"Home, sweet home!
Where'er we wander,
There's no place like ho—o—o—ome!"
[The chorus is repeated as Mr. FARMER-ATKINSON disappears behind a curtain on the platform, and the audience fade away.
A PENNY FRENCH—TWOPENCE BRITISH.
(A Fragment from a Romance of the G.P.O.)
The youth, without a moment's hesitation, dashed manfully into the sea. He was watched by the excited spectators, who cheered him as he breasted the waves that beat against the head of the Admiralty Pier. It must, indeed, have been a great prize in view that could have caused such a daring feat. That was the thought of the old Coast-guardsman, as he watched the lad (he was scarcely more than a boy) as he took stroke after stroke for Calais. Now he rested on the back of a treacherous porpoise that soon cast him away.
"Will the steamboat lend him a helping hand, or rather rope?" muttered the veteran salt, as he watched the seemingly fragile figure of the swimmer. "Ah, by Neptune! well done! Strike me flat with a lubberly marling-spike, but a kindly act indeed!"