O! for a clean pair of stockings!--But, alack, what a tantalizing
situation I am in!--There are osiers enough in the vicinity, but no hose
to be had for love or money!




SCENE II.

A lark--early in the morning.


Two youths--and two guns appeared at early dawn in the suburbs. The
youths were loaded with shooting paraphernalia and provisions, and their
guns with the best Dartford gunpowder--they were also well primed for
sport--and as polished as their gunbarrels, and both could boast a good
'stock' of impudence.

"Surely I heard the notes of a bird," cried one, looking up and down the
street; "there it is again, by jingo!"

"It's a lark, I declare," asserted his brother sportsman.

"Lark or canary, it will be a lark if we can bring it down," replied his
companion.

"Yonder it is, in that ere cage agin the wall."

"What a shame!" exclaimed the philanthropic youth,--"to imprison a
warbler of the woodlands in a cage, is the very height of