was Mr. Smurfitt's desire. Dumb show could not accomplish this,— though he made use of it in the first instance, smiling and waving his hand to attract her attention; but perceiving that his efforts were all thrown away, and that if she raised her eyes from her book it was only to cast them seaward, he had recourse to another expedient. Suddenly throwing up the window, he stepped out into the balcony, and coughed loudly. The noise he made caused her to look round, and then began a furious pantomime on the part of Mr. Smurfitt. First he nodded, then he winked his eye, then he pointed in the direction of the sea-shore, then he shook his head, then he grinned, and then placed his hand on his heart, bowing profoundly. He was an ass for his pains, for he made no impression on the Beauty. She started at first seeing him, and her countenance betrayed a sense of annoyance; but she soon conquered the feeling, and calmly surveyed him, with an air of proud contempt. Mr. Smurfitt was in ecstasies; enough for him that the Beauty did not withdraw; he took no heed of anything else, but kissed his hand again and again. At last she rose, and without manifesting any sign of anger or emotion, quietly lowered the jalousies of two of the windows, leaving the third untouched, so that she could still look out in the direction she preferred, without herself being seen. Mr. Smurfitt set this down to a cause the very reverse of the reality. "I mustn't do it too openly," he said to himself. "People down the street might see. She's afraid of that. I've pretty soon cut that young jackanapes out." Mr. Smurfitt, therefore, abandoned the balcony, and continued his delicate attentions under closer cover. He could just see the flounce of the Beauty's dress where it swept the floor. 66 Sly puss!" said Mr. Smurfitt, "I know what she's at. I shall catch one of those bright little twinklers presently, peeping at me through the blind." Imagination is powerful, and Mr. Smurfitt's imagination must have been of a high order, for long after the Beauty had left the room, which was not, however, till late in the afternoon, he fancied he saw that "œil en tapinois," qui le regardait. Dinner-time came, but Mr. Smurfitt was too agitated to eat-that is to say, to eat his accustomed quantity with his usual deliberate appetite. He bolted without tasting what was set before him, made no inquiry about prawns, and the moment the cloth was removed resumed his siege operations. As on the night before, a lamp was in the room, but unlike the night before, the lamp revealed nothing. Mr. Smurfitt grew impatient. He paced up and down, went into the balcony, found the wind too much for him, and came back again. He ordered candles-two fresh wax-lights were brought-and he placed them beside him. The device was useless. He tried darkness again, but still with the same result: the Beauty made no sign. Once or twice he thought he saw shadows pass behind her blinds. Jealousy then possessed him. Somebody else was there. That young jackanapes, perhaps! She might allow of an interview at night. which she feared to grant in the morning. Swayed by conflicting feelings, all of them distressing, Mr. Smurfitt passed a very uncomfortable vening. The pain in his back increased-unmistakable symptoms de VOL. XLVIII. 2 н clared that his cold was worse-and-the only wise thing he had done all day-he closed the window in a huff, and took himself off to bed. If the wind had been high the night before, it now raged a perfect hurricane: his very bed rocked under him, and he, though a heavy man, rocked in his bed: the tempest shook the room, but what was that to the tempest in Mr. Smurfitt's bosom, in which warring passions were making such wild havoc! The old figment of sleeplessness was now a sad reality. Every time he turned, his bruises admonished him; every sigh he uttered was stifled by a sneeze; and to add to his misfortunes, once-just as he was dozing off-he was seized with the cramp in both calves, a seizure that made him shriek with pain. He rose in the morning, neither a wiser nor a better man: his cold was much worse, and the stiffness in his back, increased by rheumatism, had enlarged its area. Not much like a lover, you will say. His passion, nevertheless, was not extinguished. Once more he returned to the charge, practising the original dodge of keeping in the background, that he might lure the Beauty to her casement. On her part, that which took place was in some respects a repetition of the previous morning. She breakfasted, received a letter, and smiled -received a second letter, and looked grave. Again she chose her favourite seat, and gazed up the street with more than her first intensity. A flash of intelligence again illumined her lovely face. She raised her hand, and disappeared. "To put on her bonnet, I suppose," said Mr. Smurfitt. "I'll be even with her to-day. Out as soon as she! But I must get a thicker pair of boots." The lumbago, or whatever afflicted Mr. Smurfitt, made this a work of time, and when he came back to his sitting-room, instead of seeing the Beauty in her bonnet, he perceived her busily writing at a distant table. The pocket-glass was once more put in requisition, but before Mr. Smurfitt could bring it to bear on her occupation, another kind of writing met his astonished eyes. Shingleton is a place that is always in extremes. If it rains, you may be sure it pours; and the moment the rain is over, if any wind be abroad, clouds of dust fill the air: it gets into your eyes, down your throat, and lodges everywhere. There had been plenty of dust during the last fourand-twenty hours, and it had not spared the Beauty's windows: inside and out it had covered them with a thick coating. But an attempt had been made to remove it. Was that the object of the marks which Mr. Smurfitt traced upon the panes? I imagine not, for when people take the trouble to clean their windows, they do not write upon them, least of all in such large, distinct characters as to be legible in the street. word only, repeated on each window, was there. Mr. Smurfitt spelt it slowly. He was no prophet, but he easily made it out. The word was "IMPOSSIBLE." One As he read, a figure approached from the Promenade. It was the young man who had obligingly favoured Mr. Smurfitt with his candid opinion on the beach. From the direction in which his eyes were raised, it was plain to Mr. Smurfitt that the inscription was meant for his edification. The young man passed on, making no attempt to bring himself into notice, and Mr. Smurfitt saw him turn the corner of the street. But scarcely was he out of sight, before an open carriage, driven by a large elderly man, pulled up at the Beauty's door. At the sound of the wheels, she ran to the window and opened it. "You can't get in there," she said, laughing a clear, ringing laugh; "you must go round." "Very well, dear," replied the large elderly man. It was evident to Mr. Smurfitt that he immediately did as he had been told; for a great deal sooner than he expected-not so soon, however, as to prevent the Beauty from folding up her letter and secreting it-he entered the apartment where she was, and the next moment her lovely form was encircled by the monster's arms. Mr. Smurfitt made use of these objectionable terms as-refusing to see more--he dashed his hat on the floor, threw himself into an arm-chair, and bellowed like a beaten schoolboy. At this moment the door opened, and a waiter appeared. "I hope, sir, you haven't quite done breakfast, for I've brought you some prawns!" "The Devil take the Prawns," shouted Mr. Smurfitt, snatching the dish from the hands of the affrighted waiter-"the Devil take the Prawns!" And, uttering these words, he hurled them out of the window. None saw the rash act but the waiter, for the opposite room was empty. as * From that hour to this the Beauty is remembered by Mr. Smurfitt "THE SHINGLETON MYSTERY." THE SHIPWRECKED ONE. BY E. A. BOWRING. SHIPWRECK'D and lost on this far, foreign strand, A cruel world will now its pity give, And still more wretched, in that I am drown'd: Hath brought me to my haven, safe and sound. THE FRENCH ALMANACKS FOR 1861. THE annual arrival of a batch of French Almanacks is almost as pleasant as a trip to Paris. Nowhere are the French seen in greater intimacy of private life than in these amusing little books. It would require to leave the parterre, and penetrate into the coulisses, to see the Parisian as he depicts himself that "bon bourgeois" borne down by wife, children, domestics, and domestic animals; that portière in everlasting dishabille; that equestrian sitting his horse like a mariner; that inevitable chasseur, cap, gaiters, and sack, gaping in vacuity; that flower of the Boulevards, hat, feather, and crinoline, are types of unmistakable local character. If we open a book of travel-say on the Amur-we meet with sundry distorted physiognomies which portray a Manyarg, a Mantchu, or a Goldiit is an ethnographic type, and that is all. But in the French Almanacks we have the ethnography of life: the Gaul in all his glory and all his littleness, the Frank in his loftiest aspirations and his most humiliating vexations, the Parisian-the essence of mankind-in his highest flights and sorest falls. That rents are about to lower and landlords to solicit for tenants; that it will be fashionable to smoke in the streets; that the Bourse is to be abolished, fundholders being ruined; that ladies will continue to enrich dealers in carmine and rice-powder; that people will be well paid for attending professional puffs in the shape of concerts, are indicative of social grievances, to cure which, like the prodigality of new year's gifts, has been the subject of comment for no small number of years past. The landlord must be grey now since rents attained a value out of all proportion with the ordinary amount of current coin in a Parisian purse. When the Gaul is planting great guns on the Boulevards, and hirsute bombardiers are threatening old Sol to intimidate him into better summer conduct, he is in all his glory. When a "bon bourgeois" is fishing at the Pont des Arts with vers that have been refused at the Academy (it is a pity that verses and worms are two different things with the Anglo-Saxons), he is in his utmost misery. When we are told that horses are to be suppressed, and every one is to ride his own locomotive, we hear an aspiration which has not the advantage of novelty to recommend it, no more than the inevitable catastrophe that ensues of the boiler bursting. But when we hear that there is a month in the year when one of the most spirituel people on the face of the earth shall make a ridiculous remark, we fancy the Cummingites must be abroad, and that either the millennium or the end is about to come. The year 1860 was one of rain and of pamphlets. The Parisians seem to be undecided which was the greater grievance of the two. Spring, which came in October, was recommended to stay till next June, to save the expenses of the journey. As to the sun, it had, like every one else, taken to smoking. (There are no men or women in France, says another cynic; they are all smokers.) The chevaline, ovine, and porcine exhibition-the cattle-show, we should bluffly term it-was a godsend to the Almanacks. There were pigs so fat that their very feeder could not tell at which end to place the trough. They were taken on stilts to the ex hibition, where, after being well poked by the spectators with sticks, umbrellas, and even swords-there are so many in France-they were taken to the ladies as Easter eggs. The fair sex do not appear to have relished the Parisian cattle-show as much as the gentlemen. "Well, thank you," says one, "they are very well-bred these horses. If I had known they had only that to show me, I should not have given myself the trouble to come and see them.” "That pig," observed one inevitable red-breeches to another, "has taken all the prizes." "The deuce he has!" was the reply. "He ought to be made a bachelor of arts." The four-footed exhibition was, as with us, accompanied by an exhibition of machinery, among which were specimens of such exceeding simplicity for grinding coffee as to require the introduction of horses into the parlour; so portable as to necessitate a ladder to climb up to the top, and so admirably adapted for drying linen as to wet everybody who went near them. Then there were new summer-houses of zinc wire hailed as a great novelty, as jealous husbands could see right through them, and only Messrs. Prud'hommes would seek for shelter in such during a shower. The new fashions-scuttle-shaped bonnets, high waists, and long trains to the robes are legitimate subjects for satire. Some gentlemen admire the change, as, by dancing on the trains, they extemporise carpets at the Mabille; others of very small dimensions-complain that they can no longer take the ladies by the waist. Nor is the new fashion of leg-ofmutton sleeves for gentlemen allowed to escape. "Do you see," says one French soldier to another, pointing to two gents with exaggerated coats, "they are not got up after our fashion. What are legs with us are arms with them." "The deuce take "The deuce take you with your paletot and its gigot sleeves!" says one gentleman to another; "if it had not been for them, these ladies would never have thought of pestering us for a leg of mutton.' Great indignation appears to have been created among the soldiery by a change of costume, by which the Zouave trousers are introduced into the line generally, and the lappets of the coats cut short. "Lucky fellows!" says one tourlourou to another; "arn't those chasseurs fortunate? They carry the lappets of their coats at the back of their hats." "The new trousers are capital for water," says another, standing up to his waist in a ditch. 66 I say," remarks a third, "when we go to war with our new uniforms, we shall be sure to face the enemy, for we have nothing to protect the rear!" No matter what the dress, "if you are in want of a nurse," we are told; "follow a soldier, and you are sure to find one." "Madame," said one of the latter, persistent admirers of military valour and costumes, when her mistress finds a hirsute specimen in the kitchen, "it is another of my cousins." "What an unfortunate family yours must be," replies the lady of the house; "it seems as if they all got bad numbers." The wondrous and ubiquitous Dumas is depicted as on his travels, like a modern Jonah jumping down a whale's throat. "Nom d'un sabord!" exclaims a sailor, holding him back; "where are you going, Monsieur Dumas?" "Leave me alone; there is perhaps a romance to write in the interior there!" Photography also presents its characteristic types. Stranger (to the artist)-Sir, I wish to have some visiting-cards with my portrait. Artist-Very well, sir; take the position in which you will wish to appear. |