"Hollo! what's the matter?" asked the old man, starting up and rubbing his eyes.

"A black snake! a black snake, grandfather! there he goes! there he goes! right up the leg of your trousers! stop him! kill him! quick! quick!"

"My grandfather sprang upon his feet, clapping his hand upon his pantaloons; he felt something slipping downward within, and in his confusion at awaking suddenly, never thought of his pipe, but only of the reptile, with the name of which I had alarmed him. "Aha!" ex

claimed he, giving it a sturdy smite with his fist, "avast there! avast! avast! none of your nibbling at my knee-pans; I'm meat for your master, you lubber! avast there! heave-to!"

"Kill him! kill him!" exclaimed I, pretending great terror; "smash him soundly."

"That I will," said the old man, redoubling his thumps, while the pipe began to snap into pieces under the blows; "I'll make your bones crack, you pirate! I'll coil you up in the cable-tier, you son of a shoalwater eel, I will. Strike your topsails! the grappling-irons are on you! the grappling-irons are on you! the grappling-irons are on you!"

"That's right, grandfather," I continued to cry; " pound him, pound him, pound him, give him a dab extra, and he never will call a second time! Aha! Mr. Longback, we'll lay you up in lavender. Another hit, grandfather! pound away!"

He went on thumping himself, and fancying he was killing the snake, till at length, all blowzed with the alarm and exertion, he desisted for a moment, and perceived the bits of white pipe-clay falling into his shoes. 66 Heyday! what have we here?" exclaimed he, in amazement; black snake? no!"

a

"No?" said I, bursting into a loud laugh. "What's all this?" said he, in a great puzzle, while I made a bound some ten feet off. "A black snake, you rogue! Where is he?"

"Gone a bat-hunting, I guess."

"Where!" exclaimed he, feeling up and down his leg, where the fragments of the unfortunate pipe gave but too sure evidence of the trick I had played him. "Oh! ho! ho! ho! Smite my timbers! I'll make you sweat for this, you little sarpent."

The most comical grin shone upon his weather-beaten phiz as he uttered this threat. I was too well assured, however, of the old man's goodnature, to dread any serious requital of this roguery. But he never heard the last of the black snake; for thenceforth whenever we were walking together in the fields, and chanced to espy one of these creatures, I was sure to give him a pluck by the sleeve, and then jump off to a safe distance, crying out—

"Bear a hand, grandfather! Let's put the grappling-irons on that fellow!"

A FRENCHMAN'S TRICK.

His

Monsieur Duphot was a French refugee who had fled to America in the beginning of the revolution, and settled himself in Boston. judgment of the Yankees was expressed without reserve- "Ils sont bons enfans, mais ils ne savant pas jouer le violon." But Monsieur Duphot had a waggish neighbour, who, if he could not play the fiddle, could play a trick, as the Frenchman found to his annoyance, having been Nov.-VOL. XLII. NO. CLXVII.

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April-fooled, and sent on errands after pigeon's milk more times than once by this mischief-loving fellow. He would have paid him in his own coin, but his bad English was sure to carry him into some blunder in the attempt, and the jokes which he plotted commonly exploded on his own hands. However, good luck and his own wits made him amends, now and then. One day, Mr. B—, the joker aforesaid, met him in the market, where the Frenchman was cheapening a quarter of mutton. "Ah, Monsieur," said he, "you and I are on the same errand. You dine on mutton to-day?"

"Yes, sair; de muttons is more sheap as de bif, voyez vous.' "True, and if you and I buy a bit together, it will be cheaper still. What do you say?"

"Ver well, allons; let us see-how moch you vant ?"

"Oh, about a quarter."

"Bien, bien, and so do I. Den me buy half a mutton ensemble, and den me make him two halfs chacun a piece:"

Exactly," replied B—,

So straightway making a purchase of a side of mutton he cut it in two, and taking the hind quarter for himself, offered the Frenchman the other. "Attendez !" said the Frenchman; "it is de hind quarter I want."

Really! now it happens to be the very part I want too!" said the other, pretending surprise.

The Frenchman grinned, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Come," said B— "let us toss a cent, and he that wins shall put his hand upon one piece, and say, 'Who shall have this? while the other turns his back, and answers I or you."

"Ver well."

"Here it goes then; head, I win-tail, you lose."

The former proposition was uttered, as the coin flew into the air. "Aye," said the Frenchman to it, and "No," to the latter, for he had been tricked that way before. Mr. B was caught in his own trap, for it was not a head. "However, 'tis an equal chance yet," thought he. "Tournez donc," said the Frenchman; and slyly whipping out his penknife he chopped off the tail from the one portion of the mutton, and clapping it upon the other, cried out, as if in his usual blundering way, "Who shall have dis wid de tail on?"

"I!" replied the other, jumping round in great glee, at the supposed etourderie of his companion.

"Den you take him, de fore quarter."

Mr. B- scratched his head, without saying a word, for a moment or two, till the explosion of laughter which accompanied the trick had in some degree subsided. Then, with an exceedingly foolish look, he marched away, carrying his fore quarter of mutton with the tail on, which winds this tale off.

A NEAPOLITAN TRICK.

passen

Napoli, ho!-Napoli, ho! cried the sailors of our brig, as we passed with flowing sheets the strait between Capri and the main land, opening the broad bay of Naples, and catching a distant glimpse of a long line of white houses on the shore ahead of us.-Ecco Napoli! shouted the gers. Grazie a Dio, exclaimed the padrone; Siamo a Napoli. These exclamations might have been supposed to denote the conclusion of a long and perilous navigation, but ours had been a voyage of but five days from Messina: true, we had Scylla and Charybdis to pass, but Scylla is an

immoveable rock, tall enough for a light-house, and will not run against you if you do not run against her; and as for Charybdis, it is no great splash, a little bubbling of the water, a short chopping wave or two when the wind blows, but nothing that ever gave a sailor a wet jacket; you might paddle over this mighty whirlpool in a pumpkin shell: such are the humbugs of antiquity.

Why the crew were so rejoiced to get to land I cannot tell, unless it was that they might eat the more. I verily believe there is not such another set of gormandizers upon earth as the Neapolitans. They talk of nothing else but eating; mangia, mangia, mangia is the eternal sound that rings in your ear as you go through the streets of Naples. The piles of macaroni that one person will swallow would frighten an alderman: the lazzaroni, as is well known, eat it by the yard. The army is enlisted for no other purpose than to eat; you never see a soldier do any thing but trundle his provision-cart from the magazine to the barracks. As to their sailors, a vessel of thirty tons has a crew of fifteen or twenty men, one-half of whom are always eating, while the other half manage the vessel. I watched their movements attentively during the voyage, and upon my corporeal oath, there was not a moment in the whole passage when their chaps were not going. The vegetables that formed a part of our stores were piled upon deck, and they made a heap like a haystack. Fruges consumere nati; if ever a people under the sun merited this description it is the Neapolitans.

If the crew, however, felt a joy at the sight, so did we, though not from the cause I have guessed at above. We were about to set foot on Italian soil, nay, on the continent of Europe, for the first time; and most sublimely did I feel of course at this interesting moment. But from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a single step, (I think somebody has said it before.) The step was made as we landed at the Mole.

It was necessary to have our luggage examined by the custom-house officers, and the moment we set foot on shore we were surrounded by a troop of doganieri with shouldered muskets and swords at their sides lest something should be smuggled. It is true we were from Sicily, no foreign part-but that mattered nothing, a doganiere would overhaul you in passing from one street to another, could he find the least shadow of a pretext for it. Travellers are free plunder with these fellows, and no chance of squeezing their pockets is suffered to pass unimproved. The sight of a trunk is the prospect of sure gain, for there is no escaping these great pests of Italian travelling; "they stop the chariot, and they board the barge." Bisogna fare la visita must be answered with a prompt compliance; then it is " open locks, whoever knocks," and he who wishes to avoid trouble and delay must grease the fingers of his annoyer with silver ointment, that it may slip through his luggage the easier. We had nothing but the common travelling apparatus and submitted to the scrutiny with all patience, and no fears for the result. One package after another was fumbled, and nothing found worthy of seizure; but at length on groping within a basket which purported to contain only a table-cloth and napkins, the eye of the searcher brightened up with a sudden gleam.

"C'è qualche cosa qui dentro,” exclaimed he, with the air of one who had made an important discovery.

"Niente," was my reply.

He plucked it forth without heeding my assurance that it was nothing, and drew to light something rolled up in a napkin. Now the reader may as well be informed that in tossing our baggage into the boat, the ragazzo who acted as our steward on board ship, had, in his zeal to execute matters with scrupulous fidelity, laid hands upon a bacon bone from which we had breakfasted that morning, and thrust it into the basket aforesaid. In this manner, without being aware of it, we had been detected in the act of smuggling one pound and three-quarters of smokedried pig's flesh, which, coming under the general denomination of salame, as we were informed, was liable to duty according to the ordinance in such case made and provided.

"Come niente?" exclaimed the doganiere, unrolling the napkin, and exposing the interloping scrag of bacon to view. "Eccolo."

"Ecco !" cried another of the troop, holding up his hands.

"Ecco!" said a third; "Ecco!" said a fourth; and all crowded round the basket. The thing was not to be concealed: there lay a pound and three-quarters of bacon staring them in the face. In a moment a mighty jabbering, shrugging of shoulders, tossing of heads, and flourishing of arms ensued. I knew not at first what to make of this sudden movement. Least of all did I imagine that the morsel of meat before me had caused such a stir.

"Che e'e?" demanded I. "Il dazio," was the reply.

"The duty? What, a duty on a bacon bone!"

"Si, signore."

I could not avoid bursting into a laugh on the instant, though the officers preserved the most inflexible gravity. My next impulse was to seize the article, and throw it into the street, by way of convincing them, from the little value I set upon it, that no premeditated act of smuggling had been practised; but a second thought withheld me. "Let me play out the play," said I to myself; "here is a chance for witnessing such a comedy as I never saw before." So putting on a grave look, I shook my head, and stood by to see the result.

Had I not witnessed the whole transaction, I never could have been made to believe that sixteen custom-house officers, gendarmes, and sbirri, would have been summoned together in grand divan to deliberate upon the course to be pursued in relation to a mouthful of bacon. Yet so it was; a messenger was despatched to the Grand Custom-house with intelligence of the seizure-the whole party assembled on the spot where the event took place, from whence they adjourned to a corpo di guardia in the neighbourhood, in order to consult on the affair with more convenience. Here, in a room guarded at the door by sentinels with fixed bayonets, the scrag of bacon was placed on the floor in the centre, the officers formed a circle around it, and the consultation began. It was too capital a scene to be lost by any man that had a sense of humour. I ran off full speed for my companion, who had gone to accompany two ladies to their hotel. "For heaven's sake, H," exclaimed I, "make haste and come along with me."

"What is the matter ?"

"Matter! such matter as will give you food for meditation as long as you live, or you are not the man I take you for."

cr

Breeding! aye, breeding on a grand scale. Come and see a convocation of sixteen owls sitting upon a goose-egg."

"You are farcical!"

"Of course; 'tis the way here, I find; and you will find so too, if you will but just accompany me. I'll show you a farce for nothing, and a better one than ever was played within the walls of a theatre. 'Tis entitled, 'The Bone of Contention; or, Great Cry and Little Meat.'” "But explain."

Why the long and the short of it is, that the whole revenue tribe are in a rout about the remains of our breakfast; a bit of it was left upon the tablecloth, and came ashore perdue. See what it is to have linen and buck-baskets."

Off I dragged him to the scene of action, where we found the whole wittenagemote most gravely occupied with the affair; twenty times, at least, was the unfortunate bone taken up, turned round and round, and over and over, and weighed in the hand, and minutely inspected every possible way, in the midst of a serious discussion whether it should be seized as smuggled goods, or charged with the duty, and allowed to pass. A council of state could not have carried on its deliberation with a more important air. Had the whole been designed as a burlesque, it could not have been executed more capitally.

All this took place on a spot adjoining the Mole, where hundreds of people were passing; a great crowd gathered at the door, and listened and looked upon the proceeding with as much seriousness as the actors in the farce. We bore our share in it with all the mock gravity we could assume at so ludicrous a spectacle. At length the question having been fully discussed, was solemnly put to vote, and we were gratified with the intelligence that, in consideration of our character as strangers, it had been decided to allow the bacon-bone free ingress into the continental part of the king's dominions on payment of the customary dazio. This we agreed to, and a bill for the same was formally made out in the following style :

IL SIGNORE

To duty on salame

Stamp duty

Total

8 grains.

This sum being paid, and the bill receipted and registered in due form, one of the officers immediately left the place in great haste; probably on an errand to the Minister of Finance, to inform him that eight grains, or threepence-halfpenny English, had gone into the Royal Exchequer. The others more deliberately twirled their mustachios, and turning on their heels, broke up the sitting. The sentinels faced to the right-about and marched off, the multitude dispersed, chacun se retira en sa chacuniere, and thus ended the grand council of the scrag of bacon.

Reader," as Hervey says, (vide Noll Goldsmith, anent the case of Mr. The. Cibber,)" pause and ponder, and ponder and pause." Contemplate the ills that pork-flesh is heir to; think on the vagaries of destiny, as exemplified in the fate of the disjecta membra of a Yankee squeaker! Sweet scion of a grunting race! did it ever enter thy piggish noddle to imagine, while nuzzling the green sod on the hills of Vermont, that a bit of thy hinder end would ever kick up such a dust at the Gran Dogana of his Majesty the King of the Two Sicilies? Q. Q.