Desima, on which is situated the Dutch factory, Jinks perceived certain of the inhabitants waiting to receive him, two of whom, in long flowing gowns, held white wands in their hands. As Jinks Peereboom was fond of respect, he took it as a very great compliment that two chamberlains, or gentlemen-ushers, should have been appointed to superintend his disembarkation.

"As he landed, these two Japanese chamberlains saluted him very respectfully, but Jinks was rather surprised, on casually turning round, to observe that one of them had placed his white wand against his back from the ground, as if taking his altitude; however, he said nothing until they arrived at the Dutch governor's dwelling. The governor was a rough Hollander, who hated anything like ceremony; and when, after dinner, Jinks was expressing his extreme satisfaction at the marks of respect with which he had been received on his landing by the chamberlains with their wands of office, the Dutch governor, albeit not a laughing man, roared outright in Jinks' face.

"Ha! ha! ha! chamberlains, indeed! Bless your simplicity, young man! Ha! ha ha!' "Jinks could not comprehend the governor, who soon explained,

-

"Are you not aware-ha! ha! ha!-that this part of the world is most unhealthy in climate for Europeans?-not one constitution in ten can resist it. The Japanese always have an eye to business; those chamberlains, as you call them, ha ha! ha!-are the undertakers here, and they took the earliest opportunity on your arrival to measure you for your coffin! Ha! ha! ha!'

"Jinks Peereboom was aghast, but became somewhat relieved by the governor asking him if he had brought plenty of tobacco. Jinks replied in the affirmative.

"Then,' said the governor, 'your only chance is to smoke morning, noon, and night, as I do.""

"The filthy wretches!" exclaimed Coralie; in fact, the lady was as much exasperated against the Indian weed as James the First and sapient, of "Counter-blast" memory. Jan Dirk Peereboom now positively pined in the absence of his pipe. He was a man of his word, and he had promised to abandon the luxury in his wife's presence. He had held out now some months, but he could no longer resist. One day a party was made up, consisting of several artistes of the Grand Opera, to go to St. Cloud, on a sort of pic-nic recreation, and Mynheer and Madame Peereboom were included in the invitation. Jan Dirk, who for

some time past had been nauseated with the society of dancers, made up his mind to be taken ill on the morning of the event, not so very bad as to prevent his dear Coralie from joining her friends, but sufficiently indisposed to afford an excuse for staying away. He, however, had very little difficulty in persuading his wife to go and enjoy the day in the fresh air with her light-hearted companions. directly the carriages, with their gay occupants and eatable and drinkable contents, had rattled away from the door, the Dutchman, with a feeling of satisfaction to which he had been a stranger for some time past, involuntarily exclaimed,

"Now I will go and make a day of it!"

But

He had promised not to smoke at home, but that was no reason why he might not take a whiff of tobacco abroad; so he repaired to the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal, where he was not long in scenting out the Estaminet d'Hollande, which he briskly entered, and was speedily furnished with the objects of his desire -tobacco and an Amsterdam gazette. The room was so full of smoke, reeking from the lips and the bowls of the pipes of the habitués, that he could scarcely discern a feature in the company; but each frequenter was enjoying himself, and not caring a straw for any one else.

Here Jan Dirk Peereboom filled his pipe again and again without intermission, until he had whiffed off three dozen replenishments, with a liquid accompaniment of veritable Schiedam, by way of atonement for the time he had lost since his wedding-day. He resumed his accustomed placidity, and glanced, as well as the clouds of smoke permitted, at the Amsterdam gazette, when his eye caught an advertentie:

"Jinks Peereboom begs leave to acquaint his friends and the public that he has commenced the business of general broker at Dort on his own account, and trusts that his long experience in the house of Messrs. Clarenbach and Voute, as well as in the service of his uncle Jan Dirk Peereboom, will enable him to do justice to those friends who may be pleased to favour him with their commands.

"His office is established at No. 14 west side of the

Great Canal Street, where all orders will meet with

immediate attention."

Jan Dirk sighed as he read the modest advertisement of his nephew, and inwardly wished that he himself had put forth such an announcement to the public. Another newspaper, the Amsterdam Courant, was lying on a table, around which sat three Dutch merchants, smoking at each other like rival steam-boats. In this paper was a fac-simile of young Jinks'

advertisement. Jan Dirk's back was toward this party, but he had the infinite mortification to listen to a dialogue broken all to bits by pipe-puffs, to the following effect:—

1st Smoker.-"I see by this paper that Peereboom the younger is commencing business." (Puff, puff.)

2d Smoker."What a confounded ass his uncle Jan Dirk made of himself by marrying that French dancer! Three years hence, he will not have a stiver to bless himself with." (A huge puff.)

3d Smoker. "Oh! fool as Jan Dirk has been, he knows how to take care of his money!" (Puff.)

2d Smoker."Then he goes the right way about it, for this very morning I saw his wife with a gay party of people in three carriages, apparently going out of town for a fête for the day."

1st Smoker. That is not done for nothing." (Puffs.)

2d Smoker.-"His credit is gone at Dort, although he must still be rich, besides being the holder of the milkmaid's annuity; and, I warrant me, he will soon melt down his guilders in the bank of Amsterdam."

These remarks made Jan Dirk Peereboom feel very uncomfortable, and he was reluctant to discover himself, after having been stigmatized as an ass and fool, without resenting it; he in his own defence puffed up such a cloud of smoke that he became invisible; for, indeed, now he began to think that he had done rather a weak thing.

After the Dutch merchants had quitted the extaminet, Jan Dirk ventured to go home, where, subsequent to some uneasy reflections, he reclined himself at full length on a sofa, and went fast asleep. When Madame Coralie Peereboom returned from her country excursion, having inhaled during the whole day the pure air of St. Cloud, her senses were mightily annoyed by the strong odour of odious tobacco (and the French tobacco being a government monopoly, it is notoriously the worst on the face of the globe).

"O mon Dieu!" she exclaimed as she entered, "these fumes will annihilate me! What has happened during my absence?"

And then she discovered Jan Dirk snoring heavily. She shook him up briskly, but he was not at all inclined to stir; and under the influence of the smoking, the Schiedam, and his wounded feelings, as well as the peculiar irritability which most persons have felt at certain periods at being waked from a nap, he, for the first time since his marriage, exhibited

"Jan Dirk, what have you been about?" Mynheer Peereboom answered with a hiccup,

"Why do you expect I should tell you when I don't know myself?"

"Indeed, sir!" said Coralie impatiently, "I see no reason why I should not ask you."

"If women were to always have their wills," grunted Jan Dirk, "the world would be rarely governed!"

"How, what is all this?" exclaimed Madame, in a tone of utter surprise, "did you not marry me for love?"

"Yes, and you married me for money; so you have your reward, and I have mine!" "What is it that now offends you?" asked Coralie, a little subdued.

Jan Dirk answered gloomily, "Two clergymen!"

What, in the name of Heaven, have they done to you?" inquired Madame.

"They married me!" groaned Dirk,—“fettered me in both churches-Catholic and Protestant;-I find that I have been a great fool!" "I am glad to observe that you have some discernment," tartly replied Coralie; and she indignantly left the room, told her fille de chambre that Monsieur had unaccountably come home in a state of intoxication, and that she intended to lock herself in her chamber, and to see him no more that night.

Jan Dirk stretched himself on the sofa, and presently fell into a profound slumber. Here was the first open matrimonial dispute. Coralie could scarce believe what she heard, for, with a considerable portion of French vanity, she imagined that her husband was devoted in his affection for her, though she was aware that she had never loved him.

The obstinate nature of Jan Dirk Peereboorn would not permit him to make any concession in the morning, although the facile French woman gave every opportunity; so that the slight wound, which might have been healed by the soothing bandage of common sense and good temper, gradually grew more and more inflamed, until it created a constant petulance in the wife and moody brutality in the husband.

lay. The next step was to wrap herself up in a large silk mantle, secretly to make her way through the garden-door unobserved, even by a servant, and to walk hastily to the little town of Burtschied, where she suddenly rapped at the door of the humble shop of Scheck Stalman. He was utterly surprised at beholding Madame Coralie, and thought that she had come to rebuke him because he had not finished her blue silk shoes; and yet it was a strange time of night for her to come alone. Coralie then thus addressed Stalman:

"You are under some obligations to me?" "Greater than I can ever possibly repay," answered the cordonnier.

"You must immediately come with me to Aix-la-Chapelle, and without asking any questions," said Madame.

"I am ready," replied Stalman, promptly. And they quitted the house together, and walked on in the dark; during which Coralie told Stalman what had occurred to her husband, that he had died without a will, remarked on the extraordinary resemblance existing between the two persons, and then, rogue as she certainly was, proposed that Stalman should go to bed in the house, personate Jan Dirk Peereboom, and dictate a will in her favour, and that she would so amply reward him, that he would be provided for during the remainder of his existence.

There was a plausible reason for supposing that this expedient would succeed, as they were all strangers in the city of Aix-la-Chapelle. The great difficulty to be overcome was to introduce Stalman into the house unseen. Coralie unlocked the garden-gate, and told him to remain concealed in a summer-house until she came to fetch him.

She then went in-doors, and going to the room where she had left her fille de chambre at work, said to her suddenly,

"How has your master been during my absence?"

"VERY QUIET INDEED," said the unconscious girl, who had ofttimes been disturbed by the effects of Jan Dirk's drunkenness.

"I do not like that quiet," remarked Coralie, "it bodes no good; go you, my good girl, for the doctor, you know where he lives, and tell him I wish to speak to him immediately."

The chamber-maid obeyed her mistress. Madame then sent her other servant, who officiated as her cook, to the poulterer's, to buy the smallest and tenderest chicken she could find, to make some broth.

Having despatched them both on these errands, she admitted Stalman at the garden

VOL. III.

door, made him ascend to a spare bed-room, where he got into bed, and, attired in a nightgown and cap of Jan Dirk Peereboom's, his own worm-eaten frame made him exactly to resemble a man in the last stage of life. There were plenty of empty physic-bottles to place about the room.

The cook returned first home, and began busily to prepare the chicken-broth for her poor master; she even shed some honest tears into the stew-pan, by way of salting it mildly.

Then arrived the fille de chambre with the physician, and this was the moment that required all the dexterous art of Coralie as an

actress.

She told the doctor that her husband had aroused, and was so far better that she had been induced to remove him to a fresh bed, and was now in a mild slumber, from which she should not like to hazard awaking him, apologized for bringing him out, but handed him his fee, and at the same moment, after sending the fille de chambre out of the room, she in a confidential tone acquainted the physician with that which he before knew, that they were strangers in the city, and that she would be eternally under obligation to him, as her husband had neglected the extremely necessary obligation of every man who had anything to bequeath,-in fact, he had not made his will; if he (the physician) would be good enough to recommend to her an honest attorney.

The physician immediately stated that he had a brother, a most respectable person, who followed the law;-and if he had stated that he had also a cousin that was an undertaker, he would not have spoken falsely. They were a profitable sort of family circle amongst themselves, as far as turmoils, tumours, wills, medicine, and coffins went.

The physician took his departure, promising to send his brother the lawyer, but ventured to entertain sanguine hopes that the patient might recover, although at the moment he felt perfectly confident that there was a job for his cousin the undertaker.

Madame Peereboom was thus far completely successful, but she continued in a state of considerable anxiety until the attorney arrived, attended by two clerks as witnesses; she took them up to the chamber where Stalman was in bed, entreating them to go very gently that her poor husband might not be disturbed; the attorney and the two clerks, led by Coralie, entered the room on tiptoe.

"He is awake," said Madame; and addressing Stalman, who, from the effect of the Diet of Worms, certainly looked the character he re

51

presented to the life, or rather, we should say, to the death-raised his head from the pillow, and rolled his eyes so horribly, that the very clerks were alarmed; he spoke, with apparent difficulty, "Who are these people?"

Coralie replied, "My dear, did not you express a wish that I should send for a professional gentleman, to receive directions about your property?"

Stalman sighed, "Ah! we know not how soon calamity may fall on us in this world. I shall not be long in it."

The attorney here interposed in a bland tone of voice, saying, "Put reliance in Heaven, sir; never give up hope. I am certain you will recover. I see it in your face."

The two clerks winked at each other; and the attorney, notwithstanding that which he had just uttered, lost no time in preparing the necessary document.

"And now, my poor sufferer," said Madame Coralie Peereboom, "to whom will you bequeath, your property?"

The attorney had commenced writing the customary preamble, when Scheck Stalman, having been lifted up by his supposed wifelooked as if every instant he was going to give up the ghost; he then uttered distinctly, but in a faint voice, "To you, my beloved Coralie, I bequeath half of my estate."

"Half?" said Coralie, faintly. "Half," repeated Stalman. "The other half of my estate," continued the impostor, "I hereby bequeath to Scheck Stalman, shoemaker of Burtschied, and formerly of Amsterdam."

The widow was thunderstruck at being so entrapped, any one might have knocked her down with a straw, the reply was so different from that which she expected; but in the cleft stick in which she had placed herself she did not dare to negative the will of Stalman, for fear of losing the whole of the property; while the cunning old rogue in bed was laughing in his sleeve at the thought of dividing with her the fruits of a project which Madame Peereboom had intended for her own sole benefit (a small annuity excepted for the shoemaker.)

There was now no alternative left for her; but it was with great bitterness and mortification that, falling into her own trap, she saw Stalman (his hand shaking very much, and the pen almost guided by the attorney) sign J. D. Peereboom to the will, which was duly attested by the two clerks. The testament was taken away to be registered, and affidavits were made by the clerks, before the proper legal authorities, that the testator at the period of

signing it was so dreadfully ill that the signature was hardly to be recognized as the handwriting (when compared with the real signmanual of Jan Dirk) of the husband of Madame Coralie Peereboom.

The moment the attorney and clerks were gone, Madame flew at Stalman, and overloaded him with reproaches for his roguery and ingratitude; and as she was rating him vehemently, he very calmly advised her to hold her tongue, or her servants would overhear her, and then every stiver would be lost, that the best thing for her to consider was how to get him, unobserved, out of the house again; and then to send for the undertaker to prepare the funeral of her real husband. At last he talked so sensibly to her, getting louder and louder in his tone every minute, that Coralie Peereboom was compelled to own the truth of the proverb which we have thus displayed, that "HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NO BREAD." -Fraser's Magazine.

GILLE MACHREE.

Gille machree,1

Sit down by me,

We now are joined, and ne'er shall sever; This hearth's our own,

Our hearts are one,

And peace is ours for ever!

When I was poor,

Your father's door

Was closed against your constant lover; With care and pain

I tried in vain

My fortunes to recover.

I said, "To other lands I'll roam,

Where Fate may smile on me, love;" I said, "Farewell, my own old home!" And I said, "Farewell to thee, love!" Sing Gille machree, &c.

I might have said,

My mountain maid,

Come live with me, your own true lover; I know a spot,

A silent cot,

Your friends can ne'er discover, Where gently flows the waveless tide By one small garden only; Where the heron waves his wings so wide, And the linnet sings so lonely!

Sing Gille machree, &c.

1 Brightener of my heart.