MANY years ago, in my round-jacket

days, there was an oft-told story popular among schoolboys, of a certain Frenchman who came across the British Channel on a visit to this country, and whose limited acquaintance with our language, added to a combination of circumstances which I will not attempt to detail, led him to rashly infer that half the English vocabulary was represented by the word Box. The intelligent foreigner used to be described as riding on the front outside seat of a mail coach, which I need scarcely say his fellow-passengers called the box seat. He chances to inquire the purpose of a little cockney habitation perched upon the hill-side, and is told that it is a shooting-box.

He marvels at a few quaintly clipped trees standing within a cottage paling, and the driver straightway informs him that they are box-trees. By-and-by as they drive through a village two urchins are seen at fisticuffs, on the pavement. 'Que diable! vat you call that sport there?' 'What, those little chaps fighting? C'est le bore, Mossoo; English art of self-defence, vous savez! Just as they turn a corner in the road there is a shout from some rustics behind. The guard looks round -the driver pulls up. Something has fallen from the rumble. 'Ah tenez! c'est donc une valise?' &c. &c. [Here we may suppose some ten minutes of lively prattle on the part of Mossoo]. 'What is it, Bill?' cries Mr. Flickster, tugging at the ribbons. Only a darned old box tumbled off." Box again! Mon Dieu !' ejaculates the foreigner, and once more the wheels are trundling onwards.

6

Well, I won't pursue the story to its end, or describe how this unhappy Frenchman was driven to the verge of madness by the constant repetition of a monosyllable which kept on turning up with the pertinacity of a recurring decimal. The truth is, the anecdote is a plaguy long one, and judged by the light of maturer years is not calculated to inspire any but very young ladies and gentlemen with merriment. I have merely alluded to it as the only one out of my famous repertoire (six is my average at every dinner party, with, say a couple more for the ladies upstairs)-the only one which would form an appropriate introduction to this article, and give the reader a sly hint that a Christmas-box may be a box in

more senses than one.

The truth is it was a real box-not a VOL. X.-CHRISTMAS NO.

new half-crown slipped into the palm of a twopenny postman as he stands shivering with a blue nose at your halldoor; nor a five-shilling piece, accepted with a curtsey by Betty the housemaid; no, nor that bright, yellow sovereign which Master Dick annually expects from his godpapa on New Year's Day, but a box in the sternest and most material signification of the word, i.e. a box with a lid and hinges, lock and key, manufactured, as I have every reason to believe, by those eminent stationers and dressing-case makers, Messrs. Parmegiano and Giotto, of Oxford Street.

And a mighty pretty little box it was, to be sure, covered with brown morocco leather outside, and overlaid with curiously wrought brass corner-plates and escutcheons, lined internally with blue silk. There was my name and crest, if you please, underneath the handle, and everything about it as complete as need be.

Now, how came I, a wretched young bachelor, living in dingy chambers, with just sufficient furniture about me for comfort and nothing more-who light myself to bed with an eighteen-penny candlestick, and brew my souchong in Britannia metal-how happened it, I say, that I fell into possession of such a dandified and elegant article of household use?

It

The answer is simple enough. was given to me. So far so good. But by whom? Evidently by no one of my own sex. Such luxurious souvenirs are not exchanged by whiskered friends. No; it was a pledge of affection from my lovely and let me say at once) unmarried cousins, Rose and Laura Winsome, who had despatched it from Hollygate per Great Western Railway train (this side upwards, to be kept dry), so that it arrived one Cl.ristmas Eve by parcels delivery; and I perfectly remember Mrs. Kinahan, my worthy but too-often-inebriated laundress, bringing it in triumphantly, under a false impression that it was a Stilton cheese, and possibly (for my cupboard lock is frequently out of repair) in the fond belief that before long some of it might fall to her share. I recollect being requested to sign my autograph in a sort of ledger, by way of acknowledging the receipt of my parcel from the G. W. R. Company, and, at last, examining its contents.

Those dear girls (Heaven pless em!', had written me a joint letter to say how sorry they were that I was prevented

D

from paying my usual visit to Hollygate that winter; wanted to know whether I remembered the fun we all had last Christmas Eve (didn't I!), but had no doubt I should enjoy myself as much, if not more, where I was going (&c. &c., with a great many notes of admiration, and every other word underlined). Finally, I was asked to accept their best wishes for the season, together with the accompanying little souvenir, which they hoped I should like. It was mamma's choice. She bought it at Exeter, and the Rev. Minton Tyler, their new curate, said it was very pretty and quite mediæval-and he ought to know, you know, because his brother is a member of the Oxbridge Antiquarian Society)-I should find the key wrapped in a bit of silver paper inside, &c. &c.

All very well; but what in the name of fortune was I to do with my box? To what possible use could I put it? I couldn't use it as a glove box, for I don't keep light kids on stock. I couldn't use it as a cigar-box, for that would have been-so to speak-desecration. I couldn't use it as a jewel-box, for I hadn't any jewellery. At last a brilliant idea occurred to me. I would turn it into a cash-box. It is true that I had very little to deposit in the way of actual specie, but there was a certain advantage in that fact, for the box would thus have an easy time of it, and be put to less wear and tear. Besides, I was in possession of a score or two of letters fromwell, perhaps, from one of my cousins, which had long lain ignobly in the drawer of my wardrobe. I determined that they should be henceforth enshrined, with due dignity, in my new cash-box, and that where my treasure was, there should my heart be also.

Well, I penned a letter full of gratitude to the Misses Winsome, deposited their present in my bureau, packed up my traps, and went down to Grimwood Hall, a short distance from London, to spend Christmas. I didn't stay there long. The fact is that Grimwood is not like Hollygate. My host and hostess were very kind, and I had a little hunting and a little dancing, and a great deal of dining, but all the time I could not help thinking that I should have been ten times as jolly at Hollygatewalking out with the girls-helping them to decorate the church for Christmas Day under the Rev. Minton Tyler's superintendence to say nothing of tying up the mistletoe bough in that dear old oak-panelled dining-room. However, it couldn't be helped, and so I made the best of it, and came back to town just in time for the pantomimes.

Well; I went to a pantomime, and enjoyed myself as I always do on such occasions. My old friend, Dick Dewberry, called for me one evening, and we both went off together, taking a chop at the Rainbow en route, and winding up with a Welsh rarebit at Evans's. Those to whom the domestic economy of life in chambers is familiar, well know how much a bachelor thus lodged lies at the mercy of his laundress. An Englishman's house is said to be his castle, and on the same principle any young fellow who sports his oak ought to escape all intrusion from the outside world. But there is one grim invader of our secondfloor sanctuaries whom neither bolt nor bar can exclude. Mrs. Kinahan had a duplicate of my door-key, and came in and out when she liked. Being perfectly aware of this fact, and also that she was a lady of a very inquiring turn of mind, I was in the habit of locking up an old-fashioned bureau, where I kept a few knicknacks, old letters, &c., whenever I left my chambers. It so happened, however, that on the evening in question I left it unlocked, and it also happened that I had chosen it some days before as the repository for my cousins' present. I came home rather tired from the theatre and went to bed at once. But the next morning, having occasion to go to this bureau, I discovered, to my great astonishment and indignation, that the Christmas-box' had disappeared. My first hope was that I had overlooked it. I might have left it in some drawer or shelf in the upper part of the bureau. I rummaged every corner hastily, and finding no trace of the box summoned Mrs. Kinahan and told her what had happened.

She began in the usual way by remarking, as if it were a peculiar trait in her disposition, that she scorned a thief; that if I had lost anythink in the house, why, of course, in the house it must be; that no other gents had ever made a sim❜lar complaint; that she had been in the charing line twenty-sivin year come Lady Day; and that the breath of calomel had never reached her yet, which of course it was as unpleasant to her as it was to me, and would I please to try and recolleck when I see it last.

Why yesterday afternoon, before I went out, said I. Has any one but yourself been in the room since?"

'Not a livink soul!' exclaimed Mrs. Kinahan, emphatically.

"Quite sure of that?'

'Mr. Easel,' remarked my laundress, laying her hand upon a brown Holland