THE COFFEE CLUB.

No. III.

"At last he is as welcome as a storm; he that is abroad shelters himself from it, and he that is at home shuts the door. If he intrudes himself yet, some with their jeering tongues give him many a gird, but his brazen impudence feels nothing; and let him be armed on free-scot with the pot and the pipe, he will give them leave to shoot their flouts at him till they be weary."

Fuller's Profane State.

SUMMER, with its transforming influence upon all things natural and artificial, has come, and the Coffee Club feels somewhat of its power. We introduced you, reader, to our room in the depth of winter, we welcomed you with a blazing hearth and the cheerful light of an astral, and our mystic tripod lustily bore witness to the strife of the hostile elements. But now the aspect of the room and the temper of its occupants is changed. A solitary taper with all its light, can scarce effect a dim obscure-the thick warm carpet is superseded by a flimsier texture of straw-the point of concentration is transferred from the glowing fire to the open window-the centertable is drawn back and relieved from its superincumbent load, that the eye may not be oppressed with a sense of heaviness-in every chair you find a lazy pillow, and even the sofa which would once contain all four, will scarce suffice for the extended length of Apple Dumpling our coffee simmers over the sickly flame of a spirit lamp, and is quaffed in cooler draughts, and from comparatively tiny cups.

The temper of its occupants is likewise changed. That equable hilarity which seldom rose to jollity and never sank below cheerfulness, is gone; and its place is ill supplied by a fitful state of noisy mirth and moody silence. Tristo is alternately more melancholy and less so-Nescio, more entirely sensual, or more acutely intellectual, as the whim seizes him-Pulito is absorbed in attention to earthly nymphs one week, and shuts himself up in his room with the heaven-born muses the next-and Apple, who formerly, like some auxiliary verbs, had but one mood, is now variable through the whole paradigm. The disturbing influence of warm weather and bewitching moonlight is also perceptible in the irregularity of our meetings. But few, very few times have we been together this term, and then we have employed ourselves in the most random conversation. Even to-night we have but an unpromising prospect before us. Pulito and Apple are not here, and Tristo and myself have hitherto kept our

thoughts to ourselves with most unsocial chariness. But hark! Pulito's light fantastic toe' is on the stairs, and he must say something as he enters.

Pulito. "Good evening, gentlemen. You certainly have the true atrabilious aspect; 'twould spoil my face for a week to sit in close proximity with two such melancholy phizes. With your leave, therefore, Messieurs, I will take a cup, adjust my flowing locks, and be off. What beautiful little acorn-goblets you have here, Nescio, and then the delicacy of the beverage, so nicely adapted to the season. You have a rare taste in these matters, Quod."

Tristo. "Ah! Pulito, you are always the same careless fellow, and 'twere vain to hope for any thing else from you; but cannot you sit down for one evening and have a long and sober talk. You know some of us leave town soon, and we may not have another opportunity."

Pulito. "Indeed, Tristo, I am sorry to disappoint you; but this evening I have an engagement from which I really cannot get excused; the rest of the term I am entirely at your service.'

Nescio. "I'll wager any thing from a pin's head to this great globe itself' that there's a lady in the case.'

Pulito. "Weel, an there be, gude Maister Quod."

Nescio. "Why you remember your boastful resolution to eschew all connection with any thing more substantial than Fancy's daughters three,' during the hot weather."

Pulito. "And whether these be Faith, Hope and Charity,' or 'Wine, Women and Coxcombry,' depends very much upon the fancier's temperament."

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Tristo. "I am afraid, my dear Pulito, that your aspirations after learning are becoming less ardent; and unless you are more earnest, your poetic ambition will fain be contented with being laureate of the Coffee Club."

Pulito. "What is learning but a cloak-bag of books, cumbersome for a gentleman to carry? and the muses fit to make wives for farmers' sons?' What Fuller, in his 'degenerous gentleman' says in irony, I would adopt in sober earnest.

Nescio. "Well, I perceive we shall get nothing from you to-night, so you may go. But first tell us if you have seen any thing of Ap

ple."

Pulito. "Indeed, I have, and bring quite a message from him, which, but for your suggestion, I should have forgotten. By my troth, in my head,' dies truditur die,'-one idea thrusts out another. But for the story-I met Apple walking most abstractedly with the huge roll of his autobiography under his arm. When I asked him what he was thinking about, he obstinately confined his information to the mysterious remark that he was coming up' this evening. As soon, however, as he discovered that I did not intend to be there, he unfolded his whole purpose-under an express injunction of secrecy,

Verb. sat sap.

which I ought to keep, and which I will keep-though I will give you an inkling of it, as it may afford you some sport. He will probably appear particularly brilliant, and converse more like himself, his peculiar self. Make fun of him if you can, for I owe him a grudge for a spiteful pun, which he made on a lady's name. However, my masters, after I have given my neck-kerchief the blameless tie, and curled my hair with the twist extatic, I will leave you to your dull coffee, and bask me in the warmth of thy sunny eyes, oh beautiful *.

*

Here Pulito made his exit, singing "di tutti palpiti,' with an air of Cox-comical affectation, half assumed, half natural.

Tristo. "A handsome fellow, and a bright. But the day will come when a strong mind, and a well-stored memory, will be worth more than the vanished rapture of a woman's smile. What a pity youth can never temper pleasure with hist! that stumbling step sounds like Apple's."

Nescio. ""Tis his, let's slip into the bed-room and see what Dumpling will do.”

Tristo. "Agreed; I promise myself materiel for laughter."

[Enter Apple, with a look of pleased importance, and a mouth apparently ready to discharge a witticism.] "Ha! Pulito! Tristo! Quod! What, not a soul here but myself, who am solus, he he! pretty good! I'll lay that by, and use it when they come. What an ass that Tristo must be, never to laugh at my puns. However, he cannot help himself to-night. I have various good things, aside from puns. If the conversation turns upon wit, I shall say, 'A witty sentence should be like a scorpion, the sting in the tail, but should not, like a scorpion, sting itself to death!' If Tristo goes to rating me for smoking, I shall say, 'A cigar is the summum bonum, pity its fumes are not perfumes!' If Nescio says, 'I am your host''Yes,' quoth I, and in yourself an host.' That stone will kill two birds; it is at once a pun and a compliment. Ah me! what is the literary world coming to? They all seem bent upon being dull, and the greatest of scriptorial (scriptural?) sins is to say a witty thing. Volumes of poetry and philosophy and oratory and the like come forth, and never a bit of fun in 'em all. Now in my view even a sermon would be vastly better, if the preacher, especially in the application, would discharge at the hearer a few judicious puns of a devotional cast. Bless me! where-where-confusion worse confounded! where are my cigars? I can never shine without them. I should be like Sampson shorn of his locks. I shall have to go by a dozen colleges to 's to get some. Well! leve fit, quod bene fertur,' 'that's a light fit, which is well borne.' Ha, ha, good! remember that."

As Apple leaves the room, Quod and Tristo, bursting with laughter, issue from their latebræ.

Tristo, "Bravo, Dumpling, bravo."

Nescio. "Capital! capital! What if we appear to have just come in when he returns, and give him a chance to be witty-ha, ha!"

Tristo. "Constat-it is a covenant. But here he comes." [Enter Apple, puffing with haste, a bunch of cigars in his hand, and a lighted one in his mouth.]

Apple, (amazed.) "What!

you here."

Tristo and Quod. "Yes, we've just stept in. You, I suppose, didn't think there was a soul here."

Apple, (chuckling.) "No, faith: I expected to be solus, myself!" Quod. "Why, Dumpling, you are witty to-night."

Apple. "A witty sentence should be like a scorpion, the sting in the tail, but should not, like a scorpion, sting itself to death, ha! ha!" Tristo. "Excellent! but do, dear Apple, fling away your vile cigars."

Apple, (winking.) "A cigar, my dear fellow, is the summum bonum-pity its fumes are not perfumes."

"Tristo. Your wit should not hinder your politeness. I dislike them, and I am your host."

Apple. "Yes, and in yourself an host, ha! ha!"

Nescio. "Why, Apple, where on earth do you get so many good things?"

Apple, (vainly.) "Oh! I don't know: I believe it comes natural-impromptus.'

Nescio. "Impromptus! Ha! Ha! Why, Apple, we were in the bed-room here, when you came in before, and heard you practising on your impromptus !"

Apple, (coloring with shame, vexation, and alarm.) "Howhow-what, you did, did you? Pretty good hoax, though, wasn't it? Don't tell the fellows 'twas your hoax. But being Dumpling, I've got the dumps, ha! ha! so I think I'll go home and write on my_autobiography."

Tristo. "Do so, and don't forget this chapter."

(Exit Apple with a hang-dog air.)

Tristo. "Incorrigible!"

Nescio. "Utterly! ha! ha! it's worth a dozen comedies."

As if by a secret and common impulse, the laugh and jest ceased, and both became silent. Nescio sat by one window, emitting from a fragrant Havana languid and infrequent puffs. His varying countenance expressed a train of thoughts as motley as his mind, where the weighty and the sober were linked and mingled with the light and the ludicrous, and feelings and reflections came trooping by, robed in a livery of serio-comic strangeness. He was thinking of the mystic links that bind together the seen and the unseen-of the glorious, expansive, elastic mind—that 'sine fine fines'—of the invisible shadings of the mental into the passionate, and of the passionate into