bodied
forth under the character of Harry Benson, and am, in consequence, a
handsome young man, who can do a little of every thing instead of----but
never mind what; your actor has not yet sufficient standing to come down
before the footlights, and have his little bit of private chaff with
the audience. Only this will I say, so help me N. P. Willis, I mean to
go on with these sketches till they are finished, provided always that
_Fraser_ will take them so long and that you continue to read them, or
fall into a sweet and soothing slumber over them, as the case may be.
For if we are all to shut up shop until we can write as well as Mr.
Titmarsh, there will be too extensive a bankruptcy of literary
establishments.

Before Ashburner could form any conjecture to account for the
evanishment of Edwards--indeed before he could altogether realize it to
himself--the little man's head reappeared above the ground, though there
were no signs of his horse; and at the same time Benson began to ride
round the scene of the catastrophe, at an easy canter, laughing
immoderately. The Englishman shook up his brute into the best gallop he
could get out of him, and a few more strides brought him near enough to
see the true state of things. There was a marsh at no great distance,
which rendered the grass in the immediate vicinity moist and sloppy, and
just in this particular spot the action of the water had caved away a
hole precisely large enough to receive a horse and rider--it could
hardly have made a more accurate grave had they been measured for
it--and so marked by a slight elevation in front, that it was ten to one
any person riding over the ground at such a rate, and unacquainted with
the position of this trap, but must fall headlong into it, as Edwards
had done. There was some reason to suspect that our friend Harry, who
was an habitual rider, and knew all the environs of Oldport pretty well,
and was fonder of short cuts and going over grass than most American
horsemen are, had not been altogether ignorant of the existence of the
pitfall; it looked very much as if he had led Edwards, who was no
particular friend of his, purposely into it: but if such was the case,
he kept his own counsel. When the fallen man and mare had scrambled out
of the hole, which they did before Benson had offered to help them, or
Ashburner had time to be of any assistance, it appeared that she had
sprained her off foreankle, and he his nigh wrist. But they we