in a Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl round his neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses’ provender, and sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of centaur, compounded of the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and the other ended, nobody could have told with any precision. This gentleman was mentioned in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the Wild Huntsman of the North American Prairies, in which popular performance a diminutive boy with an old face, who now accompanied him, assisted as his infant son, being carried upside down over his father’s shoulder by one foot, and held by the crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father’s hand, according to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be observed to fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, wings, white bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into so pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief delight of the maternal part of the spectators; but in private, where his characteristics were a precocious cut-away coat and an extremely gruff voice, he became of the turf, turfy.

“By your leaves, gentlemen,” said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, glancing around the room. “It was you, I believe, that were wishing to see Jupe!”

“It was,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “His daughter has gone to fetch him, but I can’t wait; therefore, if you please, I will leave a message for him with you.”

“You see, my friend,” Mr. Bounderby put in, “we are the kind of people who know the value of time, and you are the kind of people who don’t know the value of time.”

“I have not,” retorted Mr. Childers, after surveying him from head to foot, “the honour of knowing you—but if you mean that you can make more money of your time than I can of mine, I should judge from your appearance that you are about right.”

“And when you have made it, you can keep it, too, I should think,” said Cupid.

“Kidderminster, stow that!” said Mr. Childers. (Master Kidderminster was Cupid’s mortal name.)

“What does he come here cheeking us for, then?” cried Master Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament. “If you want to cheek us, pay your ochre at the doors and take it out.”

“Kidderminster,” said Mr. Childers, raising his voice, “stow that!—Sir,” to Mr. Gradgrind, “I was addressing myself to you. You may or you may not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the audience), that Jupe has missed his tip very often lately.”

“Has—what has he missed?” asked Mr. Gradgrind, glancing at the potent Bounderby for assistance.

“Missed his tip.”

“Offered at the garters four times last night, and never done ’em once,” said Master Kidderminster. “Missed his tip at the banners, too, and was loose in his ponging.”

“Didn’t do what he ought to do. Was short in his leaps and bad in his tumbling,” Mr. Childers interpreted.

“Oh!” said Mr. Gradgrind, “that is tip, is it?”

“In a general way that’s missing his tip,” Mr. E. W. B. Childers answered.

“Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and ponging, eh!” ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs. “Queer sort of company, too, for a man who has raised himself.”

“Lower yourself, then,” retorted Cupid. “Oh Lord! If you’ve raised yourself so high as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit.”

“This is a very obtrusive lad!” said Mr. Gradgrind, turning, and knitting his brows on him.

“We’d have had a young gentleman to meet you if we had known you were coming,” retorted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed. “It’s a pity you don’t have a bespeak, being so particular. You’re on the Tight-Jeff, ain’t you?”

“What does this unmannerly boy mean,” asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing him in a sort of desperation, “by Tight-Jeff?”

“There! Get out, get out!” said Mr. Childers, thrusting his young friend from the room, rather in the prairie manner. “Tight-Jeff or Slack-Jeff, it don’t much signify; it’s only tight-rope and slack-rope. You were going to give me a message for Jupe?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Then,” continued Mr. Childers, quickly, “my opinion is he will never receive it. Do you know much of him?”

“I never saw the man in my life.”

“I doubt if you ever will see him now. It’s pretty plain to me, he’s off.”

“Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?”

“Aye! I mean,” said Mr. Childers, with a nod, “that he has cut. He was goosed last night, he was goosed