AMONG the very few fashionable foibles to which Mr. Wiggins was addicted, was the smoking of cigars. Attracted by the appearance of a small box marked 'Marylands—one penny each,' very much resembling lettuce-leaves with the yellow jaundice, he walked into the chandler's shop where they were displayed.

"Let us look at them cigars," said he, and then, for the first time, glancing at the smart, good-looking mistress of the emporium, he added, "if you please, ma'am—"

"Certain'y, sir."

A pretty little fist that, howsomever! thought Wiggins, as she placed the box before him.

"Vill you have a light?"

"Thank'ye, ma'am," said he, ramming the cigar into his mouth, as if he really intended to bolt it.

She twisted a slip of waste, and lighting it, presented it to her admiring customer, for it was evident, from the rapt manner in which he scanned her, that he was deeply smitten by her personal appearance.

She colored, coughed delicately, as the smoke tickled the tonsils of her throat, and looked full at the youth. Such a look! as Wiggins asserted. "I'm afeared as the smoke is disagreeable," said he.

"Oh! dear no, not at all, I assure you; I likes it of all things. I can't abide a pipe no-how, but I've quite a prevalence (predilection?) for siggers." So Wiggins puffed and chatted away; and at last, delighted with the sprightly conversation of the lady, seated himself on the small-beer barrel, and so far forgot his economy in the fascination of his entertainer, that he purchased a second. At this favourable juncture, Mrs. Warner, (for she was a widow acknowledging five-and-twenty) ordered the grinning shop-boy, who was chopping the 'lump,' to take home them 'ere dips to a customer who lived at some distance. Wiggins, not aware of the 'ruse,' felt pleased with the absence of one who was certainly 'de trop' in the engrossing 'tete-a-tete.' We will pass over this preliminary conversation; for a whole week the same scene was renewed, and at last Mrs. Warner and Mr. Wiggins used to shake hands at parting.

"Do you hever go out?" said Wiggns.

"Sildom-werry sildom," replied the widow.

"Vos you never at the Vite Cundic, or the hEagle, or any of them places on a Sunday?"

"How can I go," replied the widow, sighing, "vithout a purtector?"

Hereupon the enamoured Wiggins said, "How happy he should be," etc., and the widow said, "She was sure for her part," etc. and so the affair was settled. On the following Sunday the gallant Mr. Wiggins figged out, in his best, escorted the delighted and delightful Mrs. Warner to that place of fashionable resort, the White Conduit, and did the thing so handsomely, that the lady was quite charmed. Seated in one of the snug arbors of that suburban establishment, she poured out the hot tea, and the swain the most burning vows of attachment. "Mr. Viggins, do you take sugar?" demanded the fair widow. "Yes, my haingel," answered he, emphatically. "I loves all wot's sweet," and then he gave her such a tender squeeze! "Done—do—you naughty man!" cried she, tapping him on the knuckles with the plated sugar-tongs, and then cast down her eyes with such a roguish modesty, that he repeated the operation for the sake of that ravishing expression. Pointing his knife at a pat of butter, he poetically exclaimed, "My heart is jist like that—and you have made a himpression on it as time will never put out!" "I did'nt think as you were quite so soft neither," said the widow. "I ham," replied the suitor—"and there," continued he, cutting a hot roll, and introducing the pat, "I melts as easily afore the glance of your beautiful heyes!" Resolved to carry on the campaign with spirit, he called for two glasses of brandy and water, stiff, and three cigars! And now, becoming sentimental and communicative, he declared, with his hand upon his heart, that "hif there vos a single thing in life as would make him completely happy, it vos a vife!"

The Courtship of Mr. Wiggins.

Mr. Wiggins was so intoxicated with love, brandy-and-water and cigars, that he scarcely knew how he reached home. He only remembered that he was very dizzy, and that his charming widow—his guide and friend—had remonstrated with him upon the elevation of his style, and the irregularity of his progression.

With his head in his hand, and a strong "dish of tea" without milk, before him, he was composing himself for business the following morning, when an unexpected visitor was announced.

"Please, sir, there's Mrs. Warner's 's boy as wants to speak vith you," said his landlady.

"Show him up," languidly replied our lover, throwing his aching head from his right to his left hand.

"Vell, Jim, vot's the matter!" demanded he—"How's your missus?"

"She ain't no missus o' mine no longer," replied Jim.

"How?"

"I tell you vot it is, sir, she promised to give me a shillin'-aweek an' my feed; an' she ain't done vun thing nor t' other; for I'm bless'd if I ain't starved, and ain't seen the color of her money sin' I bin there. Father's goin' to summon her."

"It's some mistake, sure?"

"It's no mistake tho'," persisted Jim, "an' I can tell you she ain't got a farden to bless herself vith!—an' she's over head-and-ears in debt too, I can tell you; an' she pays nobody—puttin' 'em all off, vith promises to pay wen she's married."

"My heye!" exclaimed the excited Wiggins, thrown all a-back by this very agreeable intention upon his funds.

"More nor that, sir," continued the revengeful Jim, "I know she thinks as she's hooked a preshus flat, an' means to marry you outright jist for vot she can get. An' von't she scatter the dibs?—that's all; she's the extravagantest 'ooman as hever I came anigh to."

"But, (dear me! ) she has a good stock—?"

"Dummies, sir, all dummies."

"Dummies?"

"Yes, sir; the sugars on the shelves is all dummies—wooden 'uns, done up in paper! The herrin' tub is on'y got a few at top—the rest's all shavins an' waste.—There's plenty o' salt to be sure—but the werry soap-box is all made up."

"And so's my mind!" emphatically exclaimed the deluded Wiggins, slapping the breakfast-table with his clenched fist.

"Jim—Jim—you're a honest lad, and there's half-a-crown for you—"

"Thank'ye for me, sir," said the errand-boy, grinning with delight—" and—and you'll cut the missus, Sir!"

"For ever!—"

"Hooray! I said as how I'd have my rewenge!" cried the lad, and pulling the front of his straight hair, as an apology for a bow, he retreated from the room.

"What an escape!" soliloquized Wiggins—"Should n't I ha' bin properly hampered? that's all. No more insinniwating widows for me!—"

And so ended the Courtship of Mr. Wiggins.

The Itinerant Musician.

A WANDERING son of Apollo, with a shocking bad hat, encircled by a melancholy piece of rusty crape, and arrayed in garments that had once shone with renovated splendour in that mart of second-hand habiliments 'ycleped Monmouth-street, was affrighting the echoes of a fashionable street by blowing upon an old clarionet, and doing the 'Follow, hark!' of Weber the most palpable injustice.

The red hand of the greasy cook tapped at the kitchen-window below, and she scolded inaudibly—but he still continued to amuse—himself, as regardless of the cook's scolding as of the area-railing against which he leaned, tuning his discordant lay.

His strain indeed appeared endless, and he still persevered in torturing the ambient air with, apparently, as little prospect of blowing himself out as an asthmatic man would possibly have of extinguishing a smoky link with a wheeze—or a hungry cadger without a penny!

The master of the mansion was suffering under a touch of the gout, accompanied by a gnawing tooth-ache!—The horrid noise without made his trembling nerves jangle like the loose strings of an untuned guitar.

A furious tug at the bell brought down the silken rope and brought up an orbicular footman.

"William"

"Yes, sir."

"D—— that, etc.! and send him to, etc.!"

"Yes, sir."

And away glided the liveried rotundity.—

Appearing at the street-door, the musician took his instrument from his lips, and, approaching the steps, touched his sorry beaver with the side of his left hand.

"There's three-pence for you," said the menial, "and master wishes you'd move on."

"Threepence, indeed!" mumbled the man. "I never moves on under sixpence: d'ye think I doesn't know the walley o' peace and quietness?"

"Fellow!" cried the irate footman, with a pompous air—"Master desires as you'll go on."

"Werry well"—replied the other, touching his hat, while the domestic waddled back, and closed the door, pluming himself upon having settled the musician; but he had no sooner vanished, than the strain was taken up again more uproariously than ever.

Out he rushed again in a twinkling—

"Fellow! I say—man! vot do you mean?"

"Vy, now didn't you tell me to go on?"

"I mean't go off."

"Then vy don't you speak plain hinglish," said the clarionist; "but, I say, lug out t'other browns, or I shall say vot the flute said ven his master said as how he'd play a tune on him."

"Vot vos that?"

"Vy, he'd be blow'd if he would!"

"You're a owdacious fellow."

"Tip!" was the laconic answer, accompanied by an expressive twiddling of the fingers.

"Vell, there then," answered the footman, reluctantly giving him the price of his silence.

"Thank'ye," said the musician, "and in time to come, old fellow, never do nothin' by halves—'cept it's a calve's head!"

Oh! lor, here's a norrid thing.'

The Confessions of a Sportsman.

"VELL, for three year, as sure as the Septembers comes, I takes the field, but somehow or another I never takes nothin' else! My gun's a good 'un and no mistake!—Percussions and the best Dartford, and all that too. My haim ain't amiss neither; so there's a fault somewhere, that's certain. The first time as I hentered on the inwigorating and manly sport, I valks my werry legs off, and sees nothin' but crows and that 'ere sort o' small game.

"I vos so aggrawated, that at last I lets fly at 'em in werry spite, jist as they vos a sendin' of their bills into an orse for a dinner.

"Bang! goes the piece;—caw! caw! goes the birds; and I dessay I did for some on 'em, but I don't know, for somehow I vos in sich a preshus hurry to bag my game, that I jumps clean over vun bank, and by goles! plump into a ditch on t'other side, up to my werry neck!

"The mud stuck to me like vax; and findin' it all over vith me, and no chance o' breaking a cover o' this sort, I dawdled about 'till dusk, and vos werry glad to crawl home and jump into bed. I vos so 'put out' that I stayed at home the rest o' that season.

"The second year come, and my hardor vos agin inflamed. 'Cotch me a-shootin' at crows,' says I.—Vell, avay I goes a-vhistling to myself, ven presently I see a solentary bird on the wing; 'a pariwidge, by jingo!' says I—I cocks—presents, and hits it! Hooray! down it tumbles, and afore I could load and prime agin, a whole lot o' 'em comes out from among the trees. 'Here's luck' says I; and jist shouldered my piece, ven I gets sich a vop behind as sent me at full length.

"'Vot's that for?' says I.

"'Vot are you a shootin' at my pigeons for?' says a great hulking, farmering-looking fellow.

"A hexplanation follered; and in course I paid the damage, vich stood me a matter of a suv'rin, for he said he'd take his davy as how it vos a waluable tumbler!—I never sees a 'go' o' rum and vater but vot I thinks on it. This vos a sickener.

"The third year I vos hout agin as fresh as a daisy, ven I made a haim at a sparrer, or a lark, or summit o' that kind—hit it, in course, and vos on the p'int o' going for'ard, ven lo! on turning my wision atop o' the bank afore me, I seed a norrid thing!—a serpent, or a rattle-snake, or somethink a-curling itself up and a hissing like fun!

"I trembled like a haspen-leaf, and-didn't I bolt as fast as my werry legs would carry me, that's all?

"Since that time I may say, with the chap in the stage-play, that my parent has kept myself, his only son, at home, for I see no sport in sich rigs, and perfer a little peace at home to the best gun in the field!"—