"We want none of your proofs, you backslider," cried the deaconess.

"Madam, you"----

"Get out of the house, ambassador of Satan! Mr Tomkins, will you tell
him instantly to go?"

"Go!" squealed Tomkins from the door, not advancing an inch.

I seized my hat, and left the table.

"You will be sorry for this, sir," said I; "and you, madam"----

"Don't talk to me, you bad man. If you don't go this minute I'll spring
the rattle and have up the watchmen."

I did not attempt to say another word. I left the room, and hurried from
the house. I had hardly shut the street door before it was violently
opened again, and the head of Mr Levisohn made itself apparent.

"Go home," exclaimed that gentleman, "and pray to be shaved, you
shtoopid ass."

It was not many days after the enacting of this scene, that I entered
upon my duties as the instructor of the infant children of my friend. It
was useless to renew my application to the deacon, and I abandoned the
idea. The youngest of my pupils was the lisping Billy. It was my honour
to introduce him at the very porch of knowledge--to place him on the
first step of learning's ladder--to make familiar to him the simple
letters of his native tongue, in whose mysterious combinations the