He accordingly took the morbid gentleman down into his dark cellar, and set him to work at his lathe. The officer began very languidly, and soon rose to depart. Whereupon, the mechanic forced him down again on the hard bench, and swore that if he did not do an hour’s work for him, in return for saving his life, he would instantly consign him to a policeman, and denounce him for attempting to commit suicide. At this threat the officer was so confounded, that he at once consented to do the work. When the hour was over, the mechanic insisted on a second hour, in consequence of the slowness of the work—it had not been a fair hour’s labour. In vain the officer protested, was angry, and exhausted—had the heartburn—pains in his back and limbs—and declared it would kill him. The mechanic was inexorable. ‘If it _does_ kill you,’ said he, ‘then you will only be where you would have been if I had not stopped you.’ So the officer was compelled to continue his work with an inflamed face, and the perspiration pouring down over his cheeks and chin. At last he could proceed no longer, come what would of it, and sank back in the arms of his persecuting preserver. The mechanic now placed before him his own breakfast, composed of a twopenny loaf of brown bread, and a pint of small beer; the whole of which the officer disposed of in no time, and then sent out for more. Before the boy who was despatched on this errand returned, a little conversation had ensued; and as the officer rose to go, he smilingly placed his purse, with his card, in the hands of the mechanic. The poor ragged man received them with all the composure of a physician, and with a sort of dry, grim humour which appeared peculiar to him, and the only relief of his otherwise rough and rigid character, made sombre by the constant shadows and troubles of life. But the moment he read the name on the card, all the hard lines in his deeply-marked face underwent a sudden contortion. Thrusting back the purse and card into the officer’s hand, he seized him with a fierce grip by one arm—hurried him, wondering, up the dark broken stairs, along the narrow passage—then pushed him out at the door! ‘You are the fine gentleman who tempted my daughter away!’ said he. ‘I—_your_ daughter!’ exclaimed the officer. ‘Yes, my daughter; Ellen Brentwood!’ said the mechanic. ‘Are there so many men’s daughters in the list, that you forget her name?’ ‘I implore you,’ said the officer, ‘to take this purse. _Pray_ take this purse! If you will not accept it for yourself, I entreat you to send it to her!’ ‘Go and buy a lathe with it,’ said the mechanic. ‘Work, man! and repent of your past life!’ So saying, he closed the door in the officer’s face, and descended the stairs to his daily labour. GOOD VERSES OF A BAD POET. Few things in Dryden or Pope are finer than these lines by a man whom they both continually laughed at;—Sir Richard Blackmore.