ce to
suit the speed of a friend who might join him. My uncle Simon was a
character of this cast. I could take it on my conscience to assert that,
every night for the forty years preceding his death, he had one foot in
the bed on the first stroke of 11 o'clock, and just as the last chime had
tolled, that he was enveloped in the blankets to his chin. I have known
him discharge a servant because his slippers were placed by his bed-side
for contrary feet; and I have won a wager by betting that he would turn
the corner of a certain street at precisely three minutes before ten in
the morning. My uncle used to frequent a club in the City, of which he had
become the oracle. Precisely at eight o'clock he entered the room--took
his seat in a leather-backed easy chair in a particular corner--read a
certain favourite journal--drank two glasses of rum toddy--smoked four
pipes--and was always in the act of putting his right arm into the sleeve
of his great-coat, to return home, as the clock struck ten. The cause of
my uncle's death was as singular as his life was whimsical. He went one
night to the club, and was surprised to find his seat occupied by a tall
dark-browed man, who smoked a _meerschaum_ of prodigious size in solemn
silence. Numerous hints were thrown out to the stranger that the seat had
by prescriptive right and ancient custom become the property of my uncle;
he either did not or would not understand them, and continued to keep his
possession of the leather-backed chair with the most imperturbable
_sang-froid_. My uncle in despair took another seat, and endeavoured to
appear as if nothing had occurred to disturb him,--but he could not
dissimulate. He was pierced to the heart,--and

[Illustration: "I SAW THE IRON ENTER HIS SOLE."]

My uncle left the club half-an-hour before his time; he returned
home--went to bed without winding his watch--and the next morning he was
found lifeless in his bed.

* * * * *

PUNCH'S POLITICAL ECONOMY.

The subject of political economy is becoming so general a portion of
education, that it will doubtless soon be introduced at the infant schools
among the other eccentric evolutions or playful whirls of _Mr.
Wilder-spin_. At it is the fashion to comprehend nothing, but to have a
smattering of everything, we beg leave to smatter our readers with a very
thin layer of political economy. In the first place, "political" means
"political," and "economy" signifi