LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 318, 19 June 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

'MAD AS A HATTER.'

(Old Saying.) (Concluded.) ' Why, I had always heard that all property in the shape of second-hand clothes, &c, was sure to turn up there, and as my friend had—hem ! —by mistake parted with a ' ' Yes, a hat; we know all about the hat. Be brief, if you please.' 'I thought it best to go to headquarters.' 'And you laid an information with every officer and at every police-station on your way.' ' Why, good gracious ?' suddenly exclaimed my wife, ' if you had only waited, George, I could have saved you and your friend'—an emphasis on ' friend'—a journey: that troublesome old hat of yours was only just round the corner at poor Smithson's. There was no difficulty or mystery at all about it. Directly you were gone I sent Mary round for it, and she brought it back for a shilling. Here it is. Petticoat Lane, indeed!' The dear creature was getting strong from the superior position she was placed in, and of course was inclined to abuse her power : they are all like that. ' Very well, then ; that part of the business —certainly rather a crazy one—being happily disposed of, may I venture to ask of your discreet friend how he comes to appear in a costume not quite becoming a gentleman, and with a face as if he had been engaged in a pitched battle ?' Ths broken nose was readily accounted for, but it was with considerable reluctance that, bit by bit, poor Jabez had to humiliate himself by the confession that he had been persuaded by ' a party injthe lane' that he would stand no chance of recovering the missing article—or of ' solving the mystery,'as he still insisted on calling it—till he was dressed like—in fact, like a prig, himself. ' And so you made the rather unprofitable exchange for those rags of, no doubt, a respectable suit of clothes.' It was only too true ; and by the crestfallen appearance of poor Tompkins all seemed to judge that he had suffered ample punishment for his prying into the mysterious. ' Well, if you will give your names and addresses, I do not think, in spite of very unfavourable appearances, that I need detain yon. An officer will call upon you tomorrow with reference to your watches and other missing articles. Perhaps,' he added, with a smile, ' if less mysterious in our proceedings, we may be more successful. Standing, get the lady a cab.' ' I've got mine outside,' shouted the unabashed Jehu. ' No. I bave a word to say to you, cabman. Good evening, madam; take care, pray, of your friends.' And with this parting shot the inspector was pleased to dismiss us. As my poor friend was evidently in great pain, my dear wife's woman heart was moved to compassion, in spite of her private opinion of his bad behaviour, and nothing would satisfy her but that he should be our guest till the following morning. We supped off my dinner, Iplus a lobster, and over a comfortable glass, and by the side of a cheerful fire, late as was the hour, contrived to extract a little merriment even out of our own follies. Nor was it till the second glass was well ' entered' that, I brought in the teterrima causa of all our woes, and, carefully cutting open the lining, produced, by way of accounting for and ex-

tenuating my anxiety about its loss, a roll of ' 'documents,' whose intrinsic value made both my wife and friend open their eyes in amazement. 'Well, all I can say is,' said 'my little woman,' ' if you were not mad to try to recover your hat, you were certainty crazed to stow away in such a hiding-place valuable papers and money you could not afford to lose, sir.' ' Ah, there indeed is a mystery. Do you remember, my clear, a certain boating accident, when a certain saucy little lady had to be fished out of the sea like a bunch of damp sea-weed ?' 'Oh, George, dearest, don't, don't talk of it. Can I ever forget your bravery, and how you swam out so far—and it was then —' ' I transferred from pockets which I anticipated might become moist, to the despised old hat which I bore high and dry, what in fact I had, odd as it may appear, forgotten all about until you mentioned that you had kindly disposed of for—well a trifle—certain papers, stamped, signed, and so forth, the loss of -which made us two simpletons act in a manner as if we were really ' Mad as a Hatter.',' J. Montagu Sims.