their Spitz-dog noses between the joints of the artists' doors, and,
having smelt a very large rat, suddenly burst in upon these graphic
malefactors, and caught them in the act, with all the tools and
paraphernalia of their nefarious occupation scattered about their vile
den.

Most of them were engaged in executing drawings upon blocks of wood,
although it is probable that some of them were smoking pipes--tobacco
being vastly conducive to that concentration of thought by which alone
great mental efforts can be followed by equivalent results. Short work
was made by the sagacious detectives, when they saw the graphic
malefactors engaged in their diabolical toil. Some of the officers
seized the implements of the gang, while others collared the
delinquents, and marched them through the streets to the nearest police
station, where they were thrust into a dungeon and locked up for the
night.

Next morning, on being taken before a magistrate, the prisoners were
discharged, on the grounds that the affair was a mistake--or a joke--we
are not exactly informed which; but the parties chiefly interested do
not look upon it as a joke.

Now it is a very clear case that the mistake in question--or joke--may
be traced to a deficiency of education on the part of these vigilant and
zealous detectives. Had they been properly cultivated in the various
branches of art, the slight blunder to which we refer could not have
occurred. The Spitz-dog noses, instead of smelling Rat, would have smelt
its anagram, Art. Its influence would at once have been acknowledged by
them, and they would have backed out from the August Presence with
obsequious genuflexions. It becomes a question of moment, then, whether