by arranging an effeminately long lock round and round his bare poll, and affixing it thereto with bandoline--or, it may be, glue. Occasionally, in a high wind, or in a moment of intense agitation, this lock has been known to come down, and float wildly in the breeze, like a demented pigtail. To the Major “this lock is wondrous fair,” and his most cherished vanity, and he has the impudence to discourse of “bald old fogies” with contemptuous commiseration. He is dressed in evening clothes, with much care and precision; wears a flower in his button-hole, and a diamond in his shirt, and is altogether a superior being to his shabby wife and daughter. As he deftly carves the sirloin before him, we get an inkling of his true character. For whom are those three large slices from the undercut that he so artfully sets aside, to soak in the gravy? The remainder he apportions with an impartial hand, and when the undercut is finished, he turns over the joint, and helps his customers from the less toothsome portion, but he does not dream of sharing those three appetising morsels reserved for his own most particular palate, and it is thus with him always! Whoever goes short, it will not be Tom Malone. Number one must have the best of everything. Leaving him to enjoy his dinner, we pass on to his son Denis, a young man of four and twenty, who has not thought it worth while to make any change in his dress. Denis is undeniably plain; even his fond mother--who shuts her eyes to so many things--cannot close them to this fact. He has dark, wiry, unmanageable hair, deep-set grey eyes, heavy eyebrows, heavy features, a hopeful moustache, and huge ears that stand from his head like the handles of a jug. When we add that he has a large powerful frame, with hands and feet to correspond, that he slouches as he walks, and wears his hat on the back of his head, his portrait is complete. Denis is clever and has a fair share of brains; he is one of those birds “who can sing, and won’t sing.” Whilst others toil along the dreary road of learning, he can skim the ground with comparative ease. He has a taste for mathematics, a taste for surgery, a quick eye, a steady nerve, and a profound faith in Denis Malone; but he has a still greater taste for singing racy songs of his own composition, for playing “spoil five” and “poker,” and brewing whisky punch. However, in spite of his innate idleness and love of loafing and low company, his poor infatuated mother believes that he will be a credit to her yet. “Cuckoo,” his sister, is but fourteen; therefore we will hope that she may improve, and will not cruelly epitomise her features; suffice to say that she is pale, long-legged, and sandy, and characterised by extreme unreserve, and insatiable curiosity.