the opposite walls, and the feet projecting into
the room, leaving a central avenue wide enough
for the nurses and patients to pass and repass
without inconvenience, and affording space for
long narrow tables. We pass on to near the
extremity of the ward, to see our friend the
tight-rope dancer, who dearly likes to talk of
old times. This is he; this little man with the
broad pale forehead, and the unnaturally bright
eyes. You would not think that his lungs
were affected, or that he had reached the age of
sixty-four, for his voice is clear and shrill, and
he talks on without any sign of fatigue; but the
fatal word pthisis is written on the card at his
bed's head, on which are also inscribed his name,
age, &c., and the prescriptions of the medical
man. How his face kindles with pleasure at
being invited to tell the story of his life! The
man is well spoken, and if a stray expletive
should by chance fall on your ear, or an
expression which you would rather not hear from a
dying man, you will remember the strange wild
life he has led, and the long force of habit,
which confirms modes of speech almost beyond
recal:

"My father was a marble-mason; he carried
me as a child to see the horsemanship; and I
took such a fancy to it that I was always jumping
and tumbling; so he thought the best thing
he could do, was, to bring me up to the profession.
And, sure enough, he apprenticed me at
six years old, and by the time I was ten years
old I was a regular public performer. I played
at the Olympic—not the Olympic that is now,
but the old one. It was partly built out of an
old ship given us by King George the Third.

"You ask whether I had any schooling. Oh
yes, plenty. Our master wasn't a bad man,
though people gave him a bad character. He
rented a comfortable house for his young people
to be in (close by the Theatre the house was)
and he took care that all his 'prentices should
have a fair education. I was 'prenticed for
fourteen years: I was fed, and clothed, and taught;
and the latter part of my term I had ten shillings
a week pocket money. Not so bad, was it?

"What were my duties? Why, my duties
were slack rope and tight rope every night, and
leaping besides. Tight rope is soon learnt—it
is not at all difficult; for you have your balance
and you fall back to rest against the chair (as it
is called) between the dances; but slack rope is
a great strain: you are in motion the whole
time, without resting once. But it's a fine thing
for bringing out the muscles.

"'Twas the slack rope dancing and the leaping
for so many years that hurt my limbs. I gave
my muscles hard work as long as I could, and
now they're paying me out for it. This is what
makes my limbs ache so, night and day. Nothing
else—no, there's nothing else the matter with
me."

This was the constant delusion of the poor
fellow, despite the tearing cough which told a
different tale.

"Perhaps the leaping hurt me most. You
see, when you come to cast a somerset over
eight or nine horses, you come down deuced
hard. They put large square sacks stuffed with
straw to break your fall; but, bless ye, that
don't break it much! Such leaps as that,
shake ye all over; and while you're jumping
about afterwards as light as a feather, you are
aching from head to foot.

"You may well say it's a hard life; but it
has its pleasures too. I was very fond of it;
but then I was a devilish lucky fellow. I never
met with an accident—not to hurt myself, I
mean—for the first five-and-twenty years. Then
I had a bad one. I was engaged at the Eagle (a
great place for our entertainments in those days)
and I fell forty-two feet and broke my nose. I
was trying a new dodge on the slack rope—
you're always obliged to be getting up
something—new I wasn't sure of it, and didn't know
exactly how 'twould turn out; but I soon found
myself falling right into the fountain. My
shoulder caught upon the spikes and put me in
great agony, and my nose was broken against
the edge of the fountain. But they took me
to a hospital, and the doctors put me to rights
again.

"You ask what I did when I was out of my
time. I was then twenty years old, and I kept
with our company, at a salary of two pound five
a week, and went on provincial tours. Afterwards
I had three pound a week. We went to
Edinburgh, Glasgow, and all the principal towns
of Scotland, and afterwards through Ireland in
the same way.

"You think it a high salary, do ye? But
young people find plenty of ways for their money,
and then I had to find all my own dresses. I
might have done better. A fellow-apprentice
of mine went abroad and made his fortune,
and I might have gone too; but I refused,
and I don't repent it, for if I had gone I
shouldn't have had her." Here he paused, and
observing our look of enquiry, he gave one of
those bright smiles which occasionally flashed
across his face, and added: "At the time I
had the offer to go abroad, I was courting the
landlord's daughter at Penryhn, where our
company was staying for ten weeks. I was
acquainted with her for three months, and then
she came to Taunton, and we were married at
the church of St. Mary Magdalen. And a good
wife she has been, too.

"Yes, I expected you'd say that! With a
good salary and a good wife I ought not to have
come to the workhouse. That's what everybody
says. But you see I've had a hard family;
eight children to provide for (though only four
are living), and then I had to find my own
dresses, very handsome dresses too, and when
my health gave way I had to pay the doctor.
Thirty-four pound I paid the doctor after I had
given up my engagement.

"My children have managed to get out in the
world, and find their own living, and my wife
tries to support herself by needlework; but it's
very bad pay. She can just manage to rub
along; but she couldn't keep me, so I came in
here, and I'm tolerably comfortable, and don't