EVERYDAY SCENES.

SCENE I.

“Walked twenty miles over night:  up before peep o’ day again got a capital place; fell fast asleep; tide rose up to my knees; my hat was changed, my pockets picked, and a fish ran away with my hook; dreamt of being on a Polar expedition and having my toes frozen.”

O!  Izaak Walton!—­Izaak Walton!—­you have truly got me into a precious line, and I certainly deserve the rod for having, like a gudgeon, so greedily devoured the delusive bait, which you, so temptingly, threw out to catch the eye of my piscatorial inclination!  I have read of right angles and obtuse angles, and, verily, begin to believe that there are also right anglers and obtuse anglers—­and that I am really one of the latter class.  But never more will I plant myself, like a weeping willow, upon the sedgy bank of stream or river.  No!—­on no account will I draw upon these banks again, with the melancholy prospect of no effects!  The most ‘capital place’ will never tempt me to ‘fish’ again!

My best hat is gone:  not the ’way of all beavers’—­into the water—­but to cover the cranium of the owner of this wretched ‘tile;’ and in vain shall I seek it; for ‘this’ and ‘that’ are now certainly as far as the ‘poles’ asunder.

My pockets, too, are picked!  Yes—­some clever ‘artist’ has drawn me while asleep!

My boots are filled with water, and my soles and heels are anything but lively or delighted.  Never more will I impale ye, Gentles! on the word of a gentleman!—­Henceforth, O!  Hooks!  I will be as dead to your attractions as if I were ‘off the hooks!’ and, in opposition to the maxim of Solomon, I will ‘spare the rod.’

Instead of a basket of fish, lo! here’s a pretty kettle of fish for the entertainment of my expectant friends—­and sha’n’t I be baited? as the hook said to the anger:  and won’t the club get up a Ballad on the occasion, and I, who have caught nothing, shall probably be made the subject of a ‘catch!’

Slush! slush!—­Squash! squash!

O! for a clean pair of stockings!—­But, alack, what a tantalizing situation I am in!—­There are osiers enough in the vicinity, but no hose to be had for love or money!

SCENE II.

A lark—­early in the morning.

Two youths—­and two guns appeared at early dawn in the suburbs.  The youths were loaded with shooting paraphernalia and provisions, and their guns with the best Dartford gunpowder—­they were also well primed for sport—­and as polished as their gunbarrels, and both could boast a good ‘stock’ of impudence.

“Surely I heard the notes of a bird,” cried one, looking up and down the street; “there it is again, by jingo!”

“It’s a lark, I declare,” asserted his brother sportsman.

“Lark or canary, it will be a lark if we can bring it down,” replied his companion.