, in highway or byeway, but is speedily adorned by his handiwork
--aye, and frequently too in defiance of the threatening--"BILL-STICKERS,
BEWARE!"--staring him in the face. Like nature, he appears to abhor a
vacuum. When we behold the gigantic size of some of the modern arches,
we are almost led to suppose that the bill-sticker carries about his
placards in a four-wheeled waggon, and that his paste-pot is a huge
cauldron! How he contrives to paste and stick such an enormous sheet so
neatly against the rugged side of a house, is really astonishing. Whether
three or four stories high, the same precision is remarkable. We cannot
but wonder at the dexterity of his practised hand: The union is as
perfect as if Dan Hymen, the saffron-robed Joiner, had personally
superintended the performance.

The wind is perhaps the only real enemy he has to fear. How his heart
and his flimsy paper must flutter in the unruly gusts of a March wind! We
only imagine him pasting up a "Sale of Horses," in a retired nook, and
seeing his bill carried away on an eddy!

We once had the good fortune to witness a gusty freak of this kind. The
bill-sticker had affixed a bill upon the hooks of his stick, displaying
in prominent large characters--"SALE BY AUCTION--Mr. GEO. ROBINS--Capital
Investment,"--and so forth, when a sudden whirlwind took the bill off the
hooks, before it was stuck, and fairly enveloped the countenance of a
dandy gentleman who happened at the moment to be turning the corner.

Such a "Capital Investment" was certainly ludicrous in the extreme.

The poor bill-sticker was rather alarmed, for he had never stuck a bill
before on any front that was occupied.

He peeled the gentleman as quickly as possible, and stammered out an
apology. The sufferer, however, swore he would prefer a bill against him
at the ensuing sessions. Whether his threat was carried into execution,
or he was satisfied with the damages already received, we know not.

OLD FOOZLE.

There is a certain period of life beyond which the plastic mind of man
becomes incapable of acquiring any new impressions. He merely elaborates
and displays the stores he has garnered up in his youth. There are
indeed some rare exceptions to the rule; but few, very few, can learn a
language after the age of forty. 'Tis true that Cowper did not commence
the composition of his delightful poems till he had attained that age;
but then it must be remembered that he had prev