

"Well, he staid in the house a goodish while-as long as it might take him, like, to collect his porterble property and vallybles-when all at once out he comes, like a man with his head turned, and his hat stuck on hind part afore, for you know he'd wore it up at the back like a curricle one."

"A clerical one-go on."

"Why then, away he cuts down the street, as hard as he can split without busting, and me arter him, but being stiffish with the rheumatiz, whereby I soon found I was getting nowheres at all in the race, and in consekence pulled up."

"And which way did he run?"

66

46

Why then, he seemed to me to be a-making for the bridge."
Ah, to get on board a steamer," said Mr. Grimble.

"Or into the river," suggested Mr. Trent.

Mr. Phipps groaned and wrung his hands.

"You're right, you are, Mr. Trent, sir," said the Messenger with a determined nod and wink at the junior clerk.

"There was a gemman throwed himself over last Friday, and they did say it was becos he had made away with ten thousand Long Annuitants."

"The poor, wretched, misguided creature !"

"Yes he did, Mr. Phipps, sir-right over the senter barch?

what's wus, not leaving a rap behind him except his widder and five small little children, and the youngest on em's a suckin babby."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Phipps, "that Mr. Pryme is not a family man."

POOR Mr. Phipps!

CHAP. VIII.

As soon as the office was closed he walked home to his lodgings in Westminster, but at a slower pace than usual, and with a heavy heart, for his mind was full of sorrow and misgiving at the too probable fate of the unfortunate Defaulter. The figure of Mr. Pryme followed him wherever he went: it seemed to glance over his shoulder in the looking-glass; and when he went to wash his hands, the pale drowned face of the cashier shone up through the water, instead of the pattern at the bottom of the basin.

For the first time since his clerkship he could not enjoy that favourite meal, his tea. The black bitterness in his thoughts overpowered the flavour of the green-leaf-it turned the milk, and neutralized the sugar on his palate. He took but one bite out of his crumpet, and then resigned it to the cat. Supper was out of the question. His mental agitation, acting on the nerves of the stomach, had brought on a sick headach, which indisposed him to any kind of food. In the meanwhile for the first strange time he became intensely sensible that he was a bachelor, and uncomfortably conscious of his loneliness in the world. The company of a second person, another face, only to look at, would have been an infinite relief to him-by diverting his attention from the one dreadful thought and the one horrible image, that do what he would, kept rising up before him-sometimes like a shadow on the wall, sometimes like a miniature figure amid the intricate veins of the marble mantelpiece-and anon in the chiaro-oscuro of the fire. To get rid of these haunting illusions, he caught up a book which happened to be the second volume of "Lamb's Letters," and stumbled on the following ominous passage:

"Who that standeth, knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands, as yet, I am most willing to believe, have never deviated into other's property. You think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence; but so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at last have expatiated as he hath done."

The words read like a fatal prophecy! He dropt the book in horror, and falling on his knees with tearful eyes and uplifted hands, besought Providence, if it saw fit, to afflict him with the utmost miseries of sickness and poverty, but to save him-even by stroke of sudden death to save him from ever becoming a Defaulter!

This devotional act restored him in some degree to tranquillity; but with night and sleep all his horrors returned. The face of Mr. Pryme, no longer florid, but pale as a plaster-cast, was continually confronting him, now staring at him through transparent waters, and now between massive iron bars. Then the dismal portrait would abruptly change to a full-length, which was as suddenly surrounded by a cluster of children, boys and girls of different ages, including one or two infants, -a family he understood, by the intuition of dreams, to be illegitimate, and that they were solemnly consigned by the Suicide to his care and maintenance. Anon the white figure vanished, and a black one appeared in its place, a female, with the very outline, as if cut in paper, of the widowed Mrs. Pryme, and whom by some mysterious but imperative

obligation he felt that he must espouse. The next moment this phantom was swept away by a mighty rush of black waters, like those in Martin's grand picture of the Deluge, and on or beneath the dark flood again floated the pale effigy of the Suicide entire and apparently struggling for dear life, and sometimes shattered he knew not how, and drifting about in passive fragments. Then came a fresh rush of black waters, gradually shaping itself into an immense whirlpool, with the white corpse-like figure, but magnified to a colossal size, rapidly whirling in the centre of the vortex, whilst obscure forms, black and white, of children, females, savages, and, alas! not a few gigantic Demon shapes, revolved more slowly around it.

In short, the poor fellow never passed so wretched a night since he was born!

CHAP. IX.

"AND did Mr. Pryme really drown himself?"

My dear Felicia, if Female Curiosity had always access, as you have, to an author's sanctorum,-if she could stand or sit, as you can, at his elbow whilst composing his romances of real or unreal life,-if she might ask, as you do, at the beginning or in the middle of the plot, what is to be its dénouement

"Well, sir, what then?"

Why, then, Messieurs Colburn, Saunders and Otley, Bull, Churton, and Newby-not forgetting A. K. Newman-might retire for good to their country boxes at Ponder's End, Leatherhead, and Balaam Hill, for there would be no more novels in three volumes. Nay, the authors themselves, serious and comic, both or neither, might retreat for ever into the Literary Almshouses, if there are any such places-for there would be no more articles of sixteen pages-and "to be continued"— in the magazines. All would be over with us, as with the Bourbons, could Female Curiosity thus foresee, as Talleyrand said," Le commencement de la fin!"

"Well, but-if your story as you say is 'an owre true tale,' then Mr. Pryme must have been a real man—an actual living human being -and it is positive cruelty to keep one in suspense about his fate!"

Dearest!-the tale is undoubtedly true, and there was such a personage as Mr. Pryme

"Was! Why then he did embezzle the money, and he did throw himself off Westminster Bridge? But had he really an illegitimate family? And did Mr. Phipps actually marry the widow according to his dream?"

Patience!-and you shall hear.

CHAP. X.

THE morrow came, and the Hour-but not the Man.

Messrs. Grimble, Phipps, and Trent were assembled round the officefire-poor Phipps looking as white as a sheet, for ten o'clock had struck, and there was no Mr. Pryme.

At five minutes past ten the Secretary came in from his own room