the wall, but in a small closet which opened from one corner of the room, and, by leaving the door ajar, would give its occupant a view of all that might pass in the apartment. Here did the young ghosthunter take up a position, with a good stout sapling under his arm, a full half-hour before Seaforth retired for the night. Not even his friend did he let into his confidence, fully determined that if his plan did not succeed, the failure should be attributed to himself alone. At the usual hour of separation for the night, Tom saw, from his concealment, the lieutenant enter his room; and, after taking a few turns in it,'with an expression so joyous as to betoken that his thoughts were mainly occupied by his approaching happiness, proceed slowly to disrobe himself. The coat, the waistcoat, the black silk stock, were gradually discarded; the green morocco slippers were kicked off, and then-ay, and then-his countenance grew grave; it seemed to occur to him all at once that this was his last stake,-nay, that the very breeches he had on were not his own,-that to-morrow morning was his last, and that if he lost them— A glance showed that his mind was made up; he replaced the single button he had just subducted, and threw himself upon the bed in a state of transition, half chrysalis, half grub. Wearily did Tom Ingoldsby watch the sleeper by the flickering light of the night-lamp, till the clock, striking one, induced him to increase the narrow opening which he had left for the purpose of observation. The motion, slight as it was, seemed to attract Charles's attention; for he raised himself suddenly to a sitting posture, listened for a moment, and then stood upright upon the floor. Ingoldsby was on the point of discovering himself, when, the light flashing full upon his friend's countenance, he perceived that, though his eyes were open, "their sense was shut,"-that he was yet under the influence of sleep. Seaforth advanced slowly to the toilet, lit his candle at the lamp that stood on it, then, going back to the bed's foot, appeared to search eagerly for something which he could not find. For a few moments he seemed restless and uneasy, walking round the apartment and examining the chairs, till, coming fully in front of a large swingglass that flanked the dressing-table, he paused, as if contemplating his figure in it. He now returned towards the bed, put on his slippers, and, with cautious and stealthy steps, proceeded towards the little arched doorway that opened on the private staircase. As he drew the bolt, Tom Ingoldsby emerged from his hiding-place; but the sleep-walker heard him not: he proceeded softly down stairs, followed at a due distance by his friend, opened the door which led out upon the gardens, and stood at once among the thickest of the shrubs, which there clustered round the base of a corner turret, and screened the postern from common observation. At this moment Ingoldsby had nearly spoiled all by making a false step: the sound attracted Seaforth's attention, he paused and turned; and, as the full moon shed her light direct upon his pale and troubled features, Tom marked, almost with dismay, the fixed and rayless appearance of his eyes: "There was no speculation in those orbs The perfect stillness preserved by his follower seemed to reassure him; he turned aside, and, from the midst of a thickset laurustinus, drew forth a gardener's spade, shouldering which he proceeded with greater rapidity into the midst of the shrubbery. Arrived at a certain point, where the earth seemed to have been recently disturbed, he set himself heartily to the task of digging; till, having thrown up several shovelfuls of mould, he stopped, flung down his tool, and very composedly began to disencumber himself of his pantaloons. Up to this moment Tom had watched him with a wary eye; he now advanced cautiously, and, as his friend was busily engaged in disentangling himself from his garment, made himself master of the spade. Seaforth, meanwhile, had accomplished his purpose; he stood for a moment with "His streamers waving in the wind," occupied in carefully rolling up the small-clothes into as compact a form as possible, and all heedless of the breath of heaven, which might certainly be supposed at such a moment, and in such a plight, to "visit his frame too roughly." He was in the act of stooping low to deposit the pantaloons in the grave which he had been digging for them, when Tom Ingoldsby came close behind him, and with the flat of the spade The shock was effectual; never again was Lieutenant Seaforth known to act the part of a somnambulist. One by one, his breeches, his trousers, his pantaloons, his silk-net tights, his patent cords, and his showy greys with the broad red stripe of the Bombay Fencibles, were brought to light, rescued from the grave in which they had been buried, like the strata of a Christmas pie; and, after having been well aired by Mrs. Botherby, became once again effective. The family, the ladies especially, laughed; Barney Maguire cried "Botheration!" and Ma'mselle Pauline," Mon Dieu !” Charles Seaforth, unable to face the quizzing which awaited him on all sides, started off two hours earlier than he had proposed: he soon returned, however; and having, at his father-in-law's request, given up the occupation of Rajah hunting and shooting Nabobs, led his blushing bride to the altar. Mr. Simpkinson from Bath did not attend the ceremony, being engaged at the Grand Junction Meeting of Sçavans, then congregating from all parts of the known world, in the city of Dublin. His essay, demonstrating that the globe is a great custard, whipped into coagulation by whirlwinds, and cooked by electricity, a little too much baked in the Isle of Portland, and a thought underdone about the Bog of Allen,-is highly spoken of, and, it is supposed, will obtain a Bridgewater prize. Miss Simpkinson and her sister acted as bridesmaids on the occasion; the former wrote an epithalamium, and the latter cried " Lassy me!" at the clergyman's wig. But as of these young ladies, of the fair widow, Mr. Sucklethumbkin, Mrs. Peters and her P. we may have more to say hereafter, we take our leave for the present; assuring our pensive public that Mr. and Mrs. Seaforth are living together quite as happily as two good-hearted, good-tempered bodies, very fond of each other, can possibly do; and that since the day of his marriage Charles has shown no disposition to jump out of bed, or ramble out of doors o' nights, though, from his entire devotion to every wish and whim of his young wife, Tom insinuates that the fair Caroline does still occasionally take advantage of it so far as to "slip on the Breeches." THE WIDE AWAKE CLUB. BY RIGDUM O'FUNNIDOS. THE clubs of London! I recollect once reading a book so called ; but as for any bona fide information touching the soi disant social assemblies, I might as well have been perusing the Shaster, or reading the Florentine copy of the Pandects! The clubs of London afford, as I have reason to know, ample material for the most abundant fun; but they who expect to find it at Crockford's, the Athenæum, and other maisons de jeu, where yawning dandies, expert chevaliers, old men of the town, roues of all sorts, Mingle, mingle, mingle, As they mingle may, will be wofully disappointed. The clubs, par excellence, take them one and all,-from the Oriental, stuck, with a due disposition and attention to habits of Eastern indolence, in the dullest corner of the dullest square in London, down to, or up to, I care not which, the staring bow-windowed Omnibus Union in Cockspur-street,—are all alike destitute of the requisite material. I perhaps may have a touch at them in the middle of the session and season, when the élite of the club-men are in town, and when their sayings and doings may by possibility be worth recording, even if it were only to have a laugh over them. But, as Copp says, "let that pass for the present." The clubs that I intend to introduce to the readers of the Miscellany are certain of those convivial associations composed of the middlemen of society in the metropolis, who assemble on certain stated nights in the week to sing songs, smoke pipes, and imbibe moisture in the shape of divers goes of spirit and pints of ale. My reminiscences of these assemblies, I think, would fill a goodly tome. To begin with the last, Hebrew fashion. It was my lot one evening, a short time since, to be introduced by Mr. Timmins, my landlord, who, seeing I was rather low-spirited, volunteered the invitation, to a social community called the "WIDE AWAKE CLUB." "Sir," said Mr. Timmins,-a very worthy knight of the needle, who called me "the genelman wot lodges in my first floor," (whether up or down the chimney, deponent sayeth not,)-"you looks werry oncomfutable this here nasty evening. Prowisin it ain't takin' of too great a liberty, and you feel noways disinclined, I think an hour or two at our club-(I have the privilege of introducing a wisitor wot I can answer for in regard to respectability)-might do you good." "And pray, Mr. Timmins, "what is the character of your club?" -"Oh! sir, the character of our club is on-doubted, sir; we are all men of experence, sir: no one is admitted a member onless he shows he is a wide awake cove." "What do you mean by a wide awake cove," said I, "Mr. Timmins?""Vy," said Timmins, "there's no von hellgibble to be a member on our society but what gets a woucher from a member that he has a summut to say, and prove wot has made him wide awake,— that is to say, more up and down to the ways of the world than the generality of people, by experence." "You mean, if I understand you rightly, Mr. Timmins, that your club is one where a certain number of persons meet to spend the social hours of relaxation in giving each other the tale of some particular event or occurrence that has taught them to know there is more roguery in the world than certain philanthropists would lead us to believe."-" You 've hit it, sir," said Timmins; "down as a hammer." "Well, Timmins, I shall be happy to join you," I replied. During our walk, in answer to certain questions, Timmins informed me that the president of the club was a Mr. Phiggins, a retired draper; and that the leading members were Mr. Pounce, a lawyer's clerk, Mr. Bob Jinks, a butcher, Mr. Shortcut, a tobacconist, Mr. Sprigs, a fruiterer. "But," said Timmins, "you'll know them all in five minutes. I don't think this wet evening, there will be a strong muster: howsomdever, we can console ourselves that, if not numerous, we are select." "Very proper consolation, Timmins," said I. When we arrived at the Three Pies, the sign of the house where the club was held, Timmins went up stairs to communicate the fact of my being below, and to assure the company that all was regular and right, as he said; and shortly afterwards I was ushered into the presence, and introduced to the worthies previously named. The president, a jolly-looking man about fifty, sat in an elevated chair at the top of a long table, which gave a goodly display of pipes, glasses of grog, &c. On each side, the members sat at their most perfect ease, smoking and chatting. It would appear that they had been at business some time, for it seemed ebb-tide with the contents of the glasses; and several worthies were in the act of knocking the ashes out of their respective pipes. After ordering a glass of punch and a segar, and another for Timmins, a conversation which was going on before we came in was resumed, of which the following is a faithful report. "That puts me in mind of M'Flummery," said Pounce, the lawyer's clerk, putting his hand-accidentally, I suppose, of course,-into Shortcut's open screw of tobacco, and filling his pipe therefrom; "I mean him as was hung at the Old Bailey some ten years back." "And what was he hung for?" asked the president." Why, not exactly for his good behaviour. He set out in life as heavy a swell as ever flowed up in the regions of the West End-carried on the game for about a dozen years in bang-up style.-My eye! how precious drunk he made Snatch'em, the bum, and I, one night as we pinned him coming home in his cab from the Opera to give a champaign supper at the Clarendon.” "Champaign supper?" said the president. "Why, champaign is a wine; and no man, I maintain, can make a supper off wine, 'coz wine is drink, and supper, it stands to reason, is eating." "And no mistake," said Shortcut. "With submission, Mr. Chair," replied Pounce, "I'll explain. This champaign supper meant a regular slap-up feed; but no one was allowed any other drink with their grub, but champaign punch made with green tea in a silver kettle." "I pity their stint," said Jinks. 66 'Ay," said the president," that stands to reason. But how did it happen this gentleman came to be hanged?"-"Why," continued Pounce, "I was a-coming to that point. As I said just now, there never was a greater dasher at the West End than this M-Flummery ; b.c - many other swells, he was very often lodging in Queer-street for the want of the ready. One day he came to my old master Scaps of the Tempie, when I was managing common-law clerk,—for, you see, he knew my governor well, seeing that he had issued about fourteen prits against him. I never shall forget the day he came : it was a precious wet 'un. He drove up to the gate in a jarvey, and sent a porter down to our office to know if Snaps was in, without sending his name. So Snaps sends me to see who it was, and bring him down. When I got up to the coach, I spied M-Flurumery. Ah! my man,' says he, quite familiar, how do you like champaign punch? Here, just pay this fellow his fare,' says he, quite off-hand. I've no change about me; and off he bolts under the gateway, leaving me to fork out an unknown sum. Well! how was I to know what the Jarvey's fare was? That was a pozer. I wasn't going to ask him, ⚫ How much? or where he took up. No! I was too wide awake!" “WIDE AWAKE!" said the chairman, and down went a hammer of appropriate brass upon the table three times. "Hear! hear! hear!" responded omnes. "So I tipped two shillings. Vot's this for?' said coachee, holding it open in his hand, and looking at the money in a way money ought never by no means to be looked at. Your fare from the Clarendon, Bond-street,' said I, quite stiff and chuff. Fare be blowed!' said he; 'my fare's eight bob.' Then you shall swear it and prove it,' said I, pulling out a handful of silver, taking his number, and giving the wink to Hobbling Bob, one of the porters, to be witness. Take your demand, and we'll meet in Essex-street on Thursday. 'Well,' says he, 'I ought to have eight bob-what will you give me?' Two,' said I. Well,' says he, I ain't a going to stand chaffing in the wet with such a—and then he abused me in a way I can't repeat. Overcharge and insolence!' said I. We'll meet again at Philippi.' Fillip I,' said Jarvey, driving off, I should like to fillip you! In going back to the office, I thought I ought to charge Mr. M'Flummery the eight shillings. Taking into consideration that I had advanced money—that I had got wet-had been abused, and last, though not least, that there was a strong risk touching repayment. I entered the expenditure thus: Coachman's demand, eight shillings. Paid him.' I said him, not it, you see, for I was wide awake !” "WIDE AWAKE!" said the president, hitting the table three sonorous clinks with the club-hammer of brass, again. "When I got back to the office, Snaps called for me through the pipe to come up stairs:—he always had me as a witness when he was doing particular business, such as discounting a bill, bargaining for a bond, or arranging an annuity. "Sort those papers,' said Snaps, scratching his left ear. "That means Cock your listeners,' thought I; and I proceeded to fumble over a bundle of old abstracts as diligently as if I was hunting for a hundred-pound note. "As I turned over the dusty papers, I overheard the following conversation: 66 6 ps. So you can't manage it for me any way?' said M'Flummery to |