life—was all she wanted to know. Thus matters went on, the hatred of Mrs. Coddle toward Elcy Sandboys increasing in a direct ratio with the liking of the Major for the same person, and when the housekeeper learnt that the intended visit of the Sandboys to the Exhibition, in company with the Major, had been postponed by the amputation of his wooden leg, she was as delighted at first as she was annoyed on hearing afterwards that the Cumberland folk had been prevailed upon by the Major to remain in London until such time as he could get his leg repaired, and fulfil his engagement with them. Indeed the Major, much to Mrs. Coddle’s discomfort, would not listen to the departure of his friends, and promised to make all haste in providing himself with a new limb, expressly for their visit to the Crystal Palace. Accordingly, he set himself to work, thinking what kind of a new leg he should have, and whom he should get to make it. This time he made up his mind he would employ a person who had some experience in the line, for the last leg he had made was by a mere novice, and had cost him no little trouble; at first the manufacturer had constructed it of too great a length, and it had made him lean on one side, for all the world like a human tower of Pisa,—then the man cut it down too short, and he had been thrown from one side to the other, like a fresh-water sailor in a heavy swell,—then, too, the fellow had manufactured the thing out of green stuff, and it had warped so, that the wooden leg positively looked bandy. Having by these cogent reasons convinced himself that it would be far better to place his leg in the hands of an experienced artificer, the Major next began to debate within himself as to what should be the style and material of the limb. One thing he had made his mind up to; he was not going to continue in the Greenwich pensioner style any longer, hobbling about on a leg that was as straight, and had no more symmetry in it than a stork’s. No! he would have a cork one. He had often seen in the shops some beautiful fellows, with a black silk stocking over them, and a calf as plump as a footman’s in high life. Yes! he would despatch a letter that moment to the very place where he remembered having seen one worthy of a fashionable physician in the window. Accordingly, he hopped along to his desk, as best he could, and scribbled a hasty summons to the artificial limb-maker. It was not long before the human centipede—the modern Briaræus—the Argus of the nineteenth century, made his appearance; and having learnt from the Major the nature of the accident, proceeded to describe to the gentleman the quality of the several artifices at present in vogue for supplying the various defects in the human frame. The limb-maker had an odd way with him of describing the respective artificial appurtenances of his business, as if they were his own individual possessions, and formed part of his own frame, instead of his stock in trade.