m was my words.' 'Well, then,' I says, 'you'd better
be careful what you say next time, or you don't know whose character you'll
be takin' away next.' And with that I left 'er."

"But did you shoot the cat, SYKES?" I ventured to ask.

"_Did_ I shoot it? Ho, ho, ha, ha! What do _you_ think! Sir?"

And with that enigmatic answer the dialogue closed.

* * * * *

When referring to a recent Lecture by a certain Noble Marquis
(distinguished in the "_P.R._-age" of the Realm), the ladies generally say,
that they should decidedly object to be married "under the Queensberry
Rules." _Their_ prize ring is quite another affair.

* * * * *

"DOWN AMONG THE COALS."--The most appropriate place wherein to try "the
scuttle" policy would, of course, be--Newcastle.

* * * * *

THE DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROeM.

[Illustration]

(_Fragments from a Narrative somewhat in the style of E. A. Poe._)

Even while one gazed, the current acquired a monstrous velocity.

Each moment added to its speed--to its headlong impetuosity.

The vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting
channels, burst suddenly into frenzied convulsion--heaving, boiling,
hissing,--gryrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling
and plunging on with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except
in precipitous descents.

* * * * *

Precipitous descents! Niagara's abrupt and headlong plunge is but as an
eddy in a rocky trout-stream compared with what was soon to be seen _here_.
In brief space there came over the scene another radical alteration. The
general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the whirlpools one by one
disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam became apparent where none
had been seen before. These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great
distance, and entering into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory
motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another
more vast. Suddenly--very suddenly--this assumed a distinct and definite
existence in a circle of a colossal and seemingly all-embracing diameter.
The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming, turbid
slime--cumbered spray, foul, festering, furiously troubled, slipping, as it
seemed, particle by particle, viscid gout by gout, into the mouth of the
terrific funnel, wh