“Tell me you wont go on,” muttered Kerr Mudgeon, setting his teeth, as a rifleman sets his trigger; “I’ll make you go on, I will,” shouted he.— There’s no such word as fail with Mr. Kerr Mudgeon. Something is sure to be done when he is once fairly roused to the work. It is a rule of his to combat like with like; and so—and so—stamping his foot determinedly, and gathering all his forces for a grand demonstration against the obstinacy of tight sleeves, he carried his point as he proposed to carry it, by a rushing _coup de main_, to the material detriment of the fabric.—But what of that? Was it not a victory for Kerr Mudgeon? The coat had yielded to the force of his will; and if the victory had been gained at cost, is it not always so with victories?—Glory—is that to be had for nothing?—No—depreciate the cost of glory, and pray tell me what becomes of glory?—It is glory no longer. A luxury, to be a luxury, must be beyond the general reach—too expensive for the millions—too costly for the masses. “And now—ha! ha!—ho! ho!—he! he!—come off!” shrieked Mr. Kerr Mudgeon; “Now you’ve done all the mischief you could, come off.” Kerr Mudgeon divested himself of the fractured, but now humbled, penitent and discomfitted coat, and following up his first success, like an able tactician, he danced in a transport of joy upon its mangled fragments and its melancholy remains. Ghastly moment of triumph o’er a foe. Alas, Kerr Mudgeon be merciful to the vanquished when incapacitated for the war. But no—coolness comes not on the instant—not to the Kerr Mudgeons. They have no relationship to the Kew Cumbers. They disdain the alliance; and Mr. Kerr Mudgeon’s coat had been conquered only—not punished. “That’s what you get by being obstinate,” added he, as he kicked the expiring coat about the room, knocking down a lamp, upsetting an inkstand, and doing sundry other minor pieces of mischief all of which, of course, he charged to the account of the coat, as aforesaid—It was coat’s fault altogether. Mr. Kerr Mudgeon is not naturally in a passion. He would not have been in a passion had it not been for the coat—not he—the coat was the incendiary cause; and we trust that every coat, frock or body—sack-coat or any other of the infinite variety of coats now in existence, with all other coats that are to be, may take timely example and salutary warning from the doleful fate of Mr. Kerr Mudgeon’s coat, that there may be no sewing of tares, and an exemption from rent. A coat is never improved by participation in battle.