a large family, for whom she exerted all her energies to procure desirable godpapas and mammas; and, no sooner did she hear of this newcomer, than she longed to appropriate him for godpapa to their youngest son.

‘Jog, my dear,’ said she, to her spouse, as they sat at tea; ‘it would be well to look after him.’

‘What for, my dear?’ asked Jog, who was staring a stick, with a half-finished head of Lord Brougham fora handle, out of countenance.

‘What for, Jog? Why, can’t you guess?’

‘No,’ replied Jog, doggedly.

‘No!’ ejaculated his spouse. ‘Why, Jog, you certainly are the stupidest man in existence.’

‘Not necessarily!’ replied Jog, with a jerk of his head and a puff into his shirt-frill that set it all in a flutter.

‘Not necessarily!’ replied Mrs Jogglebury, who was what they call a ‘spirited woman,’ in the same rising tone as before. ‘Not necessarily! but I say necessarily -- yes, necessarily. Do you hear me, Mr Jogglebury?’

‘I hear you,’ replied Jogglebury, scornfully, with another jerk, and another puff into the frill.

The two then sat silent for some minutes, Jogglebury still contemplating the progressing head of Lord Brougham, and recalling the eye and features that some five-and-twenty years before had nearly withered him in a breach of promise action, ‘Smiler v. Jogglebury,’¹ that being our friend’s name before his uncle Crowdey left him his property.

Mrs Jogglebury having an object in view, and knowing that, though Jogglebury might lead, he would not drive, availed herself of the lull to trim her sail, to try and catch him on the other tack.

‘Well, Mr Jogglebury Crowdey,’ said she, in a passive tone of regret, ‘I certainly thought, however indifferent you might be to me’ (and here she applied her handkerchief -- rather a coarse one -- to her eyes) ‘that still you had some regard for the interests of your (sob) children;’ and here the waterfalls of her beadey black eyes went off in a gush.

‘Well, my dear,’ replied Jogglebury, softened, ‘I’m (puff) sure I’m (wheeze) anxious for my (puff) children. You don’t s’pose if I wasn’t (puff), I’d (wheeze) labour as I (puff -- wheeze) do to leave them fortins?’ -- alluding to his exertions in the gibbey-stick line.

‘Oh, Jog, I dare say you’re very good, and very industrious,’ sobbed Mrs Jogglebury, ‘but I sometimes (sob) think that you might apply your (sob) energies to a better (sob) purpose.’

‘Indeed, my dear (puff), I don’t see that (wheeze),’ replied Jogglebury, mildly.

‘Why, now, if you were to try and get this rich Mr Sponge for a godpapa for Gustavus James,’ continued she, drying her eyes as she came to the point, ‘that, I should say, would be worthy of you.’

‘But, my (puff) dear,’ replied Jogglebury, ‘I don’t know Mr (wheeze) Sponge, to begin with.’

‘That’s nothing,’ replied Mrs Jogglebury; ‘he’s a stranger, and you should call upon him.’

Mr Jogglebury sat silent, still staring at Lord Brougham, thinking how he pitched into him, and how sick he was when the jury, without retiring from the box, gave five hundred pounds damages against him.

‘He’s a fox-hunter, too,’ continued his wife; ‘and you ought, to be civil to him.’