--and, Mrs. Brown's brother, Mr. Barthe Brick, familiarly known as _the_ "Brick," who had just commenced a song, a parody upon Fra Diavolo,--a something very, very low, supposed to be sung by a dealer in hearth-stones; who, at the end of each verse, vociferates "who'll buy," heightening the illusion by trundling a chair, on its back, round the family circle, to represent a barrow. No one knows where the barbarous atrocities would have ended, and all before the refined strangers, too, had not the olive-branches--disposed for rest by their several mammas in the room above--all awoke at once, tumbled out of bed, and joined in a combined cry; this breaks the family circle--mothers fly to pack their turbulent innocents for travel; the candles flare, and carriages clatter, grinding the flints in the lane. John, the footman, finds he has a dozen half-crowns, and Mary seven. The last fly has departed with the little Bricks; lights appear and disappear in the bed-chambers; and the Christmas-day--that comes but once a year--has vanished, like a dream! Mr. Brown has jotted the events, in his Diary, in a hand scarcely legible. It must have been penned in a somnambulistic fit--thinking he was at a meeting of St. Stiff's vestry, in the union board-room,--for, after a list of member's present (the names of his guests), Captain de Camp in the chair, follow these minutes of proceedings:--Firstly, that one Spohf be dismissed as organist of St. Stiff's, confined in the idiot-ward, fed on water gruel, and handed over to his own parish (Vienna); proposed by Latimer, and seconded by Wellesley de Camp. The second proposition appears to be to the effect that a vagrant named Brick, dealer in hearth-stones, be confined in the refractory-ward, and fed upon bread and water. The morning after the festivities London oversleeps itself:--and, awaking, finds it boxing-day. Variegated dips are being disseminated among delighted, dirty, juveniles; whilst the boys seem chagrined at notices for "the extinction of abuses," or "suppression of Christmas-boxes;" which seems only to make them the more pertinacious at Victoria Villa: for an irregular dustman has chalked the post, and the Postman vowed to mark Mr. Brown; the Turncock is turned off; the Waits have to "wait a little longer;" and the Beadle, who declared Mr. Brown no generous churchwarden, has, withal, found enough alcohol to make him stupid before night--causing that dignitary to cry a lost boy instead of a girl, and to see twice as many posts round St. Stiff's as usual; taking half of them to be boys about to vault over the other half, he rushes on to disperse them, soundly chastising the granite. [Illustration] All the little boys secure their mites before mid-day; taking their posts at the gallery-door of a popular theatre, five hours before opening, to practise that rare virtue, patience, at the shrine of "Hot Codlings," and "George Barnwell."