as a thousand pities we did not make him
dance! I remember the day, Captain, when you would have insisted on
it. What a merry fellow you were once! Do you recollect, one bright
moonlight night, just like the present, for instance, when we were doing
duty near Staines, how you swore every person we stopped, above fifty
years old, should dance a minuet with you?"

"Ay!" added Augustus, "and the first was a bishop in a white wig. Faith,
how stiffly his lordship jigged it! And how gravely Lovett bowed to him,
with his hat off, when it was all over, and returned him his watch and
ten guineas,--it was worth the sacrifice!"

"And the next was an old maid of quality," said Ned, "as lean as a
lawyer. Don't you remember how she curvetted?"

"To be sure," said Tomlinson; "and you very wittily called her a
hop-pole!"

"How delighted she was with the captain's suavity! When he gave her back
her earrings and aigrette, she bade him with a tender sigh keep them for
her sake,--ha! ha!"

"And the third was a beau!" cried Augustus; "and Lovett surrendered his
right of partnership to me. Do you recollect how I danced his beauship
into the ditch? Ah! we were mad fellows then; but we get sated--blases,
as the French say--as we grow older!"

"We look only to the main chance now," said Ned. "Avarice supersedes
enterprise," added the sententious Augustus.

"And our captain takes to wine with an h after the w!" continued the
metaphorical Ned.

"Come, we are melancholy," said Tomlinson, tossing off a bumper.
"Methinks we are really growing old, we shall repent soon, and the next
step will be-hanging!"

"'Fore Gad!" said Ned, helping himself, "don't be so croaking. There are
two classes of maligned gentry, who should always be particular to avoid
certain colours in dressing; I hate to see a true boy in black, or a
devil in blue. But here's my last glass to-night! I am confoundedly
sleepy, and we rise early to-morrow."

"Right, Ned," said Tomlinson; "give us a song before you retire, and let
it be that one which Lovett composed the last time we were here."

Ned, always pleased with an opportunity of displaying himself, cleared
his voice and complied.

A DITTY FROM SHERWOOD.

I.
Laugh with us at the prince and the palace,
In the wild wood-life there is better cheer;
Would you board your mirth from your neighbour's malice,
Gather it up in our ga