week the wealth a boy acquired behind his counter; so his apprentices got no salary. Then why not shut up the old rogue's shutters, and excite a little sympathy for him, to be followed by a powerful reaction on his return from walking; and go and offer his own services on the cricket-ground to field for the gentlemen by the hour, or bowl at a shilling on their balls? “Bowling is the lay for me,” said he; “you get money for that, and you only bruise the gents a bit and break their thumbs: you can't put their vital sparks out as you can at this work.” By a striking coincidence the most influential member of the cricket club passed while Dick was in this quandary. “Oh, Mr. Halfred, you was always very good to me on the ground--you couldn't have me hired by the club, could ye? For I am sick of this trade; I wants to bowl.” “You little duffer!” said Alfred, “cricket is a recreation, not a business. Besides, it only lasts five months. Unless you adjourn to the anitipodes. Stick to the shop like a man, and make your fortune.” “Oh, Mr. Halfred,” said Dick sorrowfully, “how can I find fortune here? Jenner don't pay. And the crowner declares he will not have it; and the Barton _Chronicle_ says us young gents ought all to be given a holiday to go and see one of us hanged by lot. But this is what have broke this camel's back at last; here's a dalled thing to come smiling and smirking in with, and put it across a counter in a poor boy's hand. Oh! oh! oh!” “Dick,” said Alfred, “if you blubber, I'll give you a hiding. You have stumbled on a passage you can't construe. Well, who has not? But we don't shed the briny about it. Here, let me have a go at it.” “Ah! I've heard you are a scholard,” said Dick, “but you won't make out this; there's some new preparation of mercury, and there's musk, and there's horehound, and there's a neutral salt: and dal his old head that wrote it!” “Hold your jaw, and listen, while I construe it to you. _'Die Mercurii,_ on Wednesday--_decima hora vespertina,_ at ten o'clock at night--_eat in Musca:'_ what does that mean? _'Eat in Musca?'_ I see! this is modern Latin with a vengeance. 'Let him go in a fly to the Towns-hall. _Saltet,_ let him jump--_cum tredecim caniculis,_ with thirteen little dogs--_praesertim meo,_ especially with my little dog.' Dicky, this prescription emanates from Bedlam direct. _'Domum reddita'_--hallo! it is a woman, then. 'Let _her_ go in a fly to the--Town-hall, eh?' 'Let _her_ jump, no, dance, with thirteen whelps, especially mine.' Ha! ha! ha! And who is the woman that is to do all this I wonder?” “Woman, indeed!” said a treble at the door! “no more than I am; it's for a young lady. O jiminy!” This polite ejaculation was drawn out by the speaker's sudden recognition of Alfred, who had raised his head at her remonstrance, and now started in his turn; for it was the black-eyed servant of Albion Villa. They looked at one another in expressive silence.