Mr Sloman, rummaging the pockets of Nicholas' clothes as he spoke, and drawing from one of them a small red morocco case, "I shouldn't wonder if this was to furnish evidence of it. Ay-I thought so," he continued, with a malicious grin, opening the case, and taking out a roll of bank notes "here's a pretty lot of them all fives and tens, and finished off equal to the regular Threadneedle Street flimsies. Where did your innocence get these, eh? If you'll peach, and give us a hint how to find the place where these came from, perhaps that may save you."

Nicholas clasped his hands together, and called heaven to witness that the pocket-book was not his, and that he couldn't tell how it came into his possession.

As he uttered these words, he caught a full view of Mr Sloman's face, and started with amazement. These were the same eyes that he had thrice seen before! And now that he surveyed the person to whom they belonged, enveloped in a rough greatcoat, with a coloured silk handkerchief round his neck, he thought he could trace a strong resemblance to the man at Temple Bar, though not to either Richard in his livery, or Mr Franklin, with his green spectacles and fashionable evening dress.

Nicholas was right. The man at Temple Bar, Richard, Mr Franklin, and Mr Sloman the thief-taker, were all one and the same person. In his last-mentioned capacity, (which constituted his regular calling,) he had entered into a conspiracy with Jenkins, (whose real name was Homerton, a notorious dealer in forged notes,) to victimize Nicholas for a double purpose; first, to entitle himself to a portion of the reward which had been offered for discovering the gang, or apprehending any individual belonging to it; and secondly, to turn aside from the real delinquents the enquiries that were on foot in every direction. The meeting between Jenkins, alias Homerton, and Nicholas, was purely accidental; nor did he, in the first instance, anticipate the use he afterwards made of him. Being a bit of a humorist, and fond of practical jokes, he intended nothing more than to enjoy a laugh at his expense, when he recommended him to begin his mackerel at the tail; but the very success of that clumsy piece of wit pointed him

out as a fit person upon whom to practise the diabolical trick which was afterwards contrived. While his scheme was only as yet half formed, he chanced to run against Sloman at the corner of Norfolk Street, who told him of the hot enquiries that were being made by the Bank, and how difficult it would be to stave them off much longer without making some disclosures, real or pretended, that might amuse the lawyers, and put them upon another scent. This intelligence determined Jenkins to make use of Nicholas at all hazards, and trust to his Old Bailey resources for carrying him through.

His confidence in these resources was justified by the event. In vain did poor Nicholas tell his story, without any colouring, or shadow of colouring, relating all the circumstances precisely as they had occurred. It was literally laughed out of court, where the hatter, the hosier, and the Jew salesmen from Holywell Street, appeared to identify him as the person who had passed the forged notes. The solicitor for the prosecution tried every means to persuade him to denounce his confederates. His resolute and unvarying declaration, that he had none, and that he himself had been duped, was regarded as an aggravation of his crime, and a proof that under the seeming simplicity of his character was concealed the hardened resolution of a practised offender; facts which were prominently set down in the brief, and most eloquently expounded by the counsel. Even the judge could not restrain his indignation at the audacity of the prisoner's defence, in his charge to the jury; and the jury were so satisfied they saw before them one of the most hardened of the gang, who was resolved to know nothing, that the verdict of guilty was upon all their lips long before the trial was brought to a conclusion.

Nicholas was sentenced to transportation for fourteen years.

"If I deserve that," said he, "I deserve hanging."

"What's that the fellow is muttering?" enquired the judge.

"He says he deserves hanging, my lord," replied the turnkey, who was standing by his side in the dock.

"I know it," answered his lordship, "but I've looked at the statute under which he is indicted, and I can't hang him."

This was said with so much con

cern, as if his lordship really regretted his inability to give to prisoner his deserts according to his own estimate of them, that an audible titter ran through the court.

"Well," exclaimed Nicholas, "as soon as he was left to his meditations, 66 SO I am to cross the herring-pond it seems, and if that isn't making a pretty kettle of fish of my fried mackerel I don't know what is! Oh! if I had that rascal Jenkins here just now, or that evil. eyed scoundrel who, I suspect, has had more to do with it even than Jenkins, wouldn't I"- and he struck out right and left, with his clenched fists, several times, to show what these worthies might have expected at his hands had they been within reach of them. Then the thought of dear Mrs Dunks, and how she would wonder what had become of him, and be puzzled to know what to do, ; but no tenderness mixed with his thoughts; for, tracing matters up to their original causes, he, like most husbands, but in this instance with more justice than husbands commonly have, laid the whole burden of his calamity upon his wife's shoulders. As thus:-"If I could have had a fried mackerel at home, I shouldn't have gone to the Blue Posts: if I hadn't gone to the Blue Posts, I shouldn't have met with Jenkins and, if I hadn't met with Jenkins, I shouldn't have been here." Aristotle himself could not have reasoned more logically; and the result of his reasoning was, that as Mrs Dunks had been the cause of all, she might get through her share of it in the best way she could. He was even malicious enough to find a balm for his own troubles in what he considered the retributive troubles that awaited her. In due course of time he arrived at his destination-not the first innocent man whom our admirable criminal jurisprudence and that bulwark of our liberties, trial by jury, have visited with the punishment due to guilt, upon the clearest evidence, and after the most patient investigation of facts. Happy England! where, if the wrong person happen to be hanged, he has the satisfaction of knowing it is by the laws' decree, and not by the arbitrary mandate of a tyrant. To a true-born Englishman, whose veneration for the laws is at least equal to his love of law, this reflection must be very consolatory. Among those marvellous accidents which occasionally befall us in our way

VOL. L. NO. CCCXI.

to the grave, was one which happened to Nicholas while he sojourned at Botany Bay. His good conduct, his inoffensive manners, and the nature of his certified offence, which had nothing of deep or desperate villany about it, soon obtained for him as large a remission of the penalties attached to his sentence as it was within the discretionary power of the authorities to grant; and he was allowed, under certain restrictions, to carry on his trade. This indulgence he turned to such good account, that in a few years he had amassed a considerable sum of money, kept several journeymen, and was the very Schultze of Paramatta. His celebrity was such that he imparted his own name to a particular description of shootingjacket, peculiarly adapted to the climate and country, which to this day, we believe, is called a Dunks.

That shooting-jacket led to the marvellous accident above mentioned. When it was in the height of its popularity, and when every body who could afford it wore a Dunks, whether they went out shooting or not, the name attracted the notice of an aged convict who had been transported for life, and who had already passed nearly forty years in the colony. He kept a sort of public-house, and being of penurious habits on the one hand, and of rapacious ones on the other, his tens gradually swelled to hundreds, and his hundreds to thousands, till old Jem Bunker, as he was called, (though that was not supposed to be his real name,) passed for a second Rothschild.

One day he came tottering into Nicholas' work-room to order a Dunks for himself. While Nicholas was taking his measure, the old man eyed him with great earnestness, but said nothing, and soon after left the place, giving strict injunctions to Nicholas to bring the shooting-jacket home himself, and to be sure not to send it by any of his men.

Nicholas humoured the old fellow, and when the jacket was finished took it home; but instead of trying it on, as he wished to see whether it was a good fit, or wanted any alteration, Jem Bunker took it quietly from his hand, laid it on a table, and bade him sit down.

"What made you call these jackets Dunkses?" said he.

"I didn't christen them. I only

2 B

made them; people took it into their heads of their own accord to call them after me."

"Are you a Dunks?"

"So my mother always told me.' "It's rather an uncommon name," remarked the old man.

"Ah!" observed Nicholas with a sigh, remembering what Jenkins said when he heard it for the first time, "you are not the only person who has told me that, as I have good reason to know."

"You've mentioned your mother; who was your father?"

"I'm not a wise son," replied Nicholas, laughing.

"Perhaps a prodigal one?" rejoined Jem Bunker.

"Not much of that neither, for I had nothing to be prodigal with. My father died, as I have heard my mother say, when I was in my cradle; and who or what he was I never had the curiosity to enquire."

"Where did your mother live?" "In London."

"What part?"

"A great many parts; but the first that I remember was Saffron Hill, where I went to school; then she removed to Shoe Lane; after that to Barbican; then to Smithfield Bars; then to Gray's Inn Lane; then to Whitechapel; then back to Barbican; and then to Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey, where she died, poor soul, of a scarlet fever. Lord! I remember all the places as well as possible. Oh dear, I wish I was in one of them now!"

"Was your mother tall?"

"I fancy she was; they used to call her the grenadier, at Whitechapel." "Did she stammer in her speech ?" "Yes, particularly when she got into one of her towering passions, which was pretty often."

"What other children had she?" "None-I am her only son and heir."

"And she called you

99

"I was christened Nicholas, but she always called me Nick, for short. 'Nick,' said she, the day she died, if I don't recover, bury me in St Giles's churchyard, for there's where I was married.'"

"Enough!" interrupted Jem Bunker, starting from his chair, and tottering towards Nicholas, he threw himself into his arms, exclaiming, "My son! my son!"

"Not very likely," thought Nicholas to himself, as the old man hugged him, and kept repeating the words"my son! my son!" But he said nothing.

"Lord! what a blessed thing it is to see and touch one's own flesh and blood, after so many years," continued Jem, looking Nicholas full in the face as he spoke, and clasping his hands between his, with a fervour and tenderness too true to nature to be mistaken. "I am a transported felon," said he, "and doomed to die in this strange land; but thank God! thank God! I am a father!" and tears that gushed forth afresh, and trickled down his aged cheeks, attested the sincerity of his feelings.

"Thank God, sir," replied Nicholas," as it seems to make you so happy, I have no objection to be your son, I having no other father to claim me, do you see; but as to the fact of my being so, I really think it's all gammon."

66

"Hush, hush," interrupted the old man, wiping his eyes and becoming more composed; you don't know what you say. Death may come now as soon as it likes-I have nothing else to live for. But I wish your mother had answered my letters."

"She couldn't write, you know," replied Nicholas. "You forgot that, father."

"Ah! well, you may jest as much as you like," said the old man; "but if you are my son, you have a flesh mark on the right arm, just above the elbow, shaped like a pear.'

,,

"To be sure I have, to be sure I have!" exclaimed Nicholas, stripping off his coat, and rolling up his shirt sleeve, and showing the mark with an amazed countenance-"and my mother has often told me—"

"She has often told you," interrupted Jem Bunker, "that her husband flung a ripe pear at her one day as she sat asleep, the shock of which terrified and awoke her."

"To be sure she did," said Nicholas, who now in his turn threw himself into the old man's arms, exclaiming my father!-my father!-only think of my finding you here, and making that jacket for you!"

66

The truth must be told. Jem Bunker, alias "Ned Dunks," had been transported for horse-stealing. He was sentenced to die; but there were some circumstances in his case which,

SIXTY years ago, Paris was to the antiquary and the historical visitor one of the most interesting capitals in this quarter of the globe; and next to Rome, perhaps excited in the minds of those who journeyed to it more grave and more spirit-stirring recollections than any other city of western Europe. It was then in great part a city of the middle ages, modified, no doubt, by the capricious changes of later times, and much added to by the sumptuous taste of the golden era of Louis XIV.; but still the internal portion of the capital, the core, the nucleus of the whole, retained most of the features which the various epochs of the French monarchy had successively formed for it. The streets in the heart of Paris were all, what many still are, exceedingly narrow and gloomy; the houses lofty and overhanging; the pavements dirty and disgusting in the extreme; for the population of the capital was always noted for its carelessness, and want of regard to all decency and cleanliness. Churches swarmed in the city; and there were numerous monasteries which spoke of the holy associations of past days, and recalled to the minds of the giddy, dissolute mob, salutary ideas of religious and moral restraint. At numerous points rose buildings, once destined for the external defence of the capital, but which had long been encased within the ever-spreading circuit of houses. On the river side stood the greater and the smaller chatelet or castellet, erected on the site of earlier fortresses to defend the bridges which led to the Lutetian island from the inroads of the wild Normans; but in after ages, and until the time of the Revolution, serving as prisons, or as depôts for the criminal tribunals and their archives. At other points were ancient gates and towers, which showed where the fortifications had once been traced; and to the east of the capital at the end of the Rue St Antoine, frowned the much dreaded, the impregnable Bastile. This fortress, which inspired thoughts of horror in the minds of too many of the inhabitants, was considered by the mass of the people as the ne plus ultra of all strongholds; it

was looked on as the embodied representation of the brute force of public authority; it was reckoned impregnable, because never believed to have been taken by open assault; and it was regarded with superstitious dread as a last bourne from which too many travellers were known never to have returned. The Bastile, at all periods of its existence, was the croque-mitaine of Parisian malcontents. In many of the most obscure portions of the city magnificent mansions still remained, which attested that courtiers had once resided where then the feet of nobles seldom deigned to tread; and numerous exquisite specimens of the architectural skill of the middle ages, placed the civil buildings of Paris almost, if not quite, on a level with its ecclesiastical ones. Thus the Hotel de Ville, and the former palace of the kingsthe Grand Palais, the Palais de Justice -one on the northern banks of the Seine, and the seat of the Prevôt des Marchands of the capital-the other at the western extremity of the central island and the seat of the Parliament,presented sumptuous illustrations of the feudal authority of the French monarchy, and the wealth of its principal city. Many an antiquated hotel, with all the quaint paraphernalia of mediæval ornament, rivalled in beauty the elegant mansions which Mansart and his pupils had subsequently raised in the Faubourg St Germain, or along the western verge of the city: the Hotel de Cluny, the Hotel de Sens, the Hotel de St Pol, the Hotel Barbette, the Hotel de la Tremouille, the Hotel d'Aligre, &c., yielded not in intrinsic beauty to the Hotel du Maine, the Hotel Conti, the Hotel Soubise, the Palais Cardinal, the Hotel Mazarin, and all their endless associates; while to the eye and heart of the antiquary they spoke a language peculiar to themselves, and from each stone could have poured forth, if indeed stones could be supposed to have a tongue, tales of wonder and woe, such as the existence of many ages might be fancied to have impregnated them with. The older bridges of the capital were covered with houses, hanging in an unsafe and unhealthy position midway between sky and