[Illustration: "I PUSHED AND PUSHED."] "However, after they had called several times my tenants decided to return. I could hear their heavy boots upon the staircase, and in a few moments the whole house was snoring like a country clock. This was all I had been waiting for. I looked out. "The place was deserted; all the houses were in darkness. Good for me! I redescended quickly, drew my Hofmann from beneath the bench, stood him upright, raised him on my back, like a burden, or a bale. But wasn't he heavy, the brigand! What with his weight, my terror, and the want of food, I was afraid that I should not have strength to reach my destination. Then no sooner had I reached the centre of the quay than I heard someone walking behind me. I turned round. There was no one! The moon was rising. I said to myself, 'I must look out; the sentries will fire!' "To add to my trouble the Seine was low. If I had cast the corpse on the bank it would have remained there as in a cistern. I went on; no water! I could not go out any farther: my breath came thick and short. I panted. At length when I thought I had gone far enough, I threw down my load. There he goes into the mud! I pushed and pushed! _Hue!_ There! "Fortunately a puff of wind came up from the east, the river rose a little, and I felt the 'Maccabee' leave his moorings gently. Pleasant journey to him! I took a draught of water, and quickly mounted the bank. * * * * * "As I passed the bridge at Villeneuve the people were gazing at something black in the water. At that distance it had the appearance of a wherry. It was my Prussian, who was coming down on the current, in the middle of the stream!" [Illustration] _Portraits of Celebrities at different times of their Lives._ [Illustration: _From a Painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A._ AGE 22.] ALFRED TENNYSON. BORN 1809. The novel portrait gallery which is here commenced, and in which it is our purpose to give portraits, month by month, of the most eminent men and women of the day at different times of life, cannot be more fitly opened than with those of the great poet whose name has been for more than fifty years the glory of our literature. Portraits of Lord Tennyson in youth are rare; but Lord Tennyson himself has had the kindness to assist us. "Mayall, of Regent-street," he writes, "has done the best photograph, and Cameron, of 70, Mortimer-street, has a photograph, as a young man, from a portrait by Lawrence." These are the two here reproduced. Both have a special interest, besides the interest of comparison which belongs to all the series: the first, as a portrait of the poet, by one of the best artists of that day, at an age when his first volume--tiny, but of dazzling promise--had just been given to the world; and the second, as that which Lord Tennyson regards as the best portrait of himself in later life. [Illustration: _From a Photograph by Mayall, Regent Street._ AGE 52.] PROF. BLACKIE.