She glanced up at me as she spoke with such a pretty air of deprecation, so like a petted child, that I could not find heart to scold her. Indeed her captivating ways so fascinated me, that although I saw much to disapprove, I was disposed to be very lenient towards her faults. SELLS. It would puzzle a philologer to give an exact definition of the ‘sell.’ Nearly related to the hoax, it differs from it in being more innocent in its inception and less mischievous in its consequences. Some little ingenuity is required to concoct a happy ‘sell;’ but any one may perpetrate a hoax who is equal to ‘lending a lie the confidence of truth.’ The latter is a deliberately planned deception, oftenest attaining its end by personation or forgery or something closely akin to it; whereas a sell needs no such playing with edged tools, and may not only be unpremeditated, but even unintentional. The Irishman who undertook to shew an exciseman a private still, and introduced him to his brother, who had been twelve years in the army and was a private still, sold the guardian of the revenue very neatly; although it is possible the victim of the joke did not see the fun of the thing, any more than the official of the North London Railway Company did, when, overhearing a third-class passenger aver that any one could travel from Broad Street to Dalston Junction without a ticket, as he had done only the day before, he interviewed him when he alighted. The traveller not proving communicative, the zealous railway servant conveyed a coin into his hand, and then asked: ‘How did you go from Broad Street to Dalston Junction yesterday without a ticket?’ ‘Oh,’ was the unwelcome reply, ‘I walked!’ As readily trapped was the amateur musician who responded to the advertisement: ‘Wanted, a trombone-player for Barnum’s Balcony Band,’ by waiting upon the famous showman without delay. ‘You want a trombone-player?’ inquired he. ‘Yes,’ said Mr Barnum. ‘What is the place worth?’ asked the applicant. ‘Oh, about twenty-five dollars a week, I suppose.’ ‘Very well, I should like it.’ ‘All right,’ said Mr Barnum; and the trombone did frightful execution through the week. Saturday came, and with it Mr Green for his salary, instead of drawing which, he received a paper on which was written: ‘Mr Green to Mr P. T. Barnum.—To playing the trombone on his Balcony one week, twenty-five dollars.’ The recipient smiled. ‘It’s all right, isn’t it?’ asked Mr Barnum. ‘Why,’ said the musician, ‘you’ve made an odd mistake: you’ve made me the debtor instead of you.’