MIDNIGHT MISHAPS.

BY EDWARD MAYHEW.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

OH the rural suburbs of London!-the filthy suburbs !—where nothing is green but the water, nothing natural but the dirt,-where the trees are clipt into poles, and the hedges grow behind palings, where "no thoroughfare" forbids you to walk in one place, and the dust prevents you from walking in another,-the filthy suburbs!

It was these delightful precincts of peace and "caution," retirement and "handsome rewards," that Mr. Jacob Tweasle honoured with his decided preference. This gentleman had inhabited a small shop at the foot of Snow-hill for more than forty years, retailing tobacco to the tradesmen, and cigars to the apprentices; and, having by supplying other people's boxes gradually filled his own, he, now in his sixtieth year, declined the manufacture of weeds for the cultivation of exotics.

An "Italian villa," beautifully situated in a back lane near Hornsey, was pointed out to the tobacconist by a house-agent as particularly "snug and retired." Before the ostentatious white front of this "enviable residence' were exactly twenty square yards of lawn, "delightfully wooded" by a solitary laburnum, which was approached over a highly ornamental Chinese bridge," crossing "a convenient stream of water." The interior of the building it was "impossible for the most fastidious to object to;" the rooms were so low, and the windows so small, that the happy occupant always imagined himself a hundred miles from the metropolis; the prospect, too, from the upper stories" revelled in all the luxuries of the picturesque;" the dome of St. Paul's lent magnificence to the distance, while the foreground was enlivened by a brick-field.

Mr. Tweasle saw, approved, yet doubted. He did not know what to say to it. There was, he acknowledged, everything that heart of man could desire; the garden was walled in, and the steel-traps and cabbages might be taken as fixtures; nevertheless he reached the bridge without having made up his mind. There he paused, and gazed in anxious meditation upon the black and heavy liquid that stagnated beneath. "Can one fish here?" suddenly asked the tobacconist, at the same time leaning over and disturbing the "convenient stream of water" with his cane.

"I never do myself," replied the agent, in such a manner as to imply that other people frequently did; for Tweasle instantly inquired, "What do they catch?"

The agent was puzzled. Was the Londoner really ignorant, or was this a design to test the truth of all his former assertions? It was a case which required extreme caution. "I am no angler myself,-I have no time for that delightful recreation; but-I should thinkthat eels-eels-probably-eels-might

"Stewed eels make a nice supper," interrupted Tweasle with gluttonous simplicity. "Fish arn't to be got fresh in London."

"Fish ought to be eaten the moment it is taken from the water," cried the agent with decision.

"My boy's got a fishing-rod," said Tweasle; and he took the Italian villa on a repairing lease.

The announcement of this event created a "sensation" at the foot of Snow-hill; the Rubicon was past; the business was to be disposed of; and, that no time might be lost, Mr. Tweasle, without taking off his gloves, began to scribble an advertisement, while Mrs. Tweasle waddled into the shop and insulted a customer.

All was confusion. To fly from the paternal protection of the Lord Mayor, and emigrate off the stones, was no casual event to him who had hitherto proudly exulted in the freedom of the city. Much was necessary to reconcile the mind to so bold a measure. The lady undertook to pack up everything that could be got in London, and purchase everything that could not be got in the country. The gentleman, acting as a man should, wholly neglected the domestic. He gave his attention to the noble arts of agriculture and self-defence, botanical theories, treatises, and directories. Horticultural implements, instruments, and improvements, swords and pistols, guns and blunderbusses, detonating crackers for the shutters, and alarums for the bedrooms, he spared neither trouble nor expense to procure.

"Now, Hanney, dear," said Tweasle to his wife, surveying the weapons which had just been sent home, "I thinks here's everything a contented mind could desire: the thieves will know better than to come where we are."

But the timid woman's ideas of defence were concentrated in a flannel gown and a rattle; she looked more terrified than assured :— fire-arms and accidents were, in her mind, synonymous; and her only answer was an urgent entreaty that "those nasty things might be always so locked up that nobody could get at them."

In due time everything that the family thought they could possibly want was procured; and when, to render the whole complete, Master Charles, only son and heir, was commissioned to procure live stock from St. Giles's, the boy returned with almond tumblers for pigeonpies, and bantam-cocks for poultry.

"New-laid eggs for breakfast!" chuckled his papa.

All being at length ready for starting on the following day, and as the house was dismantled even to the junction of the bed-posts, the family determined to pass their last evening in London, whispering soft adieus to their more intimate acquaintance. At first Tweasle conducted himself with becoming hypocrisy. He lamented his separation from the "friends of his youth," and ate cake and drank wine with imposing solemnity; but, as the ceremony was repeated, he committed himself by an occasional smile, and at last slipped out something about "poor devils, who were smoked to death like red herrings.' Mrs. Tweasle was shocked, and hurried her husband away; who, however, warmed into truth, would not acknowledge his error or go to bed, but insisted on saying good-b'ye to his old friend Gingham. They found the Ginghams preparing for supper; and, on company arriving, the servant was whispered " to bring up the beef," which Tweasle overhearing, he turned to the hostess, and exultingly cried,

"Come and see us in the country, and I'll give you stewed eels and chicken for supper."

"I'm very sorry we 've nothing better than cold beef to offer you, sir," replied the lady with a look; "but I can send out."

"Not for the world!" shouted Mrs. Tweasle, who was rejoiced when a request to be seated relieved her from reiterating her conciliatory wishes that no one would mind her good man, who during supper would converse on no other subject than the pleasures of newlaid eggs and the country, till, having finished one glass of gin and water, he undertook to explain to his friend how it was that he also could leave off business like a squire. Nor was this personal investigation of private family affairs rendered less unpleasant by the indelicate egotism which induced the exhibitor to illustrate his friend's faults by his own virtues; till, though repeatedly requested to "drop it," Tweasle wound up his harangue by calling his host a fool.

"You're a fool, Gingham. You might ha' been as well off as I am at the present moment, if you hadn't lived at such a rate, like a fool."

The lady of the house instantly arose, and left the room in company with her daughters, telling Mr. Tweasle "they were going to bed;" and Mr. Gingham leant over the table to inform his guest, "he had no wish to quarrel.”

Of the rest of that evening Tweasle the next day retained a very confused recollection. He thought some one pushed him about in a passage, and remembered his wife's assisting him to put on his greatcoat in the middle of the street.

At the appointed hour, the glass-coach which was to convey the family from London stopped at the foot of Snow-hill. Mr. Tweasle was the first to jump in; the person to whom the business had been advantageously disposed of, gave his hand to Mrs. Tweasle, and then turned to say farewell to her husband.

"All I've got in this blessed world I made in that shop," said Tweasle, anxious to give his successor a high opinion of the bargain, and leave a good name behind him. "The many-many-happypeaceful days I've seen in it!—I can't expect to see them again! On a Saturday and on a Monday I've often been fit to drop behind my own counter, quite worn out with customers. I'm afraid I've done a rash thing; but I've this consolation, I've left the business in good hands."

"Come, don't look dull, Tweasle," cried his wife, who was imposed on by her husband's pathetics: "cheer up! You know trade ain't what it was, and I'm sure the two last years must have been a ⚫losing game.'

It is impossible to say whether he who had bought or he who had sold the business looked most appalled by this untimely truth. However, Tweasle was the first to recover himself: he took his victim affectionately by the hand, and, leaning forward, whispered in propitiatory confidential accents, Always put a little white pepper in Alderman Heavyside's Welsh, or he 'll think you 've adulterated it." But the successor was hurt past such slender consolation. With lofty integrity he spurned the advice of his deceiver; for, jerking his hand away, and looking Tweasle sternly in the face, he said, "Sir, I shall do my duty!" and he strutted into the shop; whereupon the coach began to move.

Disposed by this little incident to sadness, its late occupant looked at the house till his eyes watered. He was no longer a "public man;" his opinion of the weather was now of no importance; he might henceforth loiter over his dinner undisturbed by any thought of the shop! Feelings such as these could not be suppressed, and Tweasle was about to apostrophise, when his gentle partner startled him by exclaiming,

"Thank our stars, we 're off at last!" and, catching a glimpse of the house as the coach turned into Hatton-garden, she added, "there's the last of it, I hope; I never wish to set eyes on the hole again !" "Don't be ungrateful," said Tweasle, chidingly. "That roof has sheltered me near forty years."

"Well, it was a nuisance to live in it,-no place to dry a rag in but the servant's bed-room."

"And Martha made you give her rum and water, mother, or else she would catch cold," added the son.

"Stop there!-stop there!-stop!" a voice was heard to cry. "That can't be for us," observed Mrs. Tweasle.

As if in the spirit of matrimonial contradiction, her husband the next moment exclaimed, " By George! it is though!"

It proved to be a debtor, who had journeyed to London in consequence of some information which had been afforded him by an attorney. Three hundred and odd pounds were in his pocket ready for disbursement, if Mr. Tweasle would accompany him to an inn in the Borough, and there go through the account. This was vexatious.

The fear of losing the money had long disturbed the late tobacconist's mental monotony, and now the certainty of its payment absolutely angered him. He turned to his lady, and said to her in a voice of positive wrath,

"Hanney, I shall go. Don't you wait for me, do you hear? I shall walk probably in the evening down to Hornsey,-when I've given a receipt for the money. Now, sir, I'm at your service. Will you show the way ?"

"Please to remember a poor fellow who wants works," said a florid muscular mendicant, thrusting his huge hand close to the late tobacconist's face." The fellow must have overheard the arrangement," thought Tweasle; and an undefined feeling of alarm took the roses from his cheeks. As he hastily threw the man a few pence, he delivered some very profound remarks upon the Vagrant Act.

"Hanney, dear," cried he in a loud voice, while the beggar was stooping for the money, "don't make yourself uneasy, but set the steel-traps. I have pistols,-mind that, love,-I have pistols !" for, afraid to acknowledge his own terror, he found relief in supposing that others were more timid than himself.

Leaving his wife, Tweasle walked to the inn, where he remained till all the items of a long bill had been discussed, when the clock announced the hour of nine, and then the debtor insisted on being asked to supper, so that it was fairly half-past ten before Tweasle left the Borough.

So long as the lights of London illumined his way, he proceeded in comparative composure, only occasionally feeling at his coat-pockets to assure himself that the pistols were safe; but when the unaided darkness announced that he had quitted the extremest outskirts of