Very successful!

"but 'gad, as I am here, I may as well lock up these letters," added he, taking a packet out of his pocket; and they both returned into the office, and Mr. Phippen walked to the iron safe, and began unlocking it; but the key, which though a comparatively small one for so large a lock, generally opened with such ease, now refused to turn in the lock. Mr. Phippen took it out and examined the wards, when he discovered the impediment to consist in a small piece of wax which blocked up one of the interstices. 'Gad, that's odd too," said he, removing it, and placing it in a piece of paper which he put into his waistcoat pocket. "Have you been

in the office ever since I left to-day, Levens?"

'Yes, Sir, except for about a quarter of an hour at four o'clock, when I went out to post some letters."

"And who did you leave here when you went to the post?" "Sedgemore, Sir."

'Humph! and was he alone when you came back?"

"No, Sir, there were two persons with him, a Mr. Smith and a Mr. Jones."

"Who are they?"

"Well, I don't exactly know, Sir; but I believe they are friends of Sir Titaniferous Thompson.'

"How the deuce did Sedgemore become acquainted with them ?"

"I'm sure I don't know, Sir, but he appears to be very with them?"

intimate

"Oh! he does, eh?" and Mr. Phippen pulled his right ear and mused for a few seconds, and then said--"I tell you what, Levens, I wish you'd put on your hat, take a cab and go to Chubbs's, and bring back a man with you directly, with several locks on the same plan as this one-that is, large triple or quadruple locks with small keys. 'Gad! I'll have this lock changed."

"I think you are right, Sir."

Why, do you suspect anything, Levens? 'Pon my life I begin to think you do."

"No, Sir; only I don't know what to make of that piece of wax being wedged between the wards of that key, for had it fallen accidently from a candle, it would have been on the surface."

Right, Tom; so it behoves me to wax cautious."

Why, with so many papers and other things of such immense value, I think it does, Sir," said the former, as he put on his hat and left the office. In little more than half an hour he returned with a locksmith and an assortment of locks.

"You must take care, my man," said Mr. Phippen to the smith, "to put on a lock as different from the one you take off, as possible."

“This one, Sir, is quite as secure, if not more so than yours; but it is on a totally different principle, and that key of your old

lock would not even go in, much less turn in it," and the smith filed and screwed, and screwed and filed away at the ponderous lock, as expeditiously as possible, so that at the expiration of an hour he had taken off the old one and put on the new; which old lock, with the key, Mr. Phippen placed inside the safe, where he found all his deeds, documents, and other matters intact.

"Thank you, much obleeged to you; here's half a-crown for yourself, and send me the bill of the lock."

"I return you many thanks, Sir," said the smith, gathering up his tools and basket, and pulling the fore-lock of his hair as he made his exit.

Now, Tom," said Mr. Phippen, as he attached the new key to his watch-chain, "tell me what you suspect; for, for some time past, it has struck me that you had something on your mind."

But Tom Levens, who determined not to communicate his suspicions till they were converted into certainties, but to narrowly watch his fellow clerk on all occasions, merely replied, as he cast down his eyes, and advanced the tip of his right boot, with geometrical exactness, to a parallelogram in the pattern of the floor-cloth

"Well, Sir, as you have been good enough to take sufficient interest in me to remark it, I have had something on my mind, but it only relates to my own affairs, Sir; for, with regard to yours, you may rely upon my vigilance in not losing sight of them night or day, and till I have something more than suspicions to go upon, I would rather keep them to myself."

"I've nothing to say against that, Tom, as I approve of it entirely," said Mr. Phippen, seating himself in his green morocco easy-chair, and leaning back in it, to show that he was in no hurry, but, with his usual kindness, was ready and willing to hear whatever concerned or affected the person addressing him.

"You are very good, Sir," said Tom Levens, hastily drawing back the point of his boot from that particular parallelogram, as if it had been a bait, and that something had suddenly nibbled at it. "Very good; and, indeed, but for your goodness to everybody, and-and-more particularly-to-to-somebody," but here he could get no farther, and fairly broke down, like some Parliamentary orator, who had suddenly forgotten one of the chief" hits," in his long and elaborately prepared impromptu speech.

"Oh!" said Mr. Phippen, with a malicious twinkle in his eye, as he plunged three of the fingers of both hands into his waistcoat pockets, instead of holding out a helping hand to his poor clerk, so there is a somebody in the case? Well, Tom, every one knows their own affairs best; but I have always understood-however, mind you, I only go by hearsay-that those somebodies, when they get into a heart, do as much mischief as nobody in a house, and, in the same way too, all in the smashing and breaking line, and

turning everything topsy-turvy. But, if the question is not indiscreet, may I ask who the young lady is?"

"She-that-it-is not a young lady, Sir," stammered the

clerk.

"Then what the deuce is it-not an old one I hope ?" "Oh! no, Sir-ne-no-its-its-she's

"All my fancy painted her," sang Mr. Phippen, waving his right hand in a theatrical manner, and finally placing it on his heart a touch of Alice Grey, eh?"

"No, Sir, not grey, only-only-a widow's cap, Sir," said Mr. Levens, with a sort of courage screwed to the sticking point desperation, and biting his lips cruelly, as his eyes wandered from one extreme angle of the floor to the other.

"Oh! only a widow's cap; well, that is both modest and economical; as I suppose, the 'doing up' of them, as Sârah Nash calls it, is not more than sixpence a week; whereas, had there been a widow in it, that, by rendering the enterprise considerably more expensive, might have made it imprudent. And where do you mean to take a band-box for it?"

The grave solemnity with which Mr. Phippen put this question, seemed at length to convey to Janet Chatterton's fiancé the incontrovertible fact that he was making a very ridiculous figure; so, taking the initiative in a faint laugh, he for a moment raised his eyes to Mr. Phippen and replied coherently

"The fact is, Sir,-if you have no objection,-I-I-wish to marry Mrs. Chatterton ?"

"I should think it would be more germain to the matter, to ascertain that she had no objection, though it is very prudent, and proper, and respectful, and all that, I must say, of you, Tom, to consult me first. Very much so; and I'm sure the lady will like you all the better for it, as it proves you are not hurried away by any foolish impetuosity of feeling-a thing women never forgive; more especially widows," said Mr. Phippen, with one of his impla cable smiles. However, if you can get her consent, you shall

have mine,"

"Oh! thank you, Sir, a thousand times; I have her consent," exclaimed Mr. Levens, now quite lucidly.

"The deuce you have! then what, pray, becomes of all the honor and respect due to me in consulting me first-eh ?"

"First, or laet, Sir, my honor and respect for you, like hers, and like that of all who know you, can only increase every hour of my life."

"Ah! Sir," added the young man, as his eyes filled with tears, "it is well that there are not more like you on earth, or no one would want to go to heaven.

"Fie! fie! Tom; now that you are getting profane, I must go," said Mr. Phippen, rising and putting on his hat; "only mind, don't go and be married down at Brentford, or some out-of-the way

country church, as if you were ashamed of the transaction (as so many people, God knows, have reason to be), for I have a great many marriages on hand for next month, and I should like them all to come off together, and after all the marriages are over, you can, as the Welsh parson said when he was puzzled by tying so many couples together-sort yourselves.

And without waiting for another word, Mr. Phippen slammed to the door after him, and quitted the office.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

BEING DEBARRED FROM THE BANDS IN THE PARKS, THOSE TWO HEATHENS, TOM LEVENS AND BOB CHATTERTON, ENJOY FIELD-SPORTS ON THE SABBATH, AFTER A FASHION OF THEIR OWN. MR. TWITCHER RE-APPEARS, AND THOUGH NOT AT CHURCH OR ON THE TREASURY-BENCHES, GIVES A NEW ILLUSTRATION OF NON OMNIBUS DORMIO."

SUNDAY Morning at length came, and a beautiful morning it was, even in the still, sombre, conventicle-looking streets of the city of London; but here and there, glimpses of the blue sky were seen athwart the blackened roofs and chimneys of the gloomy houses, and the chime of church-bells swelled along the streets, and both sky, and bells, told of brighter, better, and happier things than the money-scraping traces the gnomes of commerce had left on all around.

Tom Levens had dressed himself with unusual care; and, issuing from Threadneedle-street, repaired to a neighbouring church, previous to calling for Bob at Christ's Hospital, as they both were to pass the day at Hazeltree Cottage.

Among the monkish legends is one, that an angel whipped St. Jerome for endeavouring to imitate Cicero's style; it is true, that the Abbé Cartaut adds, that it was only because he imitated him so badly. But certain it is, that our more orthodox Protestant divines are safe from flagellation on either count; and so Tom Levens thought, as he rolled out with the rest of the congregation from the city church, where he had been soporificated into finishing his morning's nap by the three-quarters of an hour verbal monotony of the preacher. But as he and young Chatterton pursued their way across the fields to Brentford, and the pressed grass returned a fragrant incense, the thanksgiving of both rose in a deep voluntary, upon its perfumed breath to the blue boundless dome of GOD's Eternal temple. Perhaps one reason why Father le Compte and all the Jesuits assert that all men of letters are atheists, (without being far wrong,) is that such men are

mere earth-worms, always studying the works of men. Did they even through Nature's horn-book of leaves and flowers, summer skies, and summer airs, study those of GOD, they might be less "clever," but they would assuredly be more wise,-for then innocence, not evil, would be their good;-or it may be, that this neglect of the Deity, so often evinced by clever materialism, is but an inverse homage to Omnipotence, and that, like the inhabitants of the city of Bartam, they offer their first-fruits to the evil spirit, and nothing to the great GOD, who they say is good, and stands in no need of these offerings.

Be this as it may, Robert Chatterton and Tom Levens went on walking, and worshipping; the ritual of the boy being a merry laugh, and the orisons of the young man, a glowing heart, full of happy thoughts; till at length the former, after a rather arduous climb over a sweet-briar hedge, exclaimed, taking off his blue soup-plate, and passing his handkerchief over his face and forehead

"Well, thank goodness I'm not a girl for life!"

"What do you mean, Bob?" laughed his companion.

'Why, look at these petticoats!" said he, holding up his heavy blue woollen garments, "they are so heavy, they catch in everything, and are as hot as a furnace besides."

"We shall soon get into the Hammersmith-road, and then we'll get into an omnibus."

And accordingly, in ten minutes more, they found themselves in that road, and hailed an omnibus that was rattling down from Kensington. Fortunately, it had but one inside-passenger, as the others preferred broiling on the roof. But that one was a distinguished one, being no less a personage than Newton Twitcher, Esq., M.P., for Muddle-cum-Fudge, who was en route to Chiswick, to pass the day with a rich maiden aunt, from whom he had expectations; for when does young England ever pass days, or even sacrifice minutes to maiden aunts without expectations? Mr. Twitcher's first move in finding himself in the promiscuous locality of a public conveyance, was always to twirl the capillary phantoms that should have been a moustache; and the next, to lose no time à propos de bore, or merely de bottes, in letting the natives know that he, Mr. Newton Twitcher, was a segment of the legislative wisdom of Great Britain. So on the present occasion, seeing the two intelligent faces before him, he first twirled Stubble No. One, and next Stubble No. Two, and then, addressing himself particularly to Tom Levens, said

"What is your opinion of the peace? We in the House of Commons are much divided, both as to its advantages, and its duration."

"I cannot say," replied the other, without being at all awed by the high honor of speaking to a senator, "that I think much of it; there is everything in this particular peace, to remind one of

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