Mr. Mortimer returned to London an altered man. He believed he had been "humbugged;" and so it proved. He tried to find "the solicitor," but no such person was to be found at the house he had pencilled down on his tablets. "Ah!" thought Mr. Mortimer, as he returned towards the West end,--"how lucky it was that I bethought me not to let the fellow place the types and the press in his 'office,' as he called it!" Mr. Mortimer resolved to sell the materials, get back his hundred pounds, and give up the scheme. He sent for an appraiser. The press was only fit to burn, and the types had to be sold for old metal!!-- Mr. Mortimer is _not_ in parliament yet. NICHOLAS NIXON, "GENTLEMAN," WHO COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHY, BUT WHO KNEW "IT WAS SO." Dullness was well nigh at the meridian of her reign in old Lincoln. In the solemn "precincts" of the cathedral the humble bees seemed almost afraid to disturb the solitude by a hum; and venerable maiden ladies had no vicissitude of existence, save an occasional scold at their servants, or a grumbling complaint of "short measure" to the coalman as he made his weekly call. And, indeed, the rest of the city was most autumnally tame and uninteresting. The fashionables were at the watering-places,--the throng of the working population was in the fields,--and while one tradesman complained, with a yawn, to his neighbour, that there was "nothing doing, and no money stirring," the other invariably rejoined, "No, nor won't be, till after harvest!"--and then imitated his neighbour in stretching his mouth from ear to ear. In fact, the only interesting people you met were those who endeavoured to keep you awake by collecting and pouring out several dull, disagreeable, or doleful subjects in a breath; such as the relation of the robbery of such a tradesman's shop at noon-day,--the thieves having taken advantage of the extreme dullness of the time to effect their villainous scheme;--or, the accident of the poor-fellow, the bricklayer's assistant, falling from the top of his ladder, with the hod on his head, and being taken up to the hospital;--coupled with the "remarkable fact" that he was the second husband of a poor woman whose first fell from a pear-tree, and was killed, leaving her with a large family;--with an additional half-score of disasters, if your nerves or inclination would permit you to stay and learn the sum-total of the catalogue.