_The Admiral._ "TELL IT ME, TOMMY."

_Tommy._ "OH NO! IT WOULD ONLY FRIGHTEN YOU AS IT FRIGHTENED ME!"]

* * * * *

"BEYOND THE DREAMS OF AVARICE."

["FIFTY POUNDS Reward will be gratefully paid to any Lady
or Gentleman who will ASSIST in RECOVERING a valuable
HEIRLOOM.... Anyone with wealthy or influential friends can at
once secure above reward. Address, &c."]

[Illustration]

I am an impecunious young man, and, the other day, on seeing this
Advertisement in the _Times_, I was seized with a wild desire to "at
once secure above reward." Said I to myself, "I have 'wealthy and
influential friends.' There is my cousin's uncle, who has, I believe,
thirty thousand a-year, though I never saw any part of it, or of him,
for the matter of that; and there is my own aunt by marriage, whose
second husband is a K.C.B., but I forget his name, and do not know
where he lives." So I sat and thought about it for a time with my
eyes shut, and then I started. The train was so full, that I imagined
it must be market-day in some neighbouring town, but the station was
so much fuller, that I could hardly get out of the train. At last,
edgeways, I reached a pale and melancholy ticket-collector, and asked
him where I should find the address mentioned. He turned a pitying
eye upon me, and, pointing to the crowd that filled the station, said,