Master Muff.-- “A eye like Ma's to threaten and command--” The subdued master-mason felt the full force of this line, to which his son Guy's appropriate pronunciation and personal stare gave a _new reading_. Here the juvenile spouter broke down, upon which Mrs. Flumgarten took his voice under her patronage, and having prevailed on him to try a song, the “young idea” began in an excruciating wheeze, as if a pair of bellows had been invited to sing, the following _morceau_. “More so,” said Mrs. Muff, encouragingly, “because pa said it was almost good enough to be sung a Sundays after _Tabernacle_.” There was a little bird, His cage hung in the hall; On Monday morning, May the third, He couldn't sing at all. And for this reason, mark, Good people, great and small, Because the pussey, for a lark, Had eat him, bones and all. “Ah!” cried Aunt F. approvingly, “that is a song! None of your frothy comic stuff that _some folks_ (!!) is so fond of.” She now entertained Uncle Timothy with an account, full of bombast and brag, of some grand weddings that had recently been celebrated in the Fubsy family,--the _Candlerigs_ having condescended to adulterate the patrician blood of St. Giles's in-the-Fields with the plebeian puddle of the City Gardens, the sometime suburban retreat of the Fubsys, where they farmed a magnificent chateau, which, like the great Westphalian Baron de Thunder-tan-trounck's, had a door and a window. Uncle Timothy, to change the subject, called on Mr. Brutus Muff for a song. “I never heered Mr. Muff sing, Mr. Timwig,” chimed the sisters simultaneously. “Indeed! Then, ladies, it will be the greater novelty. Come, my good sir; but first a glass of wine with you.” “Oh, Mr. Timwiddy, you will make Mr. Muff quite top-heavy! It must only be a half a glass,” said Mrs. Muff, authoritatively. “The top half, if you please, madam,” said the middle-aged gentleman; and he poured out the “regal purple stream” till it kissed, without flowing over, the brim. Mr. Muff brought the bumper to a level with his lips, and, as if half ashamed of what he was doing, put both halves out of sight! “Is the man mad?” cried the amazed Mrs. Muff. “Has he lost his senses?” ejaculated the bewildered Mrs. Flumgarten. “He has found them, rather,” whispered the satirical-nosed gentleman. The bland looks and persuasive tones of Uncle Timothy, to say nothing of the last bumper, had wrought wonders on the master-mason. He looked Silenus-like and rosy, and glanced his little peering eyes across the table--Mrs. Muff having a voice too in the affair--for an assenting nod from the fierce black velvet turban of his better and bigger half. But Mrs. Muff made no sign, and he paused irresolute; when another kind word from the middle-aged gentleman encouraged him, at all hazards, to begin with,