Last year he made a considerable sensation by having on his table a morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always wore round his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent--emblem of eternity--with the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little morocco writing-table, as if it were on an altar--generally he had flowers upon it; in the middle of a conversation he would start up and kiss it. He would call out from his bed-room to his valet, 'Hicks, bring me my casket!' 'I don't know who it is,' Waggle would say. 'Who DOES know that fellow's intrigues! Desborough Wiggle, sir, is the slave of passion. I suppose you have heard the story of the Italian princess locked up in the Convent of Saint Barbara, at Rimini? He hasn't told you? Then I'm not at liberty to speak. Or the countess, about whom he nearly had the duel with Prince Witikind of Bavaria? Perhaps you haven't even heard about that beautiful girl at Pentonville, daughter of a most respectable Dissenting clergyman. She broke her heart when she found he was engaged (to a most lovely creature of high family, who afterwards proved false to him), and she's now in Hanwell.' Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration. 'What a genius he is, if he would but apply himself!' he whispers to me. 'He could be anything, sir, but for his passions. His poems are the most beautiful things you ever saw. He's written a continuation of “Don Juan,” from his own adventures. Did you ever read his lines to Mary? They're superior to Byron, sir--superior to Byron.' I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as Waggle; for the fact is, I had composed the verses myself for honest Wiggle one day, whom I found at his chambers plunged in thought over a very dirty old-fashioned album, in which he had not as yet written a single word. 'I can't,' says he. 'Sometimes I can write whole cantos, and to-day not a line. Oh, Snob! such an opportunity! Such a divine creature! She's asked me to write verses for her album, and I can't.' 'Is she rich?' said I. 'I thought you would never marry any but an heiress.' 'Oh, Snob! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected creature!--and I can't get out a line.' 'How will you have it?' says I. 'Hot, with sugar?' 'Don't, don't! You trample on the most sacred feelings, Snob. I want something wild and tender,--like Byron. I want to tell her that amongst the festive balls, and that sort of thing, you know--I only think about her, you know--that I scorn the world, and am weary of it, you know, and--something about a gazelle, and a bulbul, you know.' 'And a yataghan to finish off with,' the present writer observed, and we began:-- 'TO MARY 'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter rings cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and its sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, Are for thee, are for thee!'