WALLOPS on being consulted said, he thought it ought to be a matter of another two shillings a-week in his wages; to which I demurred, and it was finally compromised on the basis of a rise of a shilling a-week. As far as I have observed, SARK'S device, like many others he has put forward, has nothing in it. WALLOPS couldn't be slower in going round than is ARPACHSHAD. The only time he ever displays any animation is when he discovers some fresh disaster. When things are going well (which isn't often) he is gloomy and apprehensive of an early change for the worse. When the worst comes he positively beams over it. Difficult to say whether he enjoys himself more in an over-wet season, or in one of drought. His special and ever-recurring joy is the discovery of some insect breaking out in a fresh place. He is always on the look-out for the Mottled Amber Moth, or the Frit-fly, or the Currant Scale, or the Apple-bark Beetle, or the Mustard Beetle,--"Black Jack," as he familiarly calls him. To see, as is not unfrequent, a promising apple-tree, cherry-tree, or damson-tree, fading under the attack of the caterpillars of the Winter Moth, makes ARPACHSHAD a new man. His back unbends, his wrinkles smooth out, the gleam of faded youth reillumines his countenance, and his eyes melt in softer glance. "The flies hev got at them honions," he said, on this Spring afternoon. "I thought they would, and I reckon they're done for. Ever seen a honion-fly, Sir? A nice, lively, busy-looking thing; pretty reddish-grey coat, with a whitish face, and pale grey wings. About this time of the year it lays its eggs on the sheath of the onion-leaf, and within a week you've got the larvey burrowing down into the bulb; after which, there's hardly any hope for your honion." "Can nothing be done to save them?" SARK asked. As far me, I was too down-hearted to speak. "Well," said ARPACHSHAD, ruefully, not liking the prospect of interfering with beneficent Nature, "if you was to get a bag of soot, wait about till a shower was a coming on, carefully sprinkle the plant, and let the soot wash in, _that_ might save a few here and there. Or if you were to get a can of paraffin, and syringe them, it would make the fly sit up. But I don't know as how it's worth the trouble. Nater will have its way, and, if the fly wants the honion, who are we that we should say it nay? I think, TOBY, M.P., if I was you, I'd let things take their swing. It's a terrible thing to go a interfering with Nater."