r that precedes
the first blush of morning. The dragoon had had a weary night-ride, but
the recent change of temperature had invigorated his system and given
buoyancy to his spirits. This effect was exhibited in his first
whistling a tune, then humming the words of a ditty, and, finally, in
breaking forth into a loud full song, which, as he had a good voice and
practised skill, increased in loudness as he became better pleased with
the trial of his powers. The song was occasionally intermitted to give
room to certain self-communings which the pastime suggested.

"You may take it for sooth, that wit without gold,"

he sang in the loudest strain, trying the words on different keys, and
introducing some variations in the tune--

"Will make a bad market whenever 'tis sold."

"That's true; your poor moneyless devil, how should his wit pass
current? He was a shrewd fellow that wrote it down. Your rich man for
wit, all the world over, and so the song runs:--

"'But all over the world it is well understood
That the joke of a rich man is sure to be good.'

"True, true as gospel! Give the knaves dinners, plenty of Burgundy and
Port, and what signifies an empty head? Go to college, and how is it
there? What is a sizer's joke? If the fellow have the wit of Diogenes,
it is sheer impertinence. But let my young lord Croesus come out with
his flatulent nonsense, oh, that's the true ware for the market! James
Curry, James Curry, what ought you to have been, if the supple jade
fortune had done your deserts justice! Instead of a d----d dodging
dragoon, obedient to the beck of every puppy who wears his majesty's
epaulets; but it's no matter, that's past; the wheel has made its turn,
and here I am, doing the work of the scullion, that ought to sit above
the salt-cellar. Vogue la galere! We will play out the play. Meantime,
I'll be merry in spite of the horoscope: come then, I like these words
and the jolly knave, whoever he was, that penned them.

"'You may take it for sooth that wit without gold.'"

The singer was, at this instant, arrested at the top of his voice by a
blow against the back of his head, bestowed, apparently, by some
ponderous hand, that so effectually swayed him from the line of gravity,
as to cause him to reel in his saddle, and, by an irrecoverable impetus,
to swing round to the ground, where he alighted on his back, with the
reins of his horse firmly held in his hand.

"Singing on Sunday is