"Wasn't we though," sighed the proprietor, with a significant nod, "in that ere precious pourer yisterday--we wasn't thin, eh?--oh, not at all!"-- "Vell, don't founder, old boy. Come, go up, go up, and then the people'll follow you!" "Not they," returned the dejected man; "They hasn't the sperit, Jim. They sneeks avay to the gin-shops and destroys their morals--gets drunk, and goes home and whacks their innercent wives--here's a precious state o' things for a civilised country!" "Vell, niver mind. See, your good woman's a-calling of yer; go up to her, for down here yer looks as miserable as a fish out o' water. Ve all regrets it, but if yer perfession is ruined, vy, try your hand in some other line, that's all." "Niver! niver, Jim!" cried the indomitable showman; "I wos _born_ in a wan--I wos _edicated_ in a wan--I've _lived_ in a wan, and--I'll _die_ in a wan!" Saying which, he rushed frantically up the steps, vented the first burst of his feelings in a terrific flourish upon the trumpet, and ultimately calmed down at the barrel organ. Very soon after, St Paul's sonorous voice spoke his dismal fiat, and as he tolled out the eleventh hour, seemed to ring the knell of our dear departed Bartholomew Fair. ALPHA. OMNIBUS CHAT. We were led by accident, the other day, into certain odd speculations upon THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. Who was it that astonished his hearers by declaring that beefsteak-pudding always put him in mind of Westminster Abbey? It was the same man who responded to the "Why?" by saying, "O! I don't know why, but it _does_!"