DE THE ODD BOY ON PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET. EAR SIR,-I believe a book on "People | crammers about his father's place in LinI Have Met" was written a good while ago by Mr. N. P. Willis. I never read the book. As to the people I have met, they have, for the most part, been very commonplace the noughts that are nothing in themselves, but lend significancy to the numerals. As to N. P. Willis, I have little to say against him, but I do not like initials. Mr. C. Dickens, Sir W. Scott, Bart., Mr. W. Shakespeare, Mr. J. Milton, Rev. J. Bunyan, are simply abominable. We want the Charles, the Walter, the William, or the two Johns.-This is not the subject of my letter, and is only put in because it occurred to me. And, after all, perhaps that is the way to write a letter-to be your own very self, and say what comes uppermost. "Holloa, Jack, here's news; our bull-pup has flown at Farmer Stubbles, and he swears he'll sue it-or dad, as its locum tenens-for a breach of the peace and a piece of the breeches." There, that event might occur; the mode of expression is natural; why not put it in a letter, why not stick it down? But there am I wandering again. "Let us come to the point," as Othello said when he fell on his sword; and "We had best get through it as soon as possible," as the point said to Othello, which, of course, was a joke, and made the Moor the merrier! Well, then, the subject is "People I Have Never Met." What's the use of telling you about Tom Braddles and his left-hand bowling ?-get out! the butter-fingers, he was nowhere, except with a lot of muffs and as for the praise he received when he got into Banks' Eleven and challenged the Chertsey Boys-as for that, it is very well known that if his progenitor had not been boss of the neighbourhood, he would never have got it. What's the use of telling you of George Bouncer, who told such big colnshire, and how Septimus rode to cover and all that sort of thing. My sentiments | instrument. Then, everything being very are those of the West countryman who still, and not the least intention on his part expressed his disgust at the personal ap- to disturb the repose of the family, I want pearance of George IV.him to strike up, and play a tune pretty lemoncholy, to which, as soon as it is deep enough, he should cast in his voice in words to the following effect :-" "Wilt thou forget me-thrum, thrum. Joy of my heart "I've seed a chap at Bartlemy Fair More like a king than that chap there." What I sigh for is to meet in real life the people I have never met there-people I have only seen at the footlights, and people who are being fast driven away from there, by the stern "truth" of modern drama. Thanks, my noble Pussycaught, for all your labours--your real race-courses, your real court of justice, your real Lancashire dialect, your manufacture of a real omelette in a real frying-pan-only, please don't do it again! thrum, thrum, thrum. Long since thou met me-thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum. Long must we part-thrum, thrum, tinkle tinkle, tinkle thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum!" I should like to see her open the window, and come out, not wrong side foremost, as if she was going to clean the window, but balcony provided-with a slow step, evidently characteristic of deep love, with her eyes fixed on the moon. Then I should like to hear her say, "And is he lost to me for ever, my own, my love; no-my heart is his; wherever he is, there am I-in life, in death, I am his." Then the gentleman tunes up again, and pitches it very strong; then she sees him, screams a scream which would fill the Agricultural Hall, and bring the bobbies, but does not wake her pa, her ma, or any of the family. I never met people who could sleep so sound; they must all recline on hop-beds, I think, after partaking of stewed poppies. Then up he comes, clambering heavily, and so shaking the edifice in his noble efforts to kiss the hand of his adored one, that it's a caution. I want to meet a young lady who will fall in love with somebody she oughtn't to, and stick to him in all weathers. I want her to dress herself in white muslin, and let her back-hair down, and walk upstairs and downstairs in a rampagious manner. I want to see her kissing a lock of his hair, and vowing to be only his in a style of language that stirs the cockles of your heart. I want her to have a stolen interview with the man of her choice, not by sending a post letter to say she'll meet him near the Elephant and Castle, and then putting her bonnet on after tea, and saying to her mother that she wants to do a little shopping at Tarn's. No-that's what I call mean. I want her to sit up late, with a Now, I never met people of this sort. I lamp-none of your dips in flat candlesticks have known fellows in love, and they made -I want the moon to come out strong. I about as much bother as if they'd got a want him (the lover) to scale the garden gum-boil; but as for climbing a wall, and walls--and on those walls let there be no un- playing the music, they would have been as dergrowth of broken bottles-I want him to likely to have swum from Southend to be dressed in long silk stockings, short satin Sheerness, reading about marriages that were breeches, tightly-fitting jacket, with puffed made in heaven, by the light of a lucifer sleeves, over all a velvet cloak, on his head match. No: the fellows I have met hung a hat and feathers. Standing in the garden about the premises, and tipped the servant--not skulking on the garden-roller, up in girl to carry scribbled notes; they went so the shadow by the dust-bin, but coming far as to go to church sometimes, and sit right forward, as if he were about to invoke where they could see, at all events, the the Buffalo girls to join in a dance,-I want back of her bonnet, in the family pew. him to produce a guitar-not in a case like They sat up late, and imbibed a good deal a young coffin-but boldly carried under his of spirits and water; but as for doing anyarm, or, better still, if he could find it pro- thing desperate right away, catch 'em at it! miscuous-like on the premises; it is so awk- Can I imagine the hero, in long silk hose ward getting over a wall with a musical and satin shorts, pursuing his common busi 228 THE ODD BOY ON PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET. ness, climbing an office stool, posting a ledger and posting letters, cutting out for a fourpenny upright, and coming back to plod and prod his blotting-pad! These are the sort of men I have seen in love, and what I want to see is something of another pattern; these articles don't suit me, they won't wash! I never met a roystering soldier who cried at tavern doors, "What ho! within there!" and bid the drawer-a sturdy fellow in green doublet and yellow hose, with a nose like a red-hot coal-serve him with a sack-posset. I never saw him lounge on a form-without any ceremony-in a mixed society, and throwing his purse, about as big and as red as a brewer's nightcap, to the host, desire that all the knaves should sup at his cost. I want to hear this done. I want those so treated to shont and then to sing, all taking their cue from one of their number, who works his arm like a semaphore. I never met a thorough-going villain, though I may candidly confess I have known many a rogue; but what I want is a rogue, with something in his scowl, something in the roll of his eyes, which shall proclaim him to be baddest of the bad. Rogues are so much like every-day folk, or every-day folk are so much like rogues, that there is no drawing of a clear distinctive line. Give me a man with a forbidding countenance, a way of speaking under his breath, a style of walk that seems as if every step were a stratagem, a suitable suit, and I will say that is the man for my felony. The illustrated newspapers have, to some extent, favoured my idea of a regular rascal, by making the portraits of criminals detestably ugly; but the pictures, I fear, are not always reliable. I know a gentleman who used to supply real likenesses of horrid criminals to Alderman Kelly-deceased-and, looking through his sketch-book, I find some decent-looking, handsome chaps, who did murder and were hung for it. I do not believe that, as things are, we can judge of a man—any more than you can of a book-by the frontispiece. I never met people who answered to their names. Talking of miscreants, are Good, Dove, Greenacre, names suggestive of Once I knew a Daniel-Lam *Could you flavour Punch without it?-ED. B.M.M. the game of contraries. Oh for the time when I shall meet with men who, in signing their names, indicate their character, wise men and fools, righteous, rogues and roysterers! I never met a man who was always true to his character. The players on the world's stage will not abide by their rôle. In plays and story-books the characters are always turning up with the right expression at the right time. Dominie Sampson says "Pro-digious!" just when you expect him to say; Mark Tapley asseverates that there is no credit in being jolly" under pleasant circumstances, just when he ought to say; but had I known D. S. or M. T. in the flesh, they would, I feel assured, have been a disappointment. I have seen men I have taken to be hypocrites, but they were never true to the niceties, like Mawworm or Pecksniff. Somehow or other, when you have grown accustomed to the harmonious world of fiction, common life palls: it wants colour, more ultramarine in the sky, more Prussian blue and gamboge in the grass. It is "awfully" dull, compared to what it might be. his young woman and the family spoons and acres? Did I ever meet the virtuous poor man who, discovering a poorer in the street, of whom he knew nothing, did straightway take him home, run in debt for a rasher of bacon, or a little tea, to make the stranger comfortable, and let him have it all, satisfying his own inward cravings with an additional button in his threadbare coat? Did I ever meet a jolly tar who, in behalf of beauty in distress, riled his commander, and was yard-armed as the penalty, after dividing his property, including his 'baccabox and pig-tail, amongst his messmates? Did I ever meet a wanderer returning to his home, after an absence of half a volume, or fifteen minutes, in Australia, with reflections which, musically or otherwise, took the form of Venerando domus,-be it ever so homely? No-never; there are lots of people I want to meet, and never haveperhaps never shall. I want vice and virtue legibly labelled-well, I don't get it. I want consistency of character-well, I don't get it. I want every man to be as true as his sword-well, he has not got any, and so perhaps he is. I want every maiden fair as the dawn-well, our dawnings are generally overcast, so perhaps they are. Alto People I never met! Did I ever meet the boy who, because you gave him a shilling for holding your horse, instead of six-gether, I want what I can't get-I want pence, held it a second time for nothing? sympathy-I want everybody to think as I Did I ever meet with a self-sacrificing elder do on all points; no, that is not it--because brother, who kept out of the way, and gave if they did, I should no longer be dubbed out that he was food for fishes, because his young brother was wishful to walk off with THE ODD BOY. MY NATIVE HOME. I LOVE to think of all thy charms, my dear, | That I walk through thy forests, dark and grim, my hunting to pursue; That I scan thy prairies' vast extent, as they spread far out of view. I fancy I stray through the balmy vales, as often before I've strayed, And weary at length sit me down to rest beneath the pine-tree shade, And listen as the birds pour forth their strains from every treeBut, oh! my home, thou'rt far away, across the boundless sea. CHAPTER VI.-COWRIES, WHELKS, SEA-HARES, &c. (Class GASTEROPODA.) ASTEROPODS are those mollusca which are provided with a head, and which move from place to place by means of a fleshy disk or foot placed under the abdomen. Every one is familiar with the mode in which a snail or a periwinkle glides along on this broad "belly-foot" (as the term gasteropod signifies), and by watching the motion on the opposite side of a plate of glass, you may readily discern the minute wrinkles produced by the contraction of numerous muscular fibres in succession, which proceed from the hind part forward in waves, by which means the foot slides uniformly along over solid bodies. naked, and the chitons, or coat-of-mail shells, are furnished with eight plates, arranged behind one another with great regularity, and connected by ligaments and muscles. The shells of these animals are among the most beautiful of natural objects; and when we consider that they are prepared for the cabinet without difficulty, preserved without expense, and free from any liability to decay, we cannot wonder at the ardour with which they have been collected, or the miser-like avidity with which they have been guarded. The forms of the shell are subject to great variations, but those which appear most widely sepa The gasteropods are an inferior class to rated may be shown to be connected by the cephalopods, though they rank imme- intermediate links, as well as to have a diately after them. They have a head, common origin. The simplest of all shells, more or less conspicuous, to which gene- in point of form, is that of the common rally two well-developed black eyes give an limpet, which is merely a cone, more or animated expression, and possess one or less expanded at the base. If the point of two pairs of contractile tentacles, or feelers, the cone were somewhat prolonged and a sense of smell, and rudimentary organs turned over, so as to resemble a "fool's of hearing. The common position for the cap," we should get the form of the eyes is at the extremity of a short fleshy pileopsis, a creature allied to the limpet. column, springing from the base of the The increase of this "fool's-cap" tendency tentacle. In many species the eyes pre-produces a regular spiral shell, such as that sent an elaborate structure; the great Strombida of the tropical seas, for example, have eyes with a distinct pupil and a double iris, equalling in beauty and correctness of outline those of birds and reptiles. But the nervous system of gasteropods is far less developed than that of the cephalopods and while the latter animals are able to swim about and rapidly seize a distant prey, almost all the former are obliged to content themselves with a slow creeping motion on their flat fleshy foot. : The class is extremely numerous, and is chiefly composed of animals living in a univalve shell, which is usually coneshaped and rolled into a spiral; but some species--the slug, for example-are perfectly of the planorbis, in which all the whorls or turns are on the same plane, as in a "Catherine's wheel;" but if the whorls do not continue in the same plane, but turn round a central line in corkscrew fashion, a shell is formed like that of the common snail. In the periwinkle you have probably noticed a horny cap closing the mouth of the shell when the animal retires into its recesses. This is called the operculum; it is principally confined to the aquatic gasteropods, is horny in some species and shelly in others, sometimes fits accurately and sometimes not, and varies in its shape. It may almost be regarded as the representative of the second valve or shell found in oysters and all mollusca of that class. |