"Ha ha! Ho ho!" roars Flue,
"With that I had nothing to do;
So mind number one,
For foul deeds may be done,
Without coming through a foul flue!"
[Formerly, when a public building was scorched or burnt, the accident was accounted for by saying, "Oh! the plumbers have been at work"—or "It was the carpenter's glue-pot." "The flue" in these days supersedes every explanation; it is the great mystery that solves all other mysteries.]
A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN LEAKEY.
BY JOHN COPUS.
Mr. John Leakey inherited an income of five hundred a-year, and a very neat cottage, situated on the high road about three miles from C——, in one of the finest parts of the county of Essex. Of his parentage little need be said. His father was a clergyman, his maternal parent a cook in his grandfather's establishment whom his progenitor rashly married. This fact was a constant source of misery to the sensitive John, and will fully account for the decided antipathy, manifested by him on all occasions, to that useful class of domestics in general, and especially to that particular individual who happened for the time to superintend the culinary department of Hill Cottage. Indeed his language regarding cooks was occasionally quite shocking. His maiden sister Jemima, a highly nervous female of spare and meagre proportions, frequently went into small fits caused by John's outrageous and unbecoming language or conduct, when the subject of cooks was by any chance introduced.