_Podb._ You artful old whistling oyster, _I_ see what you're up to! But it's no go; she don't want either of us Engadining about after her. It's CHARLEY VAN STICKINTHEMUD's turn now! We've got to go to Nuremberg. You can't get out of it, after gassing so much about the place. When you've once decided, you know, it's _final_! _Culch._ (_with dignity_). I am not aware that I _wanted_ to get out of it. I merely proposed in your--(PODBURY _suddenly explodes._) What are you cackling at _now_? _Podb._ (_wiping his eyes_). It's the last laugh, old man,--and it's the best! [_CULCHARD walks away rapidly, leaving PODBURY in solitary enjoyment of the joke. PODBURY's mirth immediately subsides into gravity, and he kicks several unoffending chairs with quite uncalled-for brutality._ * * * * * A "KNOT"ICAL STORY OF DRURY LANE. (_TOLD BY OUR AGED SALT, WITH A TASTE FOR THE DIBDIN DRAMA._) [Illustration: "A Sailor Knot"--not a Sailor.] [Illustration: Losing their heads on board the _Dauntless_.] What, not remember it! Not the scene on Wapping Old Stairs and Mr. CHARLES GLENNEY in the Merchant Service, and Miss MILLWARD the Ward of Count GURNEY DELAUNAY! Not remember all that! Not recollect the pretty set with the River, the boat-house, and the figure-heads! Ah, tell it to the Marines! Not that they would believe you! I remember it, and a good deal more. Now it came about in this way. You see Miss MILLWARD thought that Lieutenant CHARLES WARNER, R.N.--"her sweetheart as a boy"--was dead, and, like a sensible young lady, made arrangements to marry his foster-brother, meaning GLENNEY. This she would have done most comfortably, had not the Count and a Boat-builder, one JULIAN CROSS PENNYCAD, objected. But after all, their opposition wouldn't have come to much hadn't Lieutenant CHARLES WARNER, R.N., taken it into his head to turn up from the Centre of Africa, or the Cannibal Islands, or somewhere. On second thoughts I don't think it could have been the Cannibal Islands, because _there_ they would have certainly eaten him--he looked so plump, and in such excellent condition. Well, Lieutenant WARNER, R.N., finding that Miss MILLWARD was on the eve of marrying Mr. GLENNEY, most nobly made room for his foster-brother, and hurried back to sea. But as luck (and Mr. HENRY PETTIT) would have it, just as the lady and gentleman were on their way to Stepney Old Church to be spliced, who should turn up in a uniform that showed him to be a fine figure of a man but Lieutenant WARNER, R.N., himself--with the Press Gang. It turned out that Lieutenant WARNER's ship was very under-manned, and that he had been ordered by his Captain to get all the sailors he could on board H.M.S. _Dauntless_--a vessel, by the way, that afterwards proved to be the very image of the _Victory_. And here came a complication. Through the treachery of JULIAN CROSS PENNYCAD, Lieutenant WARNER seized Mr. GLENNEY just as he and Miss