have a fine stroke--check-mate-- there it is.'
Abp. 'How much have you won?'
Str. 'Five hundred guineas.'
Abp. 'That is a large sum. How are you to he paid?'
Str. 'God always sends some good rich man when I win, and YOU
are the person. He is remarkably punctual on these occasions.'

The archbishop had received a considerable sum on that day, as
the stranger knew; and so, producing a pistol by way of receipt,
he compelled the delivery of it. His Grace now discovered that
he had been the dupe of a thief; and though he had greatly
bruited his first adventure, he prudently kept his own counsel in
regard to the last.

Such is the tale. Se non e vero e ben trovato.


SKITTLE SHARPERS.

'I know a respectable tradesman,' says a writer in Cassell's
Magazine--'I know him now, for he lives in the house he occupied
at the time of my tale--who was sent for to see a French
gentleman at a tavern, on business connected with the removal of
this gentleman's property from one of the London docks. The
business, as explained by the messenger, promising to be
profitable, he of course promptly obeyed the summons, and during
his walk found that his conductor had once been in service in
France. This delighted Mr Chase--the name by which I signify the
tradesman--for he, too, had once so lived in France; and by the
time he reached the tavern he had talked himself into a very good