aid, "I have told you all." "You
have told us how you enjoyed the thoughts of the theatre, and the
performance, and the recollection of it afterwards; but you have not
told us how you will enjoy the thoughts of it on your death-bed." Of
course the "fine lady" was converted on the spot, as they always are in
tracts; and the good old fellow brought his long-winded narrative of
experiences to an end by-and-by, the pastor having omitted to pull his
coat-tails, as he promised to do if any speaker exceeded the allotted
time. "The people were certainly very attentive to hear him," and one
man next my boy expressed his satisfaction by letting off little groans,
like minute guns, at frequent intervals.

Then another hymn was sung, "The Beautiful Land on High," which, by the
way, is a favourite with the spiritualists at their "Face Seances." I
half expected to see a ghostly-looking visage peep out of some corner
cupboard, as I had often done with my spiritual friends--that being
another experience which I cultivate with considerable interest and
curiosity. The hymn being over, a black-bearded, but soft-voiced man, in
a velveteen coat, got upon the platform, and told us how the chief
delight of his life was at one time making dogs fight. When the animals
were not sufficiently pugnacious of themselves, his habit was to
construct an apparatus, consisting of a pin at the end of a stick, and
so urge them to the combat, until it proved fatal to one of them. It
was, he said, dreadful work; and he now considered it the direct
machination of Satan. Another favourite pursuit was interrupting the
proceedings of open-air missionaries. One day after he had done so, he
went home with a companion who had taken a tract from one of the
missionaries. He had a quarrel with his "missis." "Not that missis
sittin' there," he said, alluding to a smart lady in front, "but my
first missis." In order to show his sulks against his missis, he took to
reading the tract, and it soon made him cry. Then he went to chapel and
heard a sermon on Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt. He was
a little exercised by this, and saw the minister in the vestry, but soon
fell back into bad habits again, singing canaries for _10s. 6d._ a side.
As he was taking his bird out one Sunday morning, the bottom of the cage
came out, and the canary escaped. This he looked upon as "God's work,"
since it caused him to go to chapel that morning. His conversion soon
followed, an