out a halfpenny. Think of this, ye more
fortunate youths, who sit at home at ease, and play Loto for nuts! But
through all his vicissitudes, BEN kept a stout heart, never losing his
conviction that something--he knew not what--would eventually turn up.
Sometimes it was heads, at others tails: and in either case the poor
boy lost money by it--but he persevered notwithstanding, confident
that Fortune would favour him at last. It is this spirit of undaunted
enterprise that has made our England what it is!

[Illustration: Brustles Blacking.]

And one day Fortune did favour him. He observed, as he knelt before
his box, a portly and venerable person close by, who was engrossed
in studying, with apparent complacency, his own reflection in a
plate-glass shop-front. So naive a display of personal vanity, in
one whose dress and demeanour denoted him a Bishop, not unnaturally
excited BENJAMIN's interest, nor was this lessened when the stranger,
after shaking his head reproachfully at his reflected image, advanced
to the shoe-black's box as if in obedience to a sudden impulse.

"My lad," he said, with a certain calm dignity, "will you be so good
as to black both my legs for me--at once?"

This unusual request, conceived as it was on a larger scale than the
orders he habitually received, startled the youth, particularly as
he noted that the symmetrical and well-turned limb which the Bishop
extended consisted, like its fellow, of a rare and costly species of
mahogany, and shone with the rich and glossy hue of a newly-fallen
horse-chestnut, "I see," commented the Bishop, with a melancholy
smile, "that you have already discovered that my lower members are
the product--not of Nature, but of Art. It was not always thus with
me--but in my younger days I was an ardent climber--indeed, I am still
an Honorary Member of the Hampstead Heath Alpine Club. Many years
since, whilst scaling Primrose Hill, I was compelled, by a sudden
storm, to take refuge in a half-way hut, where I passed the night,
exposed to all the rigours of an English Midsummer! When I awoke
I found, to my surprise, that both my legs had been bitten by the
relentless frost short off immediately below the knee, and I had to
continue the ascent next day in a basket. On descending, I caused
these substitutes to be fashioned, and on them I stumped my way to
the exalted position I now fill, nor have I ever evinced any physical
inconveniences from my misfortune, save in one part