Dick paid for his accommodation at the public-house, thanked his friend the policeman, and took his prize away with him. "How old are you, Bill ?"

"Ten next January."

They had a long consultation, after which Dick strode away with a lightened counte

nance.

not in the agreement, and the trouble he gave was to be considered. Dick considered it. Then she begged to call Mr. Mortiboy's attention to the language in which he expressed his ideas

"Which," she said, "is truly awful. If I had my boys home from school, they should-n't stay in the same house with him, not for gold."

She shook her finger at Bill, who looked at his protector to see whether he was going to be "whacked." But Mr. Mortiboy only laughed. "We shall cure him presently, I dare say. Bring him his dinner as soon as you can. Hungry, Bill?"

"I'm allus hungry," said the boy.

When his dinner came, which was also Dick's luncheon, Bill made a rush at the dish as soon as the cover was taken off.

"Only a little game of euchre with a woman. And this is the Right Bower, though he don't look like it. I'm going to win it the stakes are worth having, I can tell you." "You always win everything, though he certainly does not look much like a winning card. Give him something to eat."

Dick rang the bell, and consigned the child to his landlady, with injunctions to give him plenty to eat and drink.

When he came home that night, at twelve, he found the boy curled up on the hearthrug, sound asleep. He carried him into his bed-room, undressed him, and laid him in bed. Bill opened his eyes for a moment; but not understanding the position of things, thought it was a queer dream, and went sound off to sleep again.

In the morning, Dick found him still asleep. He had curled his lean arms round Dick's neck, and laid his little cheeks in Dick's big beard, thinking he was in bed with Thoozy.

"Poor little cuss!" said Dick.

That morning he went to a lawyer, one whose name he had heard from Mr. Battiscombe at Market Basing. To him he con

ran to a corner of the room, where he fell to tearing it with his teeth, after the manner of a menagerie tiger. The landlady pointed out this conduct to her tenant.

"That's the way he had his supper last night, sir. A regular little savage."

Dick nodded, and laughed. The woman retired. As she shut the door, the urchin, encouraged by the approving smiles of his patron, as he thought, performed a Catherine wheel all round the room, with the bone of his mutton chop in his mouth, finishing off with a "Houp-là!" as he had done the day before. Then he went back to his corner, and gnawed the bone.

"Bill, take the bone out of your mouth, and sit down on that chair. Did you never sit down to table in your life?" "Eh?"

"How did you get your dinner at Mrs. Kneebone's?"

"Never had no dinner. Morning, mother made tea for herself, and sometimes I got some if Thoozy was able to get up. When Thoozy had rheumatics dreadful bad, so that he couldn't get up, I only got a bit of bread. Went out all day on the cadge. If I got nothink, old Mother Kneebone

66

Only Thoozy. He used to read to me. He's awful clever knows everything. He promised to learn me to read as soon as he could find time. Once I was took up by a lady and put to school. It was a Sunday, because the bells were ringing, and the swells going to church. There was a bun and a cup of tea-jolly!—and then they taught us. I went lots of times on Sundays. They told me to say prayers and to sing hymns. I sang one at home they taught me, but old Mother Kneebone took a stick, and said she'd break every bone in my body if I didn't give over."

"They never taught you your duty, I suppose," said the moral Dick.

"What's that? There was a man in a straight black gownd said we was all going -Thoozy and me, and all the lot-to hell."

"That's good news to tell a child," said Dick.

"So I told Thoozy; and I askes him where it is, and what it's like when you've got there. He ups and says, 'If it aint better than Paragon-place, it won't be very jolly for us, Bill. Let's hope there'll be plenty to eat, and no Mother Kneebone.' Then I thought I should like to go there. But Thoozy said school wasn't no good."

Presently, the boy, unaccustomed to a chop and a half and a glass of beer, fell into a profound slumber; and Dick smoked on, thinking what he was to do with him.

He stayed one week in town, having interviews with the lawyers, and making out his case against Polly. This was not, with the data they had to go upon, at all a difficult task. After a few days, the story ran much as Mrs. Kneebone had told

him.

Polly, at the age of eighteen, had gone up to London into service. She made certain female friends who had belongings at Pop

lar, where she went on her "Sundays out." There she fell in with the mate of a sailing ship, a man twenty-five years older than herself, who was attracted by her rosy cheeks and bright eyes, and married her. According to Mrs. Kneebone-who ought to know something of feminine nature-the main cause of the conjugal unhappiness which ensued was that Polly despised a man who allowed his wife to beat him. No doubt there was a certain amount of truth in Mrs. Kneebone's remark: far be it from me to suggest suspicion as to any statement made by a woman in most respects so admirable. But this was not all the truth. When Captain Bowker went away, he left, in lieu of a monthly allowance from the shippers, which most merchant skippers' wives draw, a sum of money equivalent to it, calculated to last during the period of his absence. It must be observed that Polly was, if I may coin the term, a pseudo-maniac: she lied habitually, and even causelessly. Had she been of a higher rank in life, she would have become, of course, a novelist, drawing from her imagination some of that superfluous energy which prompted her now to invent, whenever invention appeared not only profitable, but even amusing. She had, in obedience to this proclivity, lied about herself and her belongings to her husband. Bowker had been told by her that she came from Cumberland. Why from Cumberland? I don't know. Polly only knew that it was a long way off, so she said Cumberland; and as her husband had never been there, it answered as well as any other place.

When Captain Bowker had been away for about a year-that is, for more than half of his appointed time-Polly bethought herself that she ought to go to Market Basing and pay a visit to her parents. She went; found her father dead, and her mother on the point of going to the workhouse; stayed therepromising at first for a few weeks only. But weeks passed into months; and when her husband returned-bringing a parcel of Chinese silks for his wife, and a parrot that knew how to cough and swear, having learned these accomplishments from a consumptive mariner-he found his house there, and "all standing," as he expressed it, but no Polly. Nor could he light upon any traces of his Polly. First, because he was a warmhearted man, he shed tears, and wrung the neck of the parrot for swearing at him. Then he thanked the Lord for being rid of a bad

lot, sold the sticks, paid the rent, and went to sea again.

Something had happened to Polly. She met Dick Mortiboy: fell in with him in the fields as he was walking home from Parkside to Derngate; met him again-met him every night; saw that the boy was madly in love with her; encouraged him, but gave herself all the airs of a vertu farouche; received his presents; and then

Bigamy. It is an ugly word. Polly said it over and over to herself very often about this time. It means all sorts of unpleasantness it conveys ideas of courts, policemen, prison, an unbecoming uniform, a diet rather plain than luxurious, compulsory early rising, a limited circle of friends, very few books to read. A very ugly word. But bigamy without the danger? To marry twice and not to be found out? To marry the son of the richest man in the town, so that the sailor husband should never know? This seemed a prize worth risking something for. And what did she risk? Nothing. She asked her mother. Nothing, repeated the old lady. How could Bowker find out? He was bound to go to sea: he was always afloat: he was twenty years older than herself: he might get drowned-most likely he would get drowned-perhaps he was drowned already. And then she would have her new husband clear to herself.

And the son of the richest man in the town!

Young Dick pressed her. In his imagination, the fresh-cheeked, rosy village girl, who said she was eighteen when she was five-and-twenty, was an angel. Dick was a fool, of course; but many men have been fools at nineteen. He pressed her to promise to marry him. She promised. That meant nothing, because she could always break off. But his father sent him up to town to work for a time in a London bank, and-and-alas! for Polly's vow-it succumbed; and one fine morning she walked up the aisle of Saint Pancras's Church, and was married to Dick Mortiboy.

"Bigamy," said Dick, chuckling-" bigamy! That's a very pretty rod to hold over my Polly's head. And the worthy sailor still alive."

When Dick disappeared, there were two courses open to his afflicted wife. She might go to Mr. Mortiboy, and proclaim herself

his daughter-in-law; or she might go back to her Bowker. She reasoned out the matter with her mother; and, by her advice, elected to return to her first husband. The two reasons which the experienced matron, her mamma, urged were-first, that if Bowker found her out, it would lead to criminal proceedings and great unpleasantness; secondly, that if she told Mr. Mortiboy, he would infallibly, so angry would he be, refuse to afford her any assistance whatever. So she went to Poplar. Captain Bowker, her old friends told her, was gone to the China Seas in the country trade: would not be back for five years. Further, he had left a message that, if Polly came back, she was to be told that he was quit of her, and that she was henceforth no wife of his. That formula constitutes a nautical divorce. So Polly had to abandon hopes in that direction. Of course, she might, had she known, have gone to the shippers in whose employ her husband was, and demanded an allowance as his wife. She did not know their names. Then she fell in love for the first time. It was also with a sailor, one William Flint, ship's carpenter by profession, who so far overcame her scruples of conscience as to lead her to the altar a third time. Mr. Flint was the father of little Bill. He died before the birth of his son, after a short period of matrimonial happiness, during which he effectually taught Polly the beauty of submission by means of a thick stick. Mrs. Flint, thus bereft of two husbands and widowed of a third, left her child in care of Mrs. Kneebone, and lived in London for some years, still single, though not without admirers. When, like Horace's Lydia, she ceased to hear them knock at her door, she retired to Market Basing, where the rest of her history is known.

"The whole case," said the lawyer, after exposing the principal facts, "is as simple as possible. Bowker still lives, and has a pension from his employers. We can put our hands upon him whenever you please. The woman committed bigamy in marrying you. You may proceed against her if you like. Bowker may get a divorce if he pleases. The boy is no more yours than he is mine."

"Thank you," said Dick. "I'll wait a week or so, and think things over. I suppose I couldn't marry again without making any fuss about it?"

"You might, certainly; but you had better not just yet. Put yourself wholly in our hands, my dear sir."

Dick went away thoughtful. He was not altogether satisfied, Polly was a bad lot-a very bad lot. At the same time, it seemed mean to put her into prison, and bring her to utter shame and misery. He was always tender to criminals-not from any self-compunctions or prickings of conscience, but chiefly from the mental attitude of resistance to law into which his roving years had put him. Could not a compromise be effected? Suppose she were to go away, and be silent about it all? Suppose-but, in short, he would wait a little.

Then he thought of Grace. Free, free at last! The follies of his youth trampled down and forgotten! Love before him, and a peaceful life, such as he yearned after, away in some garden of pleasant England, hand in hand with Grace! Polly's chance was slender.

He went home to little Bill. It took some days to teach the child that mankind at large, though strangers, were not his mortal enemies. He learned the smaller lessons-those of propriety and the habits of civilization-easily enough, because he had nothing to unlearn, never having had any manners at all. He was a gentle child, too— submissive and docile. His worst difficulty, of course, was his language, which he readily perceived was not the same as that employed by his patron. He used to listen to what people said, and then go away and imitate them in a corner-gestures, and voice, and all. A perfectly wild boy: as untaught save for the few lessons which he had got from Thoozy-as regards the outer world, as if he had been born in a desert and reared on the top of a mountain. A boy whose mind was like wax to receive impressions-a blank waxen tablet, for the stylus of Dick to work upon. Bad things he knew, after a fashion; but as they had never been called bad to him, of course it did not matter. As Euripides has explained, we only know what is bad by the canon of what is good. Good and bad were alike to little Bill.

In a day or two, the little animal was as fond of his patron and as entirely trustful in him as if he had been a dog. He ran about after him; he curled up at his feet if he sat down; he climbed upon his knees; he sat up solemnly, and stared at him; he listened to

all he said, and repeated it to himself. And Dick gave him, in that week which was spent in completing the "case" against Polly, a whole volume of moral philosophy, and a complete sheaf of moral axioms.

Mindful of the untrustworthy character of the Church Catechism, from the evidence he had received of it—he had not read it since he was a boy-he composed a short one for himself, which he asked the boy daily.

"What is a boy's first duty, Bill?” "Never steal, never tell lies, never swear, hold his jaw, do his work, go away from England and get on."

He numbered his commandments off on his fingers, and went through them glibly enough.

"Right, boy. When I was your age, they used to teach me the Ten Commandments; but somehow they didn't seem to stick. I didn't want to worship graven images, so it was no good telling me not. Boys do prig, Bill, and don't get found out. They go on prigging, and then they do get found out. Then you know what happens.

"The thing to do is, to persuade people to trust you. Show that you're able to get on, and you will. Whatever you do, Bill, put your back into it. I know a poor creature in the States who was always having chances, and always failing, because he never had the pluck to take them. He had the fever last time I saw him, in a poor, mean sort of way. Hadn't the pluck to shake like other people.

"Here's another commandment for you, Bill. Always be ready to fight. It's the fighting men get the best of it. If a boy insults you, up with your fist. People are mostly cowards. If you make them afraid, they'll do anything. Remember that, Bill.

"Never you trust people that go round cracking you up to your face. If I wanted to get something out of you, I should say, 'Bill, you're a pretty boy, and a nice behaved boy.' As I want to do you good, I say, 'Bill, you're a thin, mealy-faced little devil, without enough strength to squeeze the life out of a mosquito.' You'll be no good till you're fat and strong, and know how to talk, and to behave, and to read. You remember that, Bill.

"You'll have to go to school soon, my boy. I'm not going to have you taught a lot of rubbish, on pretence of improving your intellect, because the masters don't know any

thing else. You'll learn to talk French and German; you'll learn music; you'll learn to ride, and to fence, and to box; and you'll learn all the science you can get stuffed into you. But no Latin, my boy, and no rub

bish.

"Keep your eyes wide open, Bill, for shams and humbugs. Everybody in England, almost, is a humbug. You'll have to make money, and you can't do it, if you stay here, without pretending and telling lies. When you get big, old chap, you and I will go away to the West, and make a clearing, and grow our own crops. That's real, at any rate. Remember that, Bill.

"Don't be in a hurry to fall in love. Wait till you are five-and-twenty before you think about a girl at all. Then get married as soon as you can. When we get to Market Basing, I'll show you the kind of girl you may fall in love with. You remember that.

"Never be satisfied till you've got all you want. Rich people teach the poor to be humble and contented. That's because they want to keep what they've got. If you see a man humble, kick him till he's proud. And if you see a man contented, have him locked up in a lunatic asylum.

"I remember once, out there, we caught a man in the act of horse-stealing. Some were for hanging him. 'Don't do that,' I said. 'Let's tar and feather him.' So we did; and when the job was finished-he really looked beautiful-we made him dance a breakdown. The poor devil was frightened, and looked as miserable as if the rope was round his neck. So one of the crowd shouts out to him, 'Dance jolly,' he says-'dance jolly; or, by the powers, we'll hang you.' That man instantly looked as jolly as if it was all fun and jokes-face wreathed with smiles, as the books say. I never saw a better breakdown. So, if you see a man humble, you kick him till he's proud. Remember that, Bill.

"One man's as good as another, Bill. Don't you be afraid of a man because he's got a carriage, and a different coat to yours. He's only better than you if he's stronger, and has got better brains.

"Never you take a thing on trust. A man on board the boat from America wanted to persuade me about his religious notions. Said they were Bishop somebody's. That's all he had to believe them by. Bill, it's a mighty poor way of knowing things, if you believe all they tell you. Some day I'll tell

you what a priest in Mexico wanted me to believe.

"Manners, my boy. Get manners as soon as you can. They help a man more than anything else. Always be polite to everybody; but if you want anything, let them know it at starting. It saves a great deal of fighting. As I told you, if you have manners to start with, and pluck to back your demands, you'll get on.'

The sermons, of which these are only notes, were not all delivered in a single day, or in a single week. They are inserted here to indicate the nature of the course of philosophy which Dick was putting his young pupil through. From time to time he examined him; added to the commandments which formed his catechism; illustrated his position by anecdotes; made a sort of running commentary on his teaching, or gave the boy an exercise on some knotty point.

All this excellent moral teaching we are fain to pass over, because space and time are limited. Anybody who wants to know more of Dick's teaching may purchase his aphorisms of me, on moderate terms, to be mutually agreed upon.

M. DORÉ.

PAUL GUSTAVE DORÉ, the subject of our cartoon, was born at Strasburg in the month of January, 1832. At an early age he was taken to Paris by his father, and there his education was completed. When quite a boy, he contributed to the Journal pour Rire little comic sketches. Of his pictures, among the first to attract the attention of connoisseurs were "La Bataille d'Alma," exhibited in 1855, and "La Bataille d'Inkermann," exhibited in 1857.

M. Doré's works are well known in this country, where they have been exhibited both as contributions to exhibitions of pictures by various artists, and also a number of his oil pictures forming a gallery by themselves.

M. Doré has turned his great powers to drawings on the wood; and, as an illustrator of books of imagination by the great authors, is almost unrivalled in popularity. His pictorial interpretation of Rabelais, of Balzac's wild "Contes Didactiques," and of that grand work of fiction, "The Wandering Jew," are well known and deservedly admired for their originality and realization of the authors' ideal; though the artist's illustrations to the