oxsh is a vonder!
who'll take odds?"

"I'll give twenty to one," says I, "in guineas."

"Ponays; yase, done," screams out the Count.

"BONIES, done," roars out the Baron: and, before I could speak, went in,
and--would you believe it?--in two minutes he somehow made the game!

*****

Oh, what a figure I cut when my dear Jemmy heard of this afterwards! In
vain I swore it was guineas: the Count and the Baron swore to ponies;
and when I refused, they both said their honor was concerned, and they
must have my life, or their money. So when the Count showed me actually
that, in spite of this bet (which had been too good to resist) won from
me, he had been a very heavy loser by the night; and brought me the word
of honor of Abednego, his Jewish friend, and the foreign noblemen, that
ponies had been betted;--why, I paid them one thousand pounds sterling
of good and lawful money.--But I've not played for money since: no, no;
catch me at THAT again if you can.

A NEW DROP-SCENE AT THE OPERA.

No lady is a lady without having a box at the Opera: so my Jemmy, who
knew as much about music,--bless her!--as I do about Sanscrit, algebra,
or any other foreign language, took a prime box on the second tier. It
was what they called a double box; it really COULD hold two, that is,
very comfortably; and we got it a great bargain--for five hundred
a year! Here, Tuesdays and Saturdays, we used regularly to take our
places, Jemmy and Jemimarann sitting in front; me, behind: but as my
dear wife used to wear a large fantail gauze hat with ostrich feathers,
birds-of-paradise, artificial flowers, and tags of muslin or satin,
scattered all over it, I'm blest if she didn't fill the whole of the
front of the box; and it was only by jumping and dodging, three or four
times in the course of the night, that I could manage to get a sight
of the actors. By kneeling down, and looking steady under my darling
Jemmy's sleeve, I DID contrive, every now and then, to have a peep of
Senior Lablash's boots, in the "Puritanny," and once actually saw Madame
Greasi's crown and head-dress in "Annybalony."

What a place that Opera is, to be sure! and what enjoyments us
aristocracy used to have! Just as you have swallowed down your three
courses (three curses I used to call them;--for so, indeed, they are,
causing a deal of heartburns, headaches, doctor's bills, pills, want of
sleep, and such like)--just, I say, as you get down your three courses,
which I de