FITZBLUEBAG'S VISIT TO MUDDLE-PUDDLE HALL.

BY T. C. H.

My friend Fitzbluebag is a barrister. A barrister I should say in very good practice, for whenever I go up to town to spend a week with him, he always says he has no time to go out with me because he has so much to do, and talks very big about consultations with Messrs. Bubble, Hubble, and Stubble, the eminent West End lawyers, and with Bag, Stag, and Drag, the firm which shines brightest in the eastern hemisphere of the great metropolis. My own men of business, Messrs. Catchem and Skinemalive, have often told me that Mr. Fitzbluebag is a very rising man, and that there is no barrister on any circuit who is so clever at bullying a witness, dumfounding the opposing party, or humbuging a jury as my friend. Indeed, I must own that on one occasion, when the great case for breach of promise, Drake v. Duck, was tried at the Goggletown Assizes, the wretched Drake received such a severe handling from Fitzbluebag, that he rushed out of the court and then and there-but I can hardly go on with the sad story it is so affecting, but a Drake was found dead in the back pond. Fitzbluebag to this day pretends not to believe in the story. "Who ever heard of a Drake being drowned," he says, but then it would never do for him to acknowledge anything about the matter, but all I can say is, I would not have what that man has on his conscience on mine for the world.

I do not think that I like Fitzbluebag, we none of us like those we are in fear of, and I am rather afraid of my friend. But for all this I stay with him and he stays with me, at least once every year. I find it convenient and cheap to live at his chambers when I pay my annual visit to the great metropolis, and the barrister finds it I doubt not pleasant and economical too, to take his holiday and have a fortnight's capital fishing and pure country air at my little cottage on the banks of that charming and well-stocked stream, the Frum. But spite of all this I do not think there is any love lost between Fitzbluebag and myself; I fancy he knows I do not like him, and I am quite convinced he only just tolerates me.

We were at school together, and whilst there Fitzbluebag bullied me and all others who he found would stand it, just for all the world like he bullies the unfortunate witnesses who come under the lash of his tongue now. He was bigger than myself, and I was mortally afraid of him, and took good care to keep out of his way as much as I possibly could. At college, we were again together, he could not use the school-boy mode of bullying, viz., thrashing me with his fists, as assault and battery are not permitted at the two great seats of learning, but he adopted a more polite though quite as annoying a mode of rendering himself obnoxious to me, viz., by rediculing and chaffing all I did and said on every public as well as private opportunity. This he declared in his loud coarse voice to be capital fun, calling it "getting a rise out of that old muff Softy." I never could see the wit of this remark I must confess.

As may be imagined I did not see a great deal of my obnoxious friend during the period that we naturally resided in the bosom of

"Alma Mater," for, as in my school-boy days, I took good care to keep out of his way. But after we had both left the univerity, and I was an idle, lounging man about town, and Fitzbluebag a sucking barrister, we became, on my part, for want of a better companion, perhaps on his for the sake of my fishing in the Frum, the sort of friends we are now. But do not think that this story I am going to tell about Fitzbluebag is any breach of confidence on my part-catch the wily barrister telling me anything which would give me such a capital handle to turn the chaff against him. Oh, no! that great, boasting, bullying, loud-talking fellow never related the part he played in the Stubblejock case to me, if he ever did to any one else. No matter how I came by "the history of Mr. Fitzbluebag and the Stubblejock case," I am determined to give it to the world, though whilst I am writing my hand trembles again with fright at the very thoughts of Fitzbluebag's fury. My motives are well, never mind motives-perhaps I wish to revenge myself upon the great boasting bully for what

he has made me suffer.

Well, then, to begin: Once upon a time there was a man called Fitzbluebag; but now I think of it, it strikes me this mode of commencing a story is rather out of date. Try again: Dear readers-that is at any rate affectionate; but how do I know I shall have any readers? and if I have I shall not be dear to them I dare say, and I am sure they will not be to me, without they are of the softer sex, and young and pretty. It was a lovely summer day, and the soft white fleecy clouds were chasing one another like playful lambkins over the lovely azure sky. But, come, that is a Tarrytiddle, for the sky is never azure in London, and the clouds are dirt colour rather than white. So that will not do. Ah! I have it. In a noble and stately apartment, through the open oriel window of which the brilliant rays of the summer sun were glancing merrily, lighting up the handsome and massive furniture which it contained sat Fitzbluebag's chambers are the most dreary, poky, dull, _shabbily-furnished, dusty, fusty holes you can possibly conceive. I spoil a new coat every time I stay there with the dust, and as to a sunbeam! you would as soon think of finding a diamond, for a dead wall completely shuts out either sun, moon, or stars from shining in that dreary abode.

Well, then, to begin at last, in this place was Fitzbluebag sitting one bright fine day (for it was a bright day, though you could not know that it was so in these chambers), wishing I have no doubt at all, that he was staying with that mild fellow Softy, and whipping that most inviting stream, the Frum. To give the old gentleman his due, as the saying is, Fitzbluebag is a first-rate fisherman, and a very keen hand. I wonder whether the fact of the barrister's pannier being always several pounds heavier than mine after a day's fishing, even on my own stream, has anything to do with my feelings towards my great bullying, boasting friend. It is not pleasant in shooting to have your eye wiped, or in fishing to lose a bet about the weight of your day's take, and to be unmercifully roasted about it afterwards. Dear me, but I shall never get on with my story. There was Fitzbluebag, working away at some case by which he was doubtless to pocket hundreds of pounds. How jolly to be able to earn a hundred pounds even, I never earned a penny in my life, and don't believe I could, not even at stone-breaking, which

labour appears simple enough, though coldish to the fingers I should imagine in frosty weather. But where was I? Oh! Fitzbluebag busy working away at his case; he had just finished, and was rising to start off for a consultation with the great leader, Mr. Sergeant Hairywig, when his clerk brought in a letter which had just been delivered by the postman. He opened it, and it ran as follows:

"Muddle-Puddle Hall, Uplandshire.

"Dear Fitzbluebag,-The fly is on the water, so run down to-morrow by the first train, and have some fishing. I want you to be present, and give the magistrates the benefit of your distinguished legal knowledge and advice in the Stubblejock case, which comes on before us on Thursday. Yours truly, JONATHAN TURNIPTOP."

Before Mr. Fitzbluebag departed for his consultation he wrote the following epistle in reply to the invitation he had received: "Nebuchadnezar Buildings, Grays-Inn. "Dear Turniptop,-I shall be with you at breakfast to-morrow morning, and shall be delighted to advise you in the Stubblejock case.— Yours, FITZBLuebag.

I think the barrister signed himself always in this style, by way of practising his signature against the time when he became Lord or Baron Fitzbluebag, Her most gracious Majesty's Lord Chancellor. That night saw the future Baron Bluebag in the mail-train for Uplandshire, the next morning found him with a ravenous appetite-he is an enormous eater-seated at the hospitable breakfast-table at Turniptop Hall, making eggs, ham, mutton-chops, buttered toasts, muffins, and large cups of tea disappear down his capacious throat like "winkin," which means I suppose, being interpreted, with wonderful celerity. During the matutinal meal the barrister's thoughts and attentions were wholly concentrated upon his present employment, and he turned a deaf ear to all the remarks which his friend was continually making on the subject of the Stubblejock case. Indeed, when he rose from the table to hurry off fishing, rod in hand down to the lovely stream, The Muddle, which flowed through his friend's domain, he was in as blissful a state of ignorance of the Stubblejock case and all its bearings as a babe unborn. Mr. Turniptop in vain endeavoured to draw Fitzbluebag into his justice-room to give him a sketch of the to him all-important Stubblejock case, but the barrister would have none of it, and left the Squire to unravel this all engrossing legal gordian knot himself. I know well that you might as well try to stop the express train as Fitzbluebag, when on piscatorial pursuits intent. So poor Turniptop was obliged to content himself with muttering small expletives, more emphatic than polite to himself, and shouting to his friend to mind and take the right hand, where the stream divided, as the left did not belong to him, as he turned to re-enter the house. All his advice, however, was lost upon Fitzbluebag, who was tearing away for the bottom of the park, through which The Muddle flowed, as fast as his long legs could carry him; he heard indeed, some one shouting to him, but being too far off to catch the information the shout was intended to convey, he troubled himself no more upon the matter. To see Fitzbluebag throw a fly, is certainly one of the prettiest sights in the world, I mean the piscatorial world.

He lets his flies float gently on the water with such consummate