ive to her--could he do as much? But Mr.
Latimer de Camp is heedless of other good things flying about him; for,
upon the walk home after service, among the savoury Christmas dinners
that are hurrying in every direction, he is so abstracted as to find a
sucking-pig in his stomach, and not a little gravy spilt upon his
trowsers, compelling him to change them, upon his arrival at home, for a
neat pair of young Brown's.

[Illustration: Good living at least once a year]

Mr. Spohf, having played all out of St. Stiff the Martyr, walks home
moodily:--instead of finding his dinner as usual, the chop and potato,
he learns that his landlord, Mr. Strap, the greengrocer, has stopped the
supplies. It is quarter-day!--Strap thinks of the five weeks' arrears,
and Mr. Spohf's inability to pay for his lodgings; so, Mr. and Mrs.
Strap have surprised him, by preparing a huge leg of mutton and pudding;
for they know he does not, as of old, go to the "Willer." After this
humble repast, which was relished as much as any could be, and was far
less likely to leave unpleasant sensations than if it had been more
costly, they draw round the fire; and master Ichabod Strap, one of the
choristers of St. Stiff the Martyr, is playing with a shilling,
polishing the coin upon his sleeve--it is the identical one said to have
been put in the plate by Captain de Camp, and given by Mr. Flyntflayer
(the gentleman who held the gothic platter) to Mrs. Strap, the
pue-opener, advising her at the same time to nail it to the
counter--a counterfeit to deter "smashers." But, somehow, the coin
seemed doomed to remain unholy, for no orifice or artifice could have
rendered it a _lucky_ one; it was shown to Mr. Spohf, who thought it
bad, and that it might have gotten into the plate by mistake; Mrs. Strap
knew it bad--an intentional perpetration,--and, like the giver, not
worth a dump; Mr. Strap not only thought it bad, but proved it so; for,
after having spun, sounded, and eaten a portion of it, he cast the coin
into the glowing fire, where the silver quickly changed, dropping, like
quick-silver, among the ashes, to be picked out by Ichabod, very unlike
a sterling coin.

[Illustration]

Old Strap, who had taken "the pledge," but since introduced an
exceptional clause in favour of feasts and festivals, gets out the black
bottle for fraternity's sake. They take a pipe a-piece, and so softened
is the little organist with their genuine unsophisticated kindness, tha