tall, robust companion is a character--a perfect original. He will hug, and pet, and caress you with the tenderness of a captivated maiden, all for a picayune; and when he has thus fondled it out of your possession, having no prospect of realizing more, he would as lovingly kick you out of doors for a ha’penny--thus making you as profitable a customer as the circumstances could possibly admit. Headlong and heedless withal, his actions ever in advance of his thoughts, he is a mass of locomotive matter, tumbling about on the earth, with no idea to accomplish, no purpose to fulfil. This is not the only one, reflected Peter, who has, by some comical dispensation of nature, been placed outside of his orbit, as if it designed to exhibit what a fickle whirligig can be made of man by unhinging his directing power. Look to that building yonder. The gentleman who has just entered it is a modern reformer. He railed against the evil habits of men, and the sinful and dishonest practices of the world, until sent to the penitentiary for having attached another man’s name to a small piece of bankable paper. The imitation was good, but unfortunately for him history had chronicled the adventures of Saavadra, the famous and somewhat romantic nuncio of Portugal, and having failed, in his mania for improvement, to improve upon this noted forger, he atoned for his unsuccessful attempt by faithfully serving the full period of his sentence. He is now riding his hobby-horse of “Reform” again, with even greater boldness than before. This may be owing to the extra courage acquired, or perhaps to the change effected in the times, during the period which he devoted to solitary meditations. The sledge-hammer mode of reform has since accomplished marvels and become highly fashionable; but it is now greatly feared that many too charitable fellows, in their exceedingly magnanimous efforts to drive the erring back from the brink of perdition, will stand a very excellent chance of tumbling in themselves. He has abandoned the task of persuading for the more exalted one of coercing, which may prove more profitable; but should he branch out a second time upon his own responsibility, it is hoped he may realize his ideas of improvement by choosing some species of roguery wherein he shall leave no historical example unexcelled. It is no uncommon occurrence of the ludicrous in life, reflected Peter, to see those in whom the ordinary thief could not confide, suddenly become reformers, and find patrons for their presumption and fools to regard them as patterns of moral propriety.