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opportunities of approaching labour, is earning about half eminent persons, and writing his own salary in the news letters in the best progressive department of a daily journal. strain to the newspapers, and Yet the chum is much the appearing on the platforms of abler man of the two, and many more meetings. Hence knows all sorts of things which no more than a little mild have never come into Bobus's surprise was aroused when intellectual horizon. Politics, Bobus received from a progressive Minister the offer of a well-paid appointment in the official hierarchy. Bobus is there for life with a substantial income and the prospect of higher things, and even a knighthood is not wholly beyond the range of his vision. He is very comfortable now, and looks down with justifiable contempt on his former chum in the subeditor's room, who, after twenty years of assiduous journalistic

it will be seen again, is an excellent trade, especially for the person of mediocre attainments who is not likely to do particularly well at any other. So, on the whole, no better advice can be given to the father of a young man, without capital or conspicuous ability, than that with which this paper opens. Let the youth go into politics and stay there. Sooner or later he will get his reward, and it is quite likely to be worth taking.

A LOST LETTER OF ANCIENT ROME.

AN APOLOGY.

IN the February number there appeared a poem, "A Lost Letter of Ancient Rome." Mr Winston Churchill has pointed out to us that certain lines in this poem constitute a libel upon his personal honour. We desire now to state that such was not our intention, nor the intention of the writer of the poem, and to offer to Mr Churchill our unqualified apology for the statement, and to contradict the impression which the lines apparently convey, that Mr Churchill, when in South Africa, broke his parole.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons.

ED. B. M.

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"WELL, that's over!" Captain Caius Hocken, from the stern-sheets of the boat bearing him shoreward, slewed himself half-about for a look back at his vessel, the Hannah Hoo barquentine. This was a ticklish operation, because he wore a tall silk hat and had allowed his hair to grow during the passage home-St Michael's to Liverpool with a cargo of oranges, and from Liverpool around to Troy in charge of a tug.

"I'm wonderin' what 'twill feel like when it comes to my turn," mused his mate Mr Tregaskis, likewise pensively contemplating the Hannah Hoo. "Not to be sure, sir, as I'd compare the two cases; me bein' a married man, and

you-as they say with the ship for wife all these years, and children too."

"I never liked the life, notwithstandin'," confessed the

Captain. "And I'll be fifty

come Michaelmas. enough?"

66

Isn' that

Nobody likes it, sir; not at our age. But all the same I reckon there be compensations." Mr Tregaskis, shading his eyes (for the day was sunny), let his gaze travel up the spars and rigging of the barquentine-up to the truck of her maintopmast, where a gull had perched itself and stood with tail pointing like a vane. "If the truth were known, maybe your landsman on an average don't do as he chooses any more than we mariners."

Copyright in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

VOL. CXCI.-NO. MCLIX.

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Mr Tregaskis shook his head. Having no hat, he was able to do this, and it gave him some dialectical advantage over his skipper.

"In practice, sir, you'd find it depend on who's left to mind the shop."

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"Home's home, all the same,' said Captain Cai positively, thrusting over the tiller to round in for the landing-stairs. "I was born and reared in Troy, d'ye see? and as the sayin' goes-Steady on!"

A small schooner, the Pure Gem of Padstow, had warped out from the quay overnight after discharging her ballast with the usual disregard of the Harbour Commissioners' byelaws; and a number of ponderable stones, now barely covered by the tide, encumbered the foot of the landing. On one of these the boat caught her heel, with a jerk that flung the two oarsmen sprawling and toppled Captain Hocken's tall hat over his nose. Mr Tregaskis thrust out a hand to catch it, but in too great a haste. The impact of his finger-tips on the edge of the crown sent the hat spinning forward over the thwart whereon sprawled Ben Price, the

stroke oar, and into the lap of Nathaniel Berry, bow-man.

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Nathaniel Berry, recovering his balance, rescued the headgear from the grip of his knees, gave it a polite brush the wrong way of the nap, and passed it aft to Ben Price. Ben-a bald-headed but able seaman eyed it a moment, rubbed it the right way dubiously with his elbow, and handed it on to the mate; who in turn smoothed it with the palm of his hand, which-being an alert obliging man-he had dexterously wetted overside before the Captain could stop him.

"That's no method to improve a hat," said Captain Hocken shortly, snatching it and wiping it with his handkerchief. He peered into it and pushed out a dent with his thumb. "The way this harbour's allowed to shoal is nothing short of a national disgrace!"

He improved on this condemnation as, having pushed clear and brought his boat safely alongside, he climbed the steps and met the Quaymaster, who advanced to greet him with an ingratiating smile.

"-A scandal to the civilised world! There's a way to stack ballast, now! Look at it, sproiled about the quayedge like a skittle-alley in a cyclone! But that has been your fashion, Peter Bussa, ever since I knowed 'ee, and 'Nigh enough' your motto."

"You've no idea, Cap'n Cai, the hard I work to keep this blessed quay tidy."

"Work? Ay-like a pig's tail, I believe: goin' all day,

and still in a twist come Rogers, ship-broker and shipnight." chandler-half paralytic but cunning yet,-sat hunched in his invalid chair, blinking; for all the world like a wicked old spider on the watch for flies.

"Chide away-chide away, now! But you're welcome home for all that, Cap'n Cai,-welcome as a man's heart to his body."

Captain Cai relaxed his frown. After all, 'twas good to return and find the little town running on just as he left it, even down to Quaymaster Bussa and his dandering ways. Yes, there stood the ancient crane with its broken-cogged winch-his own initials, carved with his first clasp knife, would be somewhere on the beam; and the heap of sand beside it differed nothing from the heap on which he and his fellows had pelted one another forty years ago. Certainly the two bollards-the one broken, the other leaning aslant were the same over which he and they had played leap frog. Yes, and yonder, in the arcade supporting the front of the "King of Prussia," was Long Mitchell leaning against his usual pillar; and there, on the bench before the Working Men's Institute, sat the trio of septuagenariansUn' Barnicoat, Roper Vine, Old Cap'n Tom-and sunned themselves; inseparables, who seldom exchanged a remark, and never but in terms and tones of inveterate contempt. Facing them in his doorway lounged the town barber, under his striped pole and sign-boardSimeon Toy, Hairdresser," with the s's still twiddling the wrong way; and beyond, outside the corner - shop, Mr

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"Ahoy, there!" Captain Cai hailed, and made across at once for the invalid chair: for Mr Rogers was his man of business. "Lost no time in reportin' myself, you see."

Mr Rogers managed to lift his hand a little way to meet Captain Cai's grasp. "Eh? Eh? I've been moored here since breakfast on the lookout for 'ee." He spoke indistinctly by reason of his paralysis. "They brought word early that the Hannah Hoo was in, and I gave orders straight away for a biled leg o' mutton - with capers - - an' spring cabbage. Twelve-thirty we sit down to it, if that suits?"

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"Thank 'ee, I should just say it did suit! . . . You got my last letter, posted from the Azores?"

"To be sure I did. I've taken the two houses for 'ee, what's more, an' the leases be drawn ready to sign. .. But where's your friend? He'll be welcome too—that is, if you don't hold three too many for a leg o' mutton?"

"Bias Hunken? didn't reckon I was him along along with you?"

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bringing me, did

"I reckoned nothin' at all, not knowin' the man."

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