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Peace ... calm ... quiet. Mrs. Brown and Ethel in the kitchen supervising the arrangements for the day. The aunts in the drawing-room discussing over their crochet-work the terrible way in which their sisters had brought up their children. That, also, is a necessary part of aunthood.

Time slipped by happily and peacefully. Then William's mother came into the drawing-room.

"I thought you were going to church," she said.

"We are. The clock hasn't struck."

"But--it's eleven o'clock!"

There was a gasp of dismay.

"The clock never struck!"

Indignantly they set off to the library. Peace and quiet reigned also in the library. On the floor sat William aI trust, the reader will fully admit.

BLANCHARD JERROLD.

When cat's away Sojers play.

That's been the old notion. And folks--that is, the folks with gold-lace that's never flogged--think to 'bolish the cat at once would bring a blight upon laurels. They think sojers like eels--none the worse for fire for being well skinned.

A nice beginning, that, of the marriage state.

Well, isn't this droll? Here's the very man as is one of Mr Goding's, the brewer's, gen'lemen, as assisted at the ceremony.

What, Mr Slowgoe! Well, at first if I didn't think it was a he-goat. Can't afford it--can't, indeed; if you will go with your beard for a fortnight, I can't lose by it. No; that must be twopenn'orth; not a farthin' less. Soap and razor can't do it.

DEAR PETER,--at last I'm settled at my heart's content. For fifteen years and more, I've been fighting, and punching, and screwing, and doing--the Lord forgive me!--all sorts of mean tricks to be respectable; and now I'm happy, for I've given the thing up. I've got rid of every bit of the gentleman, and drive a cab. Ha! you don't know--you can't think--what a blessing it is to get rid of all cares about what's genteel. It's like taking off fine tight boots, and stretching yourself in comfortable old slippers. How respectability did pinch, and gall, and rub the skin off me, to be sure; but I've done with it. I've given up the trumpery, for the good, stout, weather-proof character of cabman.

Respectability is all very well for folks who can have it for ready money; but to be obliged to run in debt for it--oh, it's enough to break the heart of an angel. Well, I've gone a good round, and it's nothing but right that I should be comfortable at last. Wasn't all the sweetness of my little boyhood lost in an attorney's office? At a time of life when I ought to have been bird's-nesting, shoeing cats with walnut-shells, spinning cock-chafers on pins, and enjoying myself like any other child of my age--there I was half the day wearing out a wooden desk with my young breast-bone, and the other half running about, like a young cannibal, to serve writs: sneaking and shuffling, and lying worse than any playbill, and feeling as happy as a devil's imp on a holiday whenever I "served" my man. Yes, Peter, that I've any more heart than an oyster left me, is a special favour of Providence; for what a varmint I was! If it hadn't been for the playhouse, I should have been ruined. Yes, Peter, but for the Coburg Theatre, I have no doubt that at this time I should have been a sharp attorney, not able to smell as much as a lucifer-match without the horrors. 'Tis a great place for morals, the playhouse, Peter. As I say, it quite drew me back into the paths of virtue. Old Simcox, my master, to keep me active, used to give me a shilling for every writ I served. He used to say there was nothing like rubbing a young dog's nose in the blood, to make him sharp after the game.

Well, with these shillings I used to go to the Coburg gallery. That gallery was my salvation. When I used to see the villain, who'd been so lucky all through the piece, chopped down like chopped wood at the last, my conscience used to stir worse than the stomach-ache. And so by degrees I liked the playhouse more, and the writs less. And one day when Simcox told me to go and serve a writ upon the very actor who used to do me so much good--for he was always the cock of the walk as far as virtue went--I gave him such a speech about "tremble, villain, for there is an eye," that the old fellow gasped again. When he had recovered himself enough to fling a ruler at my head, I put on my cap and turned my back upon the law. After this, I sold playbills at the Coburg doors, and that 's how I picked up the deal I know about the stage.

And so I went scrambling on till twenty, and how I lived I don't know. Indeed, when I look back, I often think money's of no use at all; folks do quite as well, or better, without it. Money's a habit--nothing more. At twenty--how it happened I can't tell--I found myself a tradesman. Yes; I sold baked 'tatoes, and--on nipping winter days--used to feel myself a sort of benefactor to what is called our species. I had read a little at book-stalls and so on; and many a time have I, with a sort of pride, asked myself if many of the Roman emperors ever sold 'tatoes, salt, and a bit of butter for a penny? I should think not. Well, at three-and-twenty down came that bit of money on me! Whether it was really a relation who left it or not, or whether it was all a mistake, I never asked--I took the money. And that bit of money made me swell not a little. Yes; I swelled like a toad--full of poison with it. Then I went to make no end of a fortune. I thought luck had fallen deep in love with me, and I couldn't go too far. There was a gentleman who always came with an order to the Coburg. A few years ago I should have said he was a Jew; but now I know manners, and so call him a gentleman of the Hebrew persuasion. Well; if he couldn't talk melted butter! We were both to make our fortunes, but I was to find the money for the couple. We went upon 'Change; and, as he said, both of us were ruined. Ruin, however, could have been nothing strange to him, for he never seemed the worse for it. From that time, Peter, I was flung upon the hard stones of London. I had too much pride to go to the 'tatoes again, and so took to billiards. Ha! Peter, it's dirty bread; it's bread with the headache and the heartache in it. That wouldn't do long; though how I did shuffle, and hedge, and make the most of the innocent, and all to try and keep myself respectable.

I tell you, for fifteen years I fought it out like a man. I didn't care what came of it, what folks said of me--I would be respectable. A superfine coat and a prime dinner I would have; but ha, Peter! it's all been taken out of me. I've given it up, I tell you, and I'm a happy cabman. Bless your soul! you can't think what a happy life it is. Always seeing something new, and always riding with somebody. For you must know my cab isn't one of the new concerns that divide the drive and his fare. That wouldn't suit me nohow. No; I like to ride upon what I call an equality, and talk and learn life as I go; you can't believe the sort of people that I sometimes drive about, and the things I get out of 'em. But I intend to write it all down, and to save the bother of posting, and all that, to print my letters at once. Then if my dear relations and acquaintance that are scattered in all the corners of the world don't know anything about me, 'twill be their fault, not mine.

I couldn't have thought that a cabman's life could have so improved the mind. But when we meet at the Spotted Lion--that's our watering-house--there's something to be heard, I can tell you. I never troubled my head with politics before I drove a cab: no, I was little better than an animal; but I should think that now I know something of the Bill of Rights, and all that, and all from the newspapers. When the nosebag's on the old mare, don't I read the debates in Parliament!

I was going to write you a bit upon the Sugar Question, but old Lumpy--he's our waterman--has called me for a job. So at present no more from your cousin and wellwisher,

JUNIPER HEDGEHOG.

MY DEAR OLD GRANDMOTHER,--Thank all your stars and two garters that you're out of England! We're all going to be made Catholics. It's a settled thing. You ought henceforth never to cook a supper of sprats without looking at the gridiron, thinking of Smithfield, and being special grateful for your deliverance. Nobody can tell what's come to half the bishops, and three parts of the clergy. Such a noise about surplices and gowns! The old story again. The old fight--as far as I can tell--about white and black: one party vowing that the real thing's white, whilst the other will have it that the true white's black. Yes, grandmother, it's the old battle of black and white that, as far as my learning goes, has for hundreds of years filled this nice sort of world of ours with all kinds of trouble. Nobody can tell what's set these ministers of peace--as they call themselves--all of a sudden in such a pucker; but I think I've hit upon the cause, and here it is.

All this noise in the Church has begun in the playhouse. I'm sure of it. Foolish people say and write that we English folks don't care about plays. There never was such a mistake. In our hearts, all of us, and especially many of the bishops and clergy, dote upon the playhouse; but then, you see, it isn't thought quite the thing for the clergy to go there. The Bishop of Exeter--I'm cocksure of it--has a consuming love for a pantomime; but then he wouldn't like to be seen in the boxes of Drury Lane, giving his countenance to the clown, that takes his tithe of all sorts of things that come under his nose. The Bishop of London too--he, I've heard it said, got made a bishop of by some intimate acquaintance of his that wrote plays in Greek. Well, he can't go and enjoy his laugh at the Haymarket, or have his feelings warmed, till they boil over at his eyes, at the Victoria ; so you see, as the bishops can't decently stir from the Church to the playhouse, they've set their heads together to bring the playhouse to the Church. And this accounts for all their fuss in the Church about what the playhouse people call the "dresses and decorations." They seem to think that religion isn't enough of itself, unless it's "splendidly got up." Whereupon they want to go back to the old properties of crosses and candlesticks, and so forth, to fill the pews. Well, when the bishops--the grey, sober men, the fathers of the Church--have this hankering after a bit of show, it isn't to be expected that the young fellows will refuse the finery. Certainly not. Whereupon they're bringing in all sorts of fashions, it seems. They don't think it enough to belong to the Army of Martyrs, unless they've very handsome regimentals.

The Bishop of London has been in very hot water with the folks at Tottenham about the Sunday silver, which they won't pay at all. Well, he says they needn't pay it for a twelvemonth. So it seems that a truth isn't a truth all at once, it takes a year to grow. According to the Bishop, it would seem that truth was born like a tadpole, that wanted time afore it came to be a perfect frog.

Well, then, there's another notion about. It's said that the wants of the people are so many that it's quite out of the power of the labouring clergy to attend to 'em. It would be worse than drayman's work. And so it has been recommended that there should be a sort of Church militia raised in addition to the regulars. It was only last night that I drove down to Fulham a very chatty sort of man--I think the under-butler of the Bishop of London. Well, he talked a good deal about this militia; they're to be called Deacons, I think, and are to be considered a sort of a parson; like young ravens not yet come to their full black.

Well, it was quite plain that he hoped to be one of 'em, for he said the places would be open to anybody, really pious, of the humblest parts. He was very talkative, and said these deacons would have all the comforts of the monks, without any of their vows; going to people's houses; worming themselves into their families, and learning all their business carnal--yes, I think carnal was his word--and spiritual. When I asked him if, like the monks, they were to wear gowns and hoods , he winked very knowingly, and said, with the blessing of Providence, that might come. At all events, they might begin with letters and numbers worked in gold or silver in their collars; and, something after the new police, have a pink or purple strap about their cuffs when upon spiritual duty.

JUNIPER HEDGEHOG.

MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--We're all safe for a time; the Pope hasn't quite got hold of us yet. You recollect when I was a boy, how I would fling stones, and call names, and go among other boys pelting 'em right and left, and swearing I didn't mean to hurt 'em, but played off my pranks only for their good? And then, when I used to get into a terrible fight, you remember how you used to come in at the last minute, and carry me off home just as I was nearly giving in? And then, how afterwards I used to brag that if grandmother hadn't taken me away, I'd have licked twenty boys; one down, another come on! Well, well; the more I see of life, the more I'm sure men only play over their boys' tricks; only they do it with graver faces and worse words.

What you did for me, the Archbishop of Canterbury has done for the Bishop of Exeter. Almost at the last minute he has wrapped his apron about the Bishop and carried him out of the squabble. And now the Bishop writes a letter as long as a church bell-rope, in which he says he only gives up fighting to show that he's obedient--more than hinting, that if he'd been allowed to go on, he'd have beaten all comers, with one hand tied behind him. At all events, he's very glad there's been a rumpus, as it proves there's pluck on both sides.

I've hardly time to save the packet; so remain, your affectionate grandson,

JUNIPER HEDGEHOG.

Now, what is this, as you'd say, but fostering a superabundance of population? It's no other than offering bribes to bring people into the country, already as full as a cask of herrings; and when every trade is eating part of its members up, for all the world as melancholy monkeys eat their own tails! Isn't it shocking to encourage the lower classes to add to themselves? There's nothing that money won't do; and I've no doubt whatever that, for some years to come, all children at Mile-end will be born by threes and fours. A shrewd fellow like you must have remarked how people imitate one another. You never yet heard of an odd act of suicide, or any kind of horror with originality in it, that it didn't for a little time become the fashion, as if it was a new bonnet or a new boot. And so, among the lower orders, it will be in the matter of babies. Now, if Mrs Clements had been sent to prison for the offence, then the evil might have been nipped in the bud; but to reward her for her three babies, who could show no honest means of providing for themselves, why, it's flying in the face of all political economy. Three babies at once at Mile-end is monstrous. Even twins should be confined to the higher ranks.

You'll be glad to hear that we've been giving a round of dinners to your Chinese hero, Sir Henry Pottinger. At Manchester he was hailed as the very hero of cotton prints. They dined him very handsomely, and you may be sure there was a good deal of after-dinner speaking. A Rev. Canon Wray answered the toast for the Clergy. I once read of a melancholy man, who thought all his body was turned into a glass bottle, and so wouldn't move for fear of going to pieces. Now, I'm certain of it, that there's a sort of clergyman who, after some such humour, thinks himself a forty-two pounder; for he is never heard at a public meeting that he doesn't fire away shot and gunpowder. The Rev. Canon said his thanks, that Sir H. Pottinger "had opened a way for the march of the gospel." Now, Michael, I never heard of any artillery in the New Testament. And he further said:--

"British arms seem scarcely ever to know a defeat. In the east, west, north, and south, our soldiers and sailors are, in the end, ever victorious. I cannot but think that, as great Britain holds the tenets of the gospel in greater purity than any other nation, so she is intended by the Divine will to carry inestimable blessings to all distant benighted climes."

Well, Michael, I've heard of a settler in mistake sowing gunpowder for onions; but the Rev. Canon Wray, with his best knowledge about him, thinks there's nothing like sowing gunpowder for the "scriptural mustard-seed." I suppose he's right, because he's a canon; and therefore not to be disputed with by your ignorant, but affectionate brother,

JUNIPER HEDGEHOG.

DEAR SISTER,--It gave me much pleasure to learn from your letter that yourself, husband, and baby got safe and sound to your present home. You ask me to send you my portrait. It isn't in my power to do so at present; but if I should be unfortunate enough to kill anybody, or set a dockyard a-fire, or bamboozle the Bank--or, in short, do anything splashy to get a front place in the dock at the Old Bailey--you may then have my portrait at next to nothing. Then, I can tell you, it will be drawn in capital style--at full length, three quarters, half length, and I know not what.

I've read somewhere, that in what people call the good old times--as times always get worse, what a pretty state the world will be in a thousand years hence!--when there were dead men's heads on the top of Temple Bar, grinning down, what people call an example, on the folks below, that there used to be fellows with spyglasses; and, at a penny a peep, they showed to the curious all the horror of the aforesaid heads, not to be discovered by the naked eye. Well, the heads are gone, and the spyglass traders too; but for all that, there's the same sort of show going on, and a good scramble to turn the penny by it, only after a different fashion. Murderers are now shown in newspapers. They are no longer gibbeted in irons; no, that was found to be shocking, and of no use: they are now nicely cut in wood, and so insinuated into the bosoms of families. The more dreadful the murder, the greater value the portrait; which, for a time, is made a sort of personal acquaintance to thousands of respectable folks who pay the newspaper owner--the spyglass-man of our time--so much to stare at it as long as they like. I am certain that the shortest cut to popularity of some sort is to cut somebody's throat. A dull, stupid fellow, that pays his way and does harm to nobody, why, he may die off like a fly in November and be no more thought of. But only let him do some devil's deed--do a bit of murder as coolly as he'd pare a turnip--and what he says, whether he takes coffee, or brandy-and-water "cold without;" when he sleeps, and when he wakes; and when he smiles, and when he grinds his teeth,--all of this is put down as if all the world went upon his movements, and couldn't go on without knowing 'em. To a man who wants to make a noise, he doesn't care how, all this is very tempting. I hope I mayn't come to be cut in wood, but still one would like to make a rumpus some way before one died.

JUNIPER HEDGEHOG.

DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW,--As my last letter was to sister, it is but fair that you should have the next dose of ink. Well, Parliament's opened; and Sir Robert's made a clean breast of it--that is, if a Prime Minister can do such a thing. There never was such harmony in the House of Commons! After Sir Robert had spoken out, you might have thought all the House was holding nothing but a love-feast. I was in the gallery--I won't tell you how I got in--and never saw such a sight in all my life. All the papers, I can't tell why, have oddly suppressed an account of the matter; therefore, what you get from me will be exclusive--from your "own" correspondent. Treasure it accordingly.

When Sir Robert said he should keep on the income-tax for three years longer, almost the whole House fell into fits of delight at his goodness. You might have seen Whig embracing Tory, Radical throwing his arms about the neck of Conservative, and Young England with tears of gratitude rolling like butter-milk down upon his white waistcoat. When Sir Robert had quite finished his speech, there was a shower of nosegays flung upon him from the Treasury benches, just in the same way as now and then you pelt the actors at the playhouses! Sir Robert picked 'em all up, and pressed 'em to his heart, and from the corners of his mouth smiled the thousand thanks. Then sitting down, he very handsomely gave a flower apiece to what he calls his colleagues. He insisted--amidst the cheers of the House--on putting a forget-me-not in the button-hole of Mr Gladstone ; and then he handed a lily--as an emblem of the Home Secretary's reputation--to Sir James Graham. At this, I needn't tell you, there were "roars of laughter." To be sure, at this season of the year these flowers were artificial; but for which reason, it was said by somebody, they were more in keeping with Sir Robert's measures. Two or three members--for form's sake--abused the income-tax, but nevertheless said they would vote for it. Lord John Russell called it a shameful, infamous, ignominious, tyrannical, prying impost: he would, however, support it. This is as if a man should denounce another as a coward, a ruffian, and a thief, and then--fold him to his bosom! But they do odd things in Parliament. Sir Robert says we are to have the income-tax for only three years longer. Nonsense! He intends that we should grow with it upon us. He'll no more take it off than a Chinese mother will take off the little shoe that, for the beauty of the full-grown woman, she puts upon the foot of her baby girl. The child may twist, and wriggle, and squall; and the mother may now and then say pretty things--make pretty promises to it to keep it quiet--but the shoe's there for the sufferer's life. Now John Bull--thinks Sir Robert Peel--will move all the better with his foot in the income-tax: all the better too, because it most galls and crushes a lower member. However, we are to have the duty off glass; which, says Sir Robert, is much better than if the duty were taken off light. It is not for such as me to dispute with a minister, but I can't see how, if I'm to get my house glazed duty free, it's quite as good as if there was no window-tax. To be sure, if a man, as a householder, were to new glaze himself from top to bottom once a quarter, it might be another thing; he might save upon the glass what he now pays for the sun that, in London, tries to come through it. He may certainly afford to have more windows, but will, I say, the saving on the glass pay for the light? Besides, not light alone, but air is paid for. There is at the present time a secret agitation going on among the cats of England. The grievance is this: A man can't make a hole in his house for the cat to pass in and out to mouse or visit, without the said hole being surcharged as a window. This is a wrong done upon the cats of the country; but whether done out of sympathy with the rats or not, let Sir James Graham answer. However, one comfort will come of cheap glass: folks who choose to visit museums and such public places, may break what they like of the material at a decreased cost, for the pleasure. Before it was bad enough, nothing, according to the law, being worth more than five pounds; so any malicious or morbid scoundrel might smash any rare piece of antiquity, and handing to the magistrate any sum over five pounds, bid him take the change out of that. I think a club might be formed for certain young chaps about town, to be called "The Independent Smashers." They might subscribe to a common fund to pay fines; and each in turn draw for the pleasure of a bit of destruction. With the duty taken off the article, it would be remarkably cheap sport. However, there is no doubt of it, that Peel has got great glory by taking off this tax. A good deal of his reputation as a minister will be looked upon as glass; such side of his reputation in the eyes of an admiring country to be always "kept upwards."

We are to have sugar, too, at about three-halfpence a pound cheaper; which Mrs Hedgehog tells me will allow us to save at least sixpence a week: however, what we shall have to pay to protect the West Indians, she, poor soul, never dreams of, and I should be a brute to tell her. Therefore--poor thing!--she may now and then toast Sir Robert in her Twankay, without thinking of the ?140,000 we lose in the other way. Then again, what we shall save in cotton is wonderful!

The auctioneers, too, are all right. They are to knock down at so much for life, instead of taking out a yearly licence. It is thought that this enlarged piece of statesmanship came about out of compliment to George Robins, who, in one of his familiar letters to the Premier, said he'd rather have it so.

However, everybody says Sir Robert Peel's in for life. He's married Downing Street, and nothing but death can them part. One thing's certain, he's got a thumping surplus. And when any man in England gets that, folks are not very particular how he's come by it.

So no more at present from your affectionate brother-in-law,

JUNIPER HEDGEHOG.

DEAR JOHN,--I'm afraid you don't go the right way to make both ends meet. Your letter is full of complaints of poverty, and all that sort of disagreeable thing. I very much fear that you've got into expensive habits, or your sixteen shillings a week would be sure to go further. Why don't you be economical? why don't you copy the prudence shown you by high people? Look here, now. Just read this from Sir Robert Peel's speech. He is speaking of the marriage of Queen Victoria:--

"It has pleased God to bless that union with the birth of four children, and this, of course, caused a considerable additional demand upon the civil list. In the course of the last year three sovereigns have visited this country; amongst them were the sovereigns of two of the most powerful countries in the habitable globe--the Emperor of Russia and the King of the French."

Now, John, I hope you lay these things to your heart: I hope you will at once acknowledge the wickedness that has very properly been put upon poverty for hundreds of years, and don't disgrace yourself and your relations by becoming a pauper. I have a great regard for you--a very great regard; nevertheless, if you come to want, I give you up for ever, and renounce you. I hope, therefore, you will take this warning in good part, and believe me, your affectionate cousin,

JUNIPER HEDGEHOG.

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