“I am enemy to subscriptions of this nature; first, because my own finances are by no means in a flourishing plight; and secondly, because pecuniary assistance thus conferred, must be equally painful to the donor and the receiver. As I feel, however, the sincerest gratitude for your public services, and regard for your private worth, I have great pleasure in _subscribing_—[Here the worthy nobleman, big with expectation, turned over the leaf, and finished the perusal of the note, which terminated as follows]: in _subscribing_ myself, “My dear Sir John, “Yours, very faithfully, “ERSKINE.” ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Very bad spelling is sometimes the best, as in the case of the English beer-vender, who wrote over his shop-door: “_Bear_ sold here.” Tom Hood, who saw it, said that it was spelled right, because the fluid he sold was his own _Bruin_! Not less ingenious was the device of the quack-doctor, who announced in his printed handbills that he could instantly cure “the most obstinate _aguews_;” which orthography proved that he was no conjuror, and did not attempt to cure them by _a spell_. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ It was Punch, if we remember rightly, who told the story, some years ago, of a man who loaned an umbrella to a friend, a tradesman in his street, on a wet, nasty day. It was not returned, and on _another_ wet, disagreeable day, he called for it, but found his friend at the door, going out with it in his hand. “I’ve come for my umbrella,” exclaimed the loan-_or_. “Can’t help _that_,” exclaimed the borrower; “don’t you see that I am going out with it?” “Well—yes—” replied the lender, astounded at such outrageous impudence; “yes; but—but—but what am _I_ to do?” “Do?” replied the other, as he threw up the top, and walked off; “do? do as _I_ did: _borrow one_!” One of the best chapters in “Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures,” is where that amiable and greatly-abused angel reproaches her inhuman spouse with loaning the family umbrella: “Ah! that’s the third umbrella gone since Christmas! What were you to do? Why, let him go home in the rain. I don’t think there was any thing about _him_ that would spoil. Take cold, indeed! He does not look like one o’ the sort to take cold. He’d better taken cold, than our only umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Caudle? I say, do you _hear the rain_? Do you hear it against the windows? Nonsense; you can’t be asleep with such a shower as that. Do you _hear_ it, I say? Oh, you _do_ hear it, do you? Well, that’s a pretty flood, I think, to last six weeks, and no stirring all this time out of the house. Poh! don’t think to fool _me_, Caudle: _he_ return the umbrella! As if any body ever _did_ return an umbrella! There—do you hear it? Worse and worse! Cats and dogs for six weeks—always six weeks—and no umbrella!