*

[Illustration: THE HEIGHT OF FASTIDIOUSNESS.

_Elder Brother_. "HULLO, FRANK! HOW IS IT YOU'RE NOT IN MOURNING FOR
POOR AUNT GRACE?"

_Frank_. "AH--WELL--FACT IS, I TRIED ON SIXTEEN OR SEVENTEEN
HAT-BANDS, AND COULDN'T _GET ONE TO SUIT ME!_"]

* * * * *

"PUGS" AND "MUGS."

(_A QUOTATION WITH A COMMENT._)

"The faithful study of the fistic art
From mawkish softness guards the British heart."
The study of the betting British curse
From swift depletion guards the British purse!

* * * * *

THE TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.

NO. IV.

SCENE--_The Wiertz Museum at Brussels, a large and
well-lighted gallery containing the works of the celebrated
Belgian, which are reducing a limited number of spectators to
the usual degree of stupefaction. Enter CULCHARD, who seats
himself on a central ottoman._

_Culchard_ (_to himself_). If PODBURY won't come down to breakfast
at a decent hour, he can't complain if I--I wonder if he heard Miss
TROTTER say she was thinking of coming here this morning. Somehow,
I _should_ like that girl to have a more correct comprehension of
my character. I don't so much mind her thinking me fastidious and
exclusive. I daresay I _am_--but I _do_ object to being made out a
hopeless melancholiac! (_He looks round the walls._) So these are
WIERTZ's masterpieces, eh? h'm. Strenuous, vigorous,--a trifle
crude, perhaps. Didn't he refuse all offers for his pictures during
his lifetime? Hardly think he could have been overwhelmed with
applications for the one opposite. (_He regards an enormous canvas,
representing a brawny and gigantic Achilles perforating a brown Trojan
with a small mast._) Not a dining-room picture. Still, I like his
independence--work up rather well in a sonnet. Let me see. (_He takes
out note-book and scribbles._) "He scorned to ply his sombre brush
for hire." Now if I read that to PODBURY, he'd pretend to think I was
treating of a Shoe-black on strike! PODBURY is utterly deficient in
reverence.

[Illustration: "I presume, though, he slept bad, nights."]

[_Close by is a party of three Tourists--a Father and Mother,
and a Daughter; who is reading to them aloud from the somewhat
effusive Official Catalogue; the Education of all three
appears to have been elementary._

_The Daughter_ (_spelling out the words laboriously_). "I could
not 'elp fancying this was the artist's