Podb. (wiping his eyes).  It’s the last laugh, old man,—­and it’s the best!

[CULCHARD walks away rapidly, leaving PODBURY in solitary enjoyment of the joke.  PODBURY’s mirth immediately subsides into gravity, and he kicks several unoffending chairs with quite uncalled-for brutality.

* * * * *

A “KNOT"ICAL STORY OF DRURY LANE.

(TOLD BY OUR AGED SALT, WITH A TASTE FOR THE DIBDIN DRAMA.)

[Illustration:  “A Sailor Knot”—­not a Sailor.]

[Illustration:  Losing their heads on board the Dauntless.]

What, not remember it!  Not the scene on Wapping Old Stairs and Mr. CHARLES GLENNEY in the Merchant Service, and Miss MILLWARD the Ward of Count GURNEY DELAUNAY!  Not remember all that!  Not recollect the pretty set with the River, the boat-house, and the figure-heads!  Ah, tell it to the Marines!  Not that they would believe you!  I remember it, and a good deal more.  Now it came about in this way.  You see Miss MILLWARD thought that Lieutenant CHARLES WARNER, R.N.—­“her sweetheart as a boy”—­was dead, and, like a sensible young lady, made arrangements to marry his foster-brother, meaning GLENNEY.  This she would have done most comfortably, had not the Count and a Boat-builder, one JULIAN CROSS PENNYCAD, objected.  But after all, their opposition wouldn’t have come to much hadn’t Lieutenant CHARLES WARNER, R.N., taken it into his head to turn up from the Centre of Africa, or the Cannibal Islands, or somewhere.  On second thoughts I don’t think it could have been the Cannibal Islands, because there they would have certainly eaten him—­he looked so plump, and in such excellent condition.  Well, Lieutenant WARNER, R.N., finding that Miss MILLWARD was on the eve of marrying Mr. GLENNEY, most nobly made room for his foster-brother, and hurried back to sea.  But as luck (and Mr. HENRY PETTIT) would have it, just as the lady and gentleman were on their way to Stepney Old Church to be spliced, who should turn up in a uniform that showed him to be a fine figure of a man but Lieutenant WARNER, R.N., himself—­with the Press Gang.  It turned out that Lieutenant WARNER’s ship was very under-manned, and that he had been ordered by his Captain to get all the sailors he could on board H.M.S. Dauntless—­a vessel, by the way, that afterwards proved to be the very image of the Victory.  And here came a complication.  Through the treachery of JULIAN CROSS PENNYCAD, Lieutenant WARNER seized Mr. GLENNEY just as he and Miss MILLWARD were entering Stepney Old Church.  Says Mr. GLENNEY to Lieutenant WARNER, “What, taking me, because you are jealous of me, on my wedding-day!  You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” or words to that effect.  Says Lieutenant WARNER, R.N., to Mr. GLENNEY, “Nothing of the sort.  For the man who would betray another, save in the way of kindness, on his bridal morn, is unworthy of the name of a British sailor,” or