rom
the profits of a house which, if situated in an obscure locality,
enjoyed very general and lucrative repute, and being a lone widow
without kith or kin, had no temptation to break her word to the
deceased, and she suffered the orphan to wax in strength and
understanding until the age of twelve,--a period at which we are now
about to reintroduce him to our readers.

The boy evinced great hardihood of temper, and no inconsiderable
quickness of intellect. In whatever he attempted, his success was rapid,
and a remarkable strength of limb and muscle seconded well the dictates
of an ambition turned, it must be confessed, rather to physical than
mental exertion. It is not to be supposed, however, that his boyish life
passed in unbroken tranquillity. Although Mrs. Lobkins was a good woman
on the whole, and greatly attached to her protegee, she was violent and
rude in temper, or, as she herself more flatteringly expressed it,
"her feelings were unkimmonly strong;" and alternate quarrel and
reconciliation constituted the chief occupations of the protegee's
domestic life. As, previous to his becoming the ward of Mrs. Lobkins, he
had never received any other appellation than "the child," so the duty
of christening him devolved upon our hostess of the Mug; and after some
deliberation, she blessed him with the name of Paul. It was a name of
happy omen, for it had belonged to Mrs. Lobkins's grandfather, who had
been three times transported and twice hanged (at the first occurrence
of the latter description, he had been restored by the surgeons, much
to the chagrin of a young anatomist who was to have had the honour of
cutting him up). The boy did not seem likely to merit the distinguished
appellation he bore, for he testified no remarkable predisposition to
the property of other people. Nay, although he sometimes emptied the
pockets of any stray visitor to the coffee-room of Mrs. Lobkins, it
appeared an act originating rather in a love of the frolic than a desire
of the profit; for after the plundered person had been sufficiently
tormented by the loss, haply, of such utilities as a tobacco-box or
a handkerchief; after he had, to the secret delight of Paul, searched
every corner of the apartment, stamped, and fretted, and exposed himself
by his petulance to the bitter objurgation of Mrs. Lobkins, our young
friend would quietly and suddenly contrive that the article missed
should return of its own accord to the pocket from which it