178 A PINCH OF SNUFF. 



seven, he becomes erect like an Islamite after his dose 

 of opium, his features flash with intelligence and he 

 commences a harangue which tends to the acquittal of 

 his client. 



Now turn your eye on the gasconading hero of Ton, 

 brought out at last to meet his man, a real Galway 

 boy, that can split a bullet on a penknife blade at 

 twenty paces, and who has already left holes for the 

 sun to look through in the bodies of eight or nine an- 

 tagonists : the exquisite creature begins to feel his 

 courage evaporate, notwithstanding his tonic of spiced 

 nuts and a tumbler of Burgundy, so, as a last resource 

 he begs a grain of " Blackguard " from his medical 

 friend; this enables him to give a fair front to the 

 bullet so that it may go clean through him, and not 

 puzzle the Surgeon by sticking sideways between his 

 ribs. 



And now reader, gentle or simple which ever you 

 may be, suppose yourself Don Cleophas for a few 

 seconds, and that Asmodeus lias unroofed the chamber 

 of a mathematician for especial introspection, there he 

 sits up to his eyes in paper, calculating a new mode of 

 paying off the National debt ; and there he has sat for 

 the last two months, eating, drinking, counting and 

 sleeping, after the manner of the illustrious Liebnitz, 

 without stirring from his chair ; it is long past mid- 

 night but he is anxious to finish one important step in 

 his process, when Lo ! he turns up a cube, and of this 

 he must get the root, aye and carry it to nine places 

 of decimals ; he will not trust to tables lest the slightest 

 inaccuracy may creep into his computation and yet he 

 recoils a little, for the three thousand and fifty figures 

 which await him, by way of episode, like a cloud of 

 skirmishing Saracens, look formidable even at a dis- 

 tance : he would fain recur to some stimulant in this 

 hour of need, for his head aches, his fingers are cramp- 

 ed, his legs are stiffened and his eyes are red and dry ; 

 a glass of wine would obfuscate his perspicacity at 

 once, a cup of coffee would be just the thing, but his fire 

 is out, his coffee-pot empty and his relish palled, for he 



