A YOUNG counsel commenced his stammering speech with the remark, "The unfortunate client who appears by me--" and then he came to a full stop; beginning again, after an embarrassed pause with a repetition of the remark, "My unfortunate client--." He did not find his fluency of speech quickened by the calm raillery of the judge, who interposed, in his softest tone, "Pray go on, so far the court is quite _with you_." CMXCII.--FALSE ESTIMATE. KEAN once played _Young Norval_ to Mrs. Siddons's _Lady Randolph_: after the play, as Kean used to relate, Mrs. Siddons came to him, and patting him on the head, said, "You have played very well, sir, very well. It's a pity,--but there's _too little_ of you to do anything." Coleridge said of this "little" actor: "Kean is original; but he copies from himself. His rapid descent from the hyper-tragic to the infra-colloquial, though sometimes productive of great effect, are often unreasonable. To see him act, is like reading 'Shakespeare' by flashes of lightning. I do not think him thorough-bred gentleman enough to play _Othello_." CMXCIII.--AMERICAN PENANCE. AS for me, as soon as I hear that the last farthing is paid to the last creditor, I will appear on my knees at the bar of the Pennsylvanian Senate in the plumeopicean robe of American controversy. Each Conscript Jonathan shall trickle over me a few drops of tar, and help to decorate me with those penal plumes in which the vanquished reasoner of the transatlantic world does homage to the physical superiority of his opponents.--S.S. CMXCIV.--A MONEY-LENDER. THE best fellow in the world, sir, to get money of; for as he sends you half cash, half wine, why, if you can't take up his bill, you've always poison at hand for a remedy.--D.J. CMXCV.--A BAD MEDIUM. A MAN, who pretended to have seen a ghost, was asked what the ghost said to him? "How should I understand," replied the narrator, "what he said? I am not skilled in any of the _dead_ languages." CMXCVI.--TAKING A HINT. THE Bishop preached: "My friends," said he, "How sweet a thing is charity, The choicest gem in virtue's casket!" "It is, indeed," sighed miser B., "And instantly I'll go and--ask it." CMXCVII.--SWEARING THE PEACE. AN Irishman, swearing the peace against his three sons, thus concluded his affidavit: "And this deponent further saith, that the only one of his children who showed him any real filial affection was his youngest son Larry, for he _never struck him when he was down_!" CMXCVIII.--THE RULING PASSION.