_Jones._ "HOW CAN YOU TELL?"

_Mrs. Jones._ "DRAWING-ROOM SMELLS OF TOBACCO-SMOKE!"]

* * * * *

THE IDLE AND THE INDUSTRIOUS APPRENTICE.

(_AN OLD-FASHIONED APOLOGUE WITH A MODERN APPLICATION._)

GRANDOLH and ARTHUR were two young Apprentices, bound betimes to the
ingenious and estimable Art or Craft of _Cabinet-Making_. Both of
them were youths of a Sprightly Genius, and of an Alert Apprehension,
attended, in the case of GRANDOLPH, with a mighty heat and ebullition
of Fancy, which led early to a certain frothiness or ventosity in
speech. ARTHUR, on the other hand, though possessed of excellent
Parts, appeared to be of a more phlegmatic temperament, and took on
a more languorous, not to say saturnine demeanour.

So it came about that for the time GRANDOLPH seemed to carry it over
his fellow Apprentice, who indeed, amongst superficial observers,
incurred the reproach of indolence and lackadaisical indifference,
and although both were of creditable repute in the _Craft_, yet did
GRANDOLPH shine the more prominently and give the greater promise
of pre-eminence, ARTHUR seeming content, as men say, to _play second
fiddle_ to the more pushing Performer.

'Tis, however, within the purview of the Wise and the common
observation of the Judicious, that _things are not always as they