l you
engage him? Yes, or No?" Laporte said he would make proposals, and, if
those proposals, etc. This would not do; "Yes, or No?" said his
persevering interrogators. "Say 'No,'" said his supporters. He began
talking about terms. "Same terms as last year," shouted all the
"Omnibus" party, upon which he retired, without proposing anything
satisfactory. Everyone was getting tired, when, at last, a gentleman, in
a box opposite the "Omnibus," stepped over the front of his box on to the
stage, and was followed by a party; the "Omnibus" party entered the stage
from the opposite side, and, at one o'clock, the Tamburinists had taken
possession, and waved their hats triumphantly, on the stage, as the
curtain fell.

It was this episode that the Rev. R. H. Barham has immortalized in his
_Ingoldsby Legends_, under the title of "A Row in an Omnibus (box),"
beginning:

Doldrum the Manager sits in his chair,
With a gloomy brow and dissatisfied air,
And he says, as he slaps his hand on his knee,
'I'll have nothing to do with Fiddle-de-dee!

'--But Fiddle-de-dee sings clear and loud,
And his trills and his quavers astonish the crowd.
Such a singer as he,
You'll nowhere see,
They'll all be screaming for Fiddle-de-dee!

'--Though Fiddle-de-dee sings loud and clear,
And his tones are sweet, yet his terms are dear!
The glove won't fit!
The deuce a bit.
I shall give an engagement to Fal-de-ral-tit!'"

CHAPTER XIII.

The Mulready Envelope--Plans of Royal Exchange decided on--Fire at York
Minster--Queen shot at by Oxford--Oxford in Bedlam--Scientific
Agriculture--Electro-metallurgy--Embossed envelope--Sale of Louis
Napoleon's effects.

On the 1st of May, the Post Office issued the long expected postal
envelope designed by W. Mulready, R.A., and the opinion of _The Times_
may be taken as the expression of most people's feelings about it.

_Times_, 2 May.--"We have been favoured with a sight of one of the
new stamp covers, and we must say we never beheld anything more
ludicrous than the figures or allegorical device by which it is
marked with its official character--why not add embellished?
Cruickshank could scarcely produce anything so laughable. It is,
apparently, a spirited attempt to imitate the hieroglyphic which
formed one of the ornaments to _Moore's Almanack_; Britannia is
seated in the cen