Mr. Tumbler was one day passing along the street, when his attention was arrested by a stone jug, which he observed beside an awning-post. He stopped, looked a moment at the vessel, and then at the pavers who were working in the street, and to whom the jug evidently belonged. Mr. Tumbler then reflected a moment, turned about to satisfy himself that no one observed him, picked up the jug, shook it, reconnoitred again, hesitated an instant, and placing it under his coat, leisurely walked on. Unfortunately, however, for his success, the jug was missed. He was seen, suspected, pursued, caught, and taken by the collar before his honor the mayor. That dispenser of justice was induced to believe that he was an old offender; and accordingly ordered his pockets to be examined. But however Mr. Tumbler might have erred, in regard to the abstraction of the jug, he was nevertheless innocent of other crimes of the kind; and nothing rewarded the search, save an onion, and the fragment of a Bologna sausage. He was, however, in consequence of the affair on hand, imprisoned in the city gaol for the space of thirty days; which confinement, we have been informed, he bore with the resignation of a Christian, and the fortitude of a hero. At length he was released; but he came out an altered man. His spirits had been broken down by the disgrace he had suffered, and he now plunged deeper than ever into dissipation, seeking in its excitement to drive away the memory of the past. Happy, indeed, would it have been, had his sensibilities been less refined; but, like the flower which shrinks from the touch, he avoided all intercourse with his fellow-men, wrapping himself up in the gloom of his own thoughts, neglecting his jews-harp, neglecting himself, and neglected by the world. Not a great while after our hero's release from incarceration, he might have been observed strolling leisurely along the wharf, with the manner of one who has no definite object of pursuit, and who is willing to amuse himself with whatever the time and place might present. As his eye rolled onward, he espied a cask, upon the head of which was written, in large black letters, the word '_Cogniac_.' But he little thought that fatal word was to him what the hand-writing upon the wall had been to the mighty Belshazzar. He little thought that the simple word 'Cogniac' was applied to him, at that moment, in as terrible a warning as was the 'Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin!' which foretold to the Chaldean king the destruction of his life and empire.