ABOUT BUYING A HORSE. i6i 



"How?" he returns. " O ! lots of ways." He considers 

 awhile, then he resumes, " Well, it's a passport to Society in 

 some places. It's of great use if you get into a difficulty. 

 You pick up companions ; and — in fact — O, there are heaps 

 of instances where Freemasonry has been of the greatest 

 possible service. I recollect a man saying how he was had 

 up before a Magistrate in Naples, and the case was just 

 going against him, when he made a sign to the bench, and 

 the Magistrate returned it. I forget whether he got off or 

 not ; but I know that it benefited him— somehow. Why," 

 he continues, hurrying on, as if to avoid being too closely 

 questioned about this last interesting incident, " when I was 

 on the Continent, I was all alone somewhere, and I didn't 

 know what on earth to do with myself ; and I found the 

 landlord where I was stopping was a Mason, and so was 

 another fellow staying there, and we got quite chummy, and 

 we had a rubber with dummy in the evening." 



Happy Thought {for a rhyme) — " Chummy "and "Dummy." 

 N'ote this for future poem on Whist, or on chimney-sweeps ; 

 a "chummy" being, I fancy, the slang for a chimney- 

 sweep. 



" French, were they ? " I inquire, working up an interest in 

 the foregoing exciting story. 



"No," he replies, carelessly, "they were English. Only, 

 probably, I shouldn't have chummed with them if they 

 hadn't been Masons. They played whist uncommonly 

 well." 



A tap at the door. Then Murgle appears, cautiously. 



M 



