for Saturday, as proposed to him the previous day.

Uncle Van knew Mr. Comberwood as a solicitor often employed by certain shipping firms, and was pretty sure about his going down to Ringhurst every Saturday afternoon. To his care he promised to confide me. Indeed he had been, he said, commissioned by Mr. Comberwood to help him on this occasion in the theatricals.

"Are you going to act?" asked my father.

"No, no; he-he-he," answered Uncle Van, spanning his spectacles, and fitting them into his eyes with his finger and thumb. "No, I can not acts"-he sometimes varied his broken English with plural terminations-" and I am not as-ked. I should not go-hehe-he-if I was as-ked-he-he-he," here he chuckled and spluttered"because Eliza toes tink all wrong such tings, and she woult not 'ave accept te invitation."

"She never goes to any public amusement, does she?" asked my father.

"No. Ven I goes I goes alone," said Uncle Van, making a noise in his throat resembling a weak watch-spring gone suddenly wrong. This sound was expressive of his intense delight.

"I think the Comberwoods know Herbert," observed my father, meaning Herbert Pritchard.

"I tink zo. P'raps he goes town tese time, but I ton't know. I vill ask Combervoots; I shall zee 'im tomorrow. Cecil, you comes to me on Saturtay morning, and we go to te zity togeters-kee-kee-kee."

Kee-kee-kee is the only way I can invent to represent the peculiar watchspring chuckle in Uncle Van's throat.

If he could have made my father's trust an excuse for staying away from home all Saturday, I know he would gladly have availed himself of the opportunity.

Saturday was to Uncle Van worse than Sunday. Sunday was a decided day. It was one thing: and Monday and all the other days up to Saturday were another. But Saturday was neither

one nor the other, with the disadvantages of both.

It had not always been so. He had not been brought up to it: on the contrary, he had been gradually brought down to it by the power in his house, against which revolt was impossible, because so evidently impolitic. As

a boy-that is, as a Dutch boy-he had been accustomed to take religious duties in as easy a way as his father, with his long, big-bowled pipe, had done before him. They worshipped with their hats on, in a frigid manner, and sat in a plain, undecorated building, fitted up apparently with loose boxes, or, more devoutly speaking, sheep-pens for the fold. In Dutch devotion there was no outward show, and not much inward fervour. When he had married Miss Colvin she had been moderately Evangelical to begin with, and ultraEvangelical to go on with. She considered, that, however clear-headed her husband might be on business, "out of it he has," she said, no more mind than a jelly-fish." Now a jelly-fish is not remarkable for intellect. She constituted herself his director, but not his confessor. There is a marked distinction between the two. A director may advise and shape a course: but a confessor must have a penitent, or his office is a sinecure.

Uncle Van was willing to abide by her directions as long as he was allowed to remain in peace and quietness, which meant as long as he had a good dinner at a reasonable hour, and was not interrupted in his doze, and his pipe, after it. Mrs. Clym had long ago conceded the pipe. After all, it was not a point of doctrine but of practice, and might perhaps be gradually given up. It led to no excesses, as Van, though of a generally fishy nature, was not troubled with thirst. So he was permitted to smoke-dry himself like one of his own country's herrings, and he was happy.

But Mrs. Clym was a reformer, and she was bent upon reforming her household's Saturday. She determined to commence Sunday on Saturday, as the

Jews begin their Sabbath on Friday at sunset.

"But te Jews," said Uncle Van, "leave off teir Sabbat on Saturtay, and at zunzet-he-he-he-and she ton't. Bezite, vat 'ave her relishion to toes viz my tinner?"

He complained to his friends, not to her.

Aunt Van had commenced her reforms. She had abolished Saturday dining—or rather, dining late on Saturdays.

There was, to her mind, something more devotional in tea than in dinner. There was an unction of solace to the spiritually-minded in buttered toast; and an incentive to heroic virtue in hot tea. Late dinner was of the world, worldly. Tea was, somehow, more congenial to piety. It never occurred to her that the only thing celestial about tea was the heathen empire whence it came. Mrs. Clym never admitted into her presence anything in the shape of a joke. Uncle Clym kept such as he knew to himself. He pronounced jokes "jox," with a short vowel.

Before dinner he would say, "I vill tell you some goot jox when my vife's gone to te trawn-room."

When he did tell them, they were very mild always such funny harmless things as one oyster might tell another, and slobber over afterwards. But on Saturday nights there would be, henceforth, no more guests, and no chance for his "jox."

"I cannot come 'ome to colt meats ant tea," exclaimed poor Uncle Van, in my father's presence.

Sir John wouldn't interfere between man and wife.

At the first of these reform dinners Mr. Clym very nearly burst into tears. He meditated a peaceful solution, with his pipe in his mouth. He slept on the subject, but could make nothing of it. The servants, he was told, found it so convenient, the children liked it; his wife, of course, did. He represented the government in a minority. He appealed to the country; the country couldn't help him. There was only one thing

to be done not to take the goods the gods had provided. He would stay away on Saturdays, and dine elsewhere. But then, how to explain this absence from home? Would Madame believe that he merely stayed away to dine?

Suppose he obtained permission first? An honest idea, and worthy of a wellregulated husband. But how?

To get round Mrs. Clym was a hazardous proceeding. She was SO angular, and perpendicular, and she offered so small a chance of a footing, that the first pointed prejudice, sticking out abruptly, would knock you back into the water.

I do not believe in Hannibal's receipt for getting through an obstacle. Sweet oil sounds more like the thing than vinegar.

Clym thought of emollients. With other wives diamonds are the best diplomatists. Mrs. Clym was not to be bought: that is, at that price.

Uncle Van would have, hopelessly and helplessly, gradually settled down to like it, as untravelled Englishmen, abroad for the first time, pretend a pleasure in becoming accustomed to the greasiest foreign cookery, had it not been for a friend, who showed him that to succumb was to eat the lotos and be lost.

This friend's name was Pipkison. I cannot pass him over with bare mention of his name. Pipkison was one of the most popular men in London.

He was a Worshipful Brother, with a company of letters after his surname in single file; he was a Fellow with nine letters of the alphabet, every one of them pregnant with meaning. He was a Merry Shepherd, an Ancient Druid, a Redoubtable Buffalo, a Knight of something or other, a Mystic of the Rosicrucian Order, and a number of numerous other social, fraternal, and professedly levelling-up societies, whose bond of union is common subscription for a dinner, whose acolytes are publicans, and whose stoutest supporters are husbands, ready to welcome a solemn excuse for dining out periodically. Their charity begins in conviviality, and is co-extensive with it. Their hymn is "And so say all of us."

Their aim, dignified by high-sounding titles, and disguised under cloaks of moralities and mysteries, is to establish jolly-good-fellowship, among Brothers of the Bottle, all the world over.

But apart from being all these worthies rolled into one, Pipkison was the kindest-hearted and most good-natured ba chelor to be found in or out of a Government office, where he laboured from ten to four, and spoke on deep subjects with high officials face to face, and with clerks and underlings through speaking-pipes, which instruments he performed on with much ease and elegance, and great conciseness of diction, arrived at by long official practice.

Pipkison went everywhere worth going to, and knew everybody worth knowing. He also knew anybody, and was to be met, like a geranium on a bleak cliff, when least expected. He was of no particular age and as far as conviviality went, he was for all and any time. He was never too buoyant; he was never over-fatigued. He fitted into all sorts of society, like a master-key into every kind of lock. He knew everything, and did a little of it well and unobtrusively. He never got himself, or anyone else, into trouble. He received as many communications as a letter-box, and kept them till called for legitimately. All his acquaintances were equally dear to him. He had one friend just one-an invalid, bedridden in the prime of life, by whose bedside he would sit and chat regularly every Sunday. He never allowed any engagement (save absence from London, which was rare, and then he wrote his friend a cheery letter, full of gossip) to interfere with this duty. This poor fellow's name was Yennick.

Did Pip, in passing through Covent Garden on his morning's walk to his office (under Government), see flowers fresh and beautiful, and fruit in its season, it straightway occurred to him that poor Yennick couldn't get at those luxuries for himself. In another hour fruit and flowers were at Yennick's door, with Mr. Pipkison's compliments. The kindest-hearted creature, Pipkison,

and no scandal-monger, which is a mar vellous thing when said of a man, the life of whose conversation was small talk, and who was perpetually being questioned by everyone as to how everyone else was getting on.

Half the world doesn't know how the other half lives. Best not, if one half is to be called, French fashion, the demi-monde. Pipkison lived between the two halves, and knew all about both, without really concerning himself about either. Pipkison was this Pip when I was a boy. He is this Pip now, unchanged.

Being such an one as I have shown him, it was only in the natural course of things that he should know Uncle Van, as he knew everybody. Stopping my uncle in the Exchange, as he was moodily walking, frowning at the pavement, jingling his keys in one pocket and balancing them, as it were, with their value in halfpence in the other, Mr. Pipkison called out

"Hullo, Van! Woa, Van!" which was Pipkison's waggery.

"He-he-he!" laughed Uncle Van, with his usual jelly-fish way. "Always your jox-eh? He-he-he!" and he laughed again, taking one hand out of his trouser pocket to fix his spectacles on, so as to have a better look at Pipkison. Then he said

"Vell?"

Pipkison answered him

"Where shall we dine to-day? I'm not speaking like an advertisement, but I mean it."

"He-he-he! I vas tinking tat moment. You zee my wife-he-he-he! -she's a deucet goot voman, but I tink only tea at six o'clock on Saturtay von't do. Il faut dîner."

"Of course," replied Pipkison; then with a wink, and indicating Uncle Van's ribs with his forefinger, "How about the Burlington Baa-lambs?"

"He-he-he!" snorted Mr. Clym; "te Baa-lamb-vat is he?"

"The Baa-lamb," replied Mr. Pip, "is a gregarious creature who dines on Saturday at two o'clock, in company with others of the Burlington flock, which, meeting in a pleasant pasturage in the neighbourhood of the Burlington Arcade (whence this name), make a circuit of other grass lands, returning on the last Saturday of the year to their ancient inclosure as aforesaid. That is the poetical account. That is what the gods call us. Mortals would denominate our society a social club, dining out every Saturday early, and not going home till evening."

"I coult get home by seven, eh?" asked Uncle Van, much interested.

"By six if necessary."

Uncle Van thought he could manage this. He would dine with the Baa-lambs and return home to tea. He would run with the hare, and hunt with the baalambs.

"Are there many ?"

"Baa-lambs?" asked Pipkison: then answered, seeing that Mr. Clym had intended this; "yes, there are Barristers qualified as members of the Baa-you observe. Bar-Baa

"He-he-he! I zee. Yes. Bar," said Uncle Van, nodding like a loose-headed toy figure on a Christmas bon-bon box.

"Then there are literary men, Baalambs of the Pen."

Mr. Clym thought over this. "Pen, eh?" He didn't see it.

"You begin well as a Baa-lamb," said Mr. Pip, "as I see you are a ruminating animal."

"He-he-he!" Uncle Van in fits. This joke had really tickled him. Recovering his seriousness and his spectacles, which were slipping off his nose, he announced his determination thus— "I say-he-he-he-I'll be a Baalamb."

Mr. Pip solemnly grasped his hand, and appeared to invoke a blessing on the neophyte. Then he, in a deeply tragic manner, addressed Uncle Clym.

"Meet me here at two precisely. At half-past we must to the meadow. Come

dine with me and be my love. By the way, Comberwood told me about wanting some professional person to drill them in their theatricals. I've got the very man. He's an eminent Baa-lamb, and you'll meet him at dinner this afternoon. Good-bye." And off he went.

"Funny fel-low-he-he-he!" said Uncle Van to himself; "vat tit he mean by 'pen,' and 'ruminate?'" He considered a bit, then shrugged his shoulders. "Vun of his 'jox.'

He saw at once that for this Saturday, at all events, he had obtained a fair excuse. He had "to see a professional person on behalf of Mr. Comberwood, solicitor," and this, without further explanation, would be quite sufficient for Mrs. Clym when he returned home in the evening. Besides, he needn't be late. He could dispose of me by a midday train, dine with the Lambs, and be back for seven o'clock tea at home.

This being settled, we proceeded to Mr. Comberwood's office in Gray's Inn.

His clerk informed us that Mr. Comberwood had intended going by the two o'clock train to Ringhurst, but had changed his mind. However, if I were to travel by that train, I should find the carriage waiting to meet me. This was enough for Uncle Van, who forthwith took me to the station, and having, by giving me in charge to the guard, labelled me, as it were, for my destination, he hurried off to keep, as I learnt afterwards, his appointment with Pipkison -whereof we shall meet an important result later on.

I did not like to move about much, or take my eyes off the guard, who seemed to have plenty to do without troubling himself any further about me.

While I was wondering whether I should ever get to Ringhurst, a slouching young man, in an oily green velveteen costume, touched his hat to me in a bashful sort of way, and hoped Master Colvin was quite well.

"Why, it's Charles Edmund!" said I, recognizing little Julie's brother.

He had grown enormously, and spread out into hands and feet. I felt that I ought to shake hands with him (three

of my hands would have slipped into one of his easily), and that if I didn't, he'd think I was proud. So I held out mine to him, and rather hoped that nobody saw us.

"Thank ye, Master Colvin," he said; "I'm quite well, an' I'm gettin' on. I ain't a greaser now."

"No, indeed!" I returned, being vaguely glad to hear this on account of my own position in society.

"No," he continued, "I'm porter now. I'm workin' into it, and I'll be a guard in time. Inspector p'raps."

"I hope so, I'm sure. How's your father?" I was becoming atrociously patronising. He was ever so much taller and bigger than I was, being, indeed, by my side quite an ogre.

"Gettin' on capital lately, Master Colvin," he replied. He evidently liked calling me Master Colvin, and was rather pleased and amused by my patronage.

Little Julie's out of an engagement now; she was in the pantomime at the Lane last year. Sally-Beatrice Sarah, you know she's coming out in the Op'ra, I b'lieve, at Paris; but we ain't seen her for a long time. Lottie's still Father helping Madame Glissande. would ha' gone with Julie to Portsmouth for a week to see Aunt Jane

"Nurse Davis?"

Here he was suddenly called off by my guard-under whose eye I did not feel justified in shaking hands with him again. However, after he had finished his job he returned to me, looked carefully after my luggage, put me in the right carriage, and finally reappeared just as the train was starting with a bottle of lemonade opened, two oranges, and two sponge-cakes in a bag.

This was so kind of him, and I was so much affected by it, that I had scarcely time either to thank him or to ask him to take some refreshment himself, when the engine, snorting, puffing as hard as if it were quite out of condition for a long run, pulled us away from the platform, like an impatient companion insisting upon lugging you off in a hurry, and Charles Edmund disappeared.

"I wish Julie had been with him," I said to myself. We were on our way to Ringhurst.

A VISIT to Ringhurst was a great change to a town boy like myself, whose only acquaintance with countryhouses was what I had made with such exteriors as I had seen during our walks on half-holidays.

Between twelve and thirteen I was man enough to travel alone, with my five pounds reduced to four pounds ten shillings, and to like my indepenWith delight I hailed Austin and his younger brother, Dick, who wasn't at our school, as they in turn waved their hats to me from the platform. There was a beautiful carriage to meet us, with which I mentally compared my father's brougham, wherein I very rarely had the pleasure of riding.