speech, and he at once broke into the waiter's subterranean soliloquy with an ecstatic fragment from the poem he had been just composing:

`What though the world be cross and crooky?
Of Life's fair flowers the fairest bouquet
I plucked, when I chose thee, my Sukie!

`Say, could'st thou grasp at nothing greater
Than to be wedded to a waiter?
And did'st thou deem thy Schmitz a traitor?

`Nay! the fond waiter, was rejected,
And thou, alone, with flower- bedecked head,
Sitting, did'st sing of one expected.

`And while the waiter, crazed and silly,
Dreamed he had won that precious lily,
At length he came, thy wished-for Willie.

`And then thy music took a new key,
For whether Schmitz be boor or duke, he
Is all in all to faithful Sukie!'

He paused for a reply, but a heavy snoring from beneath the table was the only one he got.

BATHED in the radiance of the newly-risen Sun, the billows are surging and bristling below the Cliff, along which the Poet is thoughtfully wending his way. It may possibly surprise the reader that he should not ere this have obtained an interview with his beloved Sukie: he may ask the reason: he will ask in vain: to record with rigid accuracy the progress of events is the sole duty of the historian: were he to go beyond that, and attempt to dive into the hidden causes of things, the why and the wherefore, he would be trespassing on the province of the metaphysician.

Presently the Poet reached a small rising ground at the end of the gravel walk, where he found a seat commanding a view of the sea, and here he sunk down wearily.

For a while he gazed dreamily upon the expanse of ocean, then, struck by a sudden thought, he opened a small pocket book, and proceeded to correct and complete his last poem. Slowly to himself he muttered the words `death -- saith -- breath', impatiently tapping the ground with his foot. `Ah, that'll do,' he said at last, with an air of relief, `breath':

`His barque had perished in the storm,
   Whirled by its fiery breath
On sunken rocks, his stalwart form
   Was doomed to watery death.'

`That last line's good,' he continued exaltingly, `and on Coleridge's principle of alliteration, too -- W. D., W. D. -- was doomed to watery death.'

`Take care,' growled a deep voice in his ear, `what you say will be used in evidence against you -- now it's no use trying that, we've got you tight,' this last remark being caused by the struggles of the Poet, naturally indignant at being unexpectedly collared by two men from behind.

`He's confessed to it, constable? you heard him?' said the first speaker (who rejoiced in the euphonious title of Muggle, and whom it is almost superfluous to introduce to the reader as the elder traveler of Chapter One!) `it's as much as his life is worth.'

`I say, stow that --' warmly responded the other; `seems to me the gen'leman was a spouting potry.'

`What -- what's the matter?' here gasped our unfortunate hero, who had recovered his breath; `you -- Muggle -- what do you mean by it?'

`Mean by it!' blustered his quondam friend, `what do you mean by it, if it comes to that? You're an assassin, that's what you are! Where's the waiter you had with you last night? answer me that!'

`The -- the waiter?' slowly repeated the Poet, still stunned by the suddenness of his capture, `why, he's dr -- '