heart of the ostensible actor, a fantastic stage-play in the brain
of the unnoticed spectator. The bandit's child on the proscenium is
still poor little Sophy, in spite of garlands and rouge. But that honest
rough-looking fellow to whom, in respect for services to sovereign and
country, the apprentice yields way, may he not be--the crafty Comedian?

TARAN-TARANTARA! rub-a-dub-dub! play up horn! roll drum! a quarter to
eight; and the crowd already thick before Rugge's Grand Exhibition,--"
Remorseless Baron and Bandit's Child! Young Phenomenon,--Juliet
Araminta,--Patronized by the Nobility in general, and expecting
daily to be summoned to perform before the Queen,--_Vivat
Regina!_"--Ruba-dub-dub! The company issue from the curtain, range in
front of the proscenuim. Splendid dresses. The Phenomenon!--'t is she!

"My eyes, there's a beauty!" cries the clown.

The days have already grown somewhat shorter; but it is not yet dusk.
How charmingly pretty she still is, despite that horrid paint; but how
wasted those poor bare snowy arms!

A most doleful lugubrious dirge mingles with the drum and horn. A man
has forced his way close by the stage,--a man with a confounded cracked
hurdy-gurdy. Whine! whine! creaks the hurdy-gurdy. "Stop that! stop that
mu-zeek!" cries a delicate apprentice, clapping his hands to his ears.
"Pity a poor blind--" answers the man with the hurdygurdy.

"Oh, you are blind, are you? but we are not deaf. There's a penny not to
play. What black thing have you got there by a string?"

"My dog, sir!"

"Deuced ugly one; not like a dog; more like a bear with horns!"

"I say, master," cries the clown, "here's a blind man come to see the
Phenomenon!"

The crowd laugh; they make way for the blind man's black dog. They
suspect, from the clown's address, that the blind man has something to
do with the company.

You never saw two uglier specimens of their several species than the
blind man and his black dog. He had rough red hair and a red beard, his
face had a sort of twist that made every feature seem crooked. His
eyes were not bandaged, but the lids were closed, and he lifted them
up piteously as if seeking for light. He did not seem, however, like a
common beggar: had rather the appearance of a reduced sailor. Yes,
you would have bet ten to one he had been a sailor; not that his dress
belonged to that noble calling, but his build, the roll of his walk,
the tie of his cravat, a blue anchor tattooed on th