Long time ago, when public roads In far Van Diemen's Land, Were only fit for frogs and toads, Composed of pools and sand; (For folks had not tried newest modes Of making wood-ways grand); And narrow wheels, and heavy loads, Made ups and downs on every hand: Long time ago, When things were so, By some arch wag it was averr'd The following incident occurr'd.-- It chanced, on one of old October's days, A traveller was travelling along, And, as he jolted in his strong-spring'd chaise, "Beguiled the tedious minutes" with a song: When, lo! a hat upon a pool he sees, That did not seem to feel the "balmy breeze," But in the middle kept its place! As if it had resolved, with honest pride, Not to be driven down upon the side, When it might hold the central space. The traveller got out, and took it up,-- Most strange!--a head beneath the hat appears, Whose hair had of the puddle ta'en a sup, And now was weeping dirty-looking tears:-- "How?" said the traveller, "why! how is this? You've sunk a precious depth, my friend, in mud; How did you 'come to go' so much amiss, As walk in muddy water--in cold blood?-- Ye gods! why, sir, you must have been like lead, So deep into this puddle to have gone." "If _I'm so deep_," the other gruffly said, "_Where, where, must be the horse that I am on?_" "Accidents of that sort will happen in the best regulated countries," remarked a modern Traveller, who had now, with an air of subdued jollity, taken his place amongst us, and who was distinguished among his familiars as Illustrious Tom, "though I can't say I ever witnessed such an adventure in Cheapside. But you call to mind a home-adventure, a scene at Bolton. Most towns, you must know, in almost every county, can boast of their little evening coterie, in which the affairs of the nation are more or less learnedly discussed, and where the wags of the place play off their jokes, practical, comical, or serious. It generally happens, too, that these congregated sons of smoke (for smokers they all are) take up some district name; as the 'Bolton Trotters,' the 'Wigan Badgers,' the 'Item Dolls,' the 'Corporation of the King's Arms Kitchen,' the 'Quarter of Hundred Bricks,' or a hundred other names that might be mentioned; and all these coteries are composed of about the same materials, the doctors, lawyers, retired tradesmen, country squires, and budding wags. It may be my province by and by to detail a few of the farcicalities which I have either taken part in, or heard related by some old Brick-Badger, Trotter, or Doll. For the present, here is a tale, related to me with many a deep sigh by an old one, whose trot is now reduced to a most miserable shamble.