I rode for a wager of eighteen-pence, on eighteen horses at once, through eighteen counties, in eighteen days; but the strain is too great. I wagered my tongue against Gladstone's head that I would talk down both Houses of Parliament, the Inns of Court, Mr. Spurgeon, and Bellew; but, although I easily enough conquered such men as Palmerston and Disraeli, I was hard run by Lord Brougham, who had so much to say about his penny publications, I thought there would be no end to him. GOOD TALKER. I read through Kelly's Directory, the Times' double supplement, and last month's Bradshaw without stopping to draw breath, but have been so hoarse ever since that I am not allowed to speak above a whisper till next Christmas twelvemonth-a great punishment to me, I can tell you. You heard once before about my rowing, but perhaps you have not read of my great thousand-guinea match, when in a washing-tub with only two copper sticks I pulled myself across the British Channel on a stormy day, and landed safely at Boulogne, to the joy of the English residents there, who are very fond of me. THE WASHING-TUB. Of course I play chess; in fact, I am the champion. This is how it came about. Three hundred and sixty-five of the best players came to me one night as I was stepping into bed, thinking it would take them (at the rate of a game a day) just one year to humble me. Of course I turned the tables on them. I went to bed, telling them, as I was going to sleep, to play against me all at once. They did. I dreamt the replies to all their moves, and checkmated my three hundred and sixty-fifth opponent as the "milk" came to the door the next morning. As for cards-when I meet a man who plays any game particularly well, I beat him so completely that he is disgusted with card-playing, and gives it up ever after. I once played a game of dominoes, running along the high road to Romford, for five hundred pounds. In South America I hung upon a gallows for a wager of eighty horses, and almost lost my life and wager at the same moment, for the bet being that I would hang myself up from the topmost THE HANGING-WAGER,, "bough of the highest tree and get myself down again without breaking my neck, it was stupid of me to jerk my head into the rope as I did. I felt myself losing my senses. What did I do? Why, I cut off the top end of the rope, and tied it on to the lower half in a weaver splice, and so let myself down safe and sound. But I will never again be guilty of so dangerous a trick. At feats of archery my wagers have of course been successfully contested. I have split the wand-taken the "gold"-hit the apple on the boy's head-and at two hundred yards put an arrow into an alderman's calf so deftly that he forgot to cry out (it was a cork leg). I wagered with the Duke of Sutherland that at trap, bat, and ball, I would send the ball with such terrible force that no one should ever be able to stop it. Away it went. No one could-no one can stop that ball. It is still going; its speed has overcome the resistance of the air as well as the power of gravitation, and it keeps on going round and round the world at the rate of a thousand miles a minute. WELL HIT. The last time it came this way it caught me such a crack on the left side of my head that I almost repented the exercise of that great power and skill by means of which I had set it going. I once wagered that I would fly my great kite over the moon, but getting too high, hooked it over the sun instead, when, the string getting charred by the intense heat of a twelve o'clock ray, I lost my kite for ever and my wager also. The poor kite can only be seen at the time of a total eclipse, and then it forms those curious phenomena so puzzling to our modern astronomers. I betted that I would bring it down with my pop-gun; but the silly thing would not carry far enough, ASTRONOMICAL so I lost that wager also. But my "pellets" still stick on the face of the luminary, and are called "spots" by scientific F.A.S.'s, who know no better. Now, on the moors, when my friends threw doubts on my power over the pea-shooter, I wagered them a pipe of Burgundy against a gross of champagne that I would kill with it the first four living things that passed at more than half a mile distance. So I did. A red deer, a red grouse, a blue pigeon, and—I am sorry for it-Lord Brougham, who, sad to say, being a Scotchman, had come "bock again." It was at this time I performed my great boomerang feat. Friend Elcho had somehow missed the deer at which he had levelled his Henry rifle, and I, observing his bad aim, cried, "Ten to one in thousands on the boomerang!" "Done," cried his lordship. Away went the missile to the right-away flew the deer to the left— round turned the boomerang in mid-air off after the devoted animal, and caught him just in the middle of the spine. He was done for, and I easily won my thousand pounds. You know I am very fond of shuttlecock: the worst of it is I can't get them large enough. I once came upon an unlucky Federal soldier HUMAN SHUTTLE in America, who, after being tarred, had been feathered with large pinion feathers. I bet him that I would "keep him up" till the end of Lincoln's presidency. The wager is not yet decided, for he is up now-in fact, I left him up while I ran over here on important business, but I am going back in a few weeks to give him another "bat" as he comes down. COCK. I have fenced for wagers so long as there were any fencers left, but having killed them all off, I must wait patiently for a new growth. And as for skill at driving, you know about that already; but my great driving wager, when I put my horses across the British Channel, through France, Belgium, Germany, Holstein, Slesvig, to Duppel and back-before the King of Prussia had quite finished his breakfast-you may not have heard of. I once swam a mile, rowed a mile, sailed a mile, dived a mile, and, as a wind-up to dry myself in the high wind, rolled a mile-all in five and fifty minutes; and the wager being that I was to do it all in the hour, a good five minutes within the allotted time. I wish to wager a thousand pounds on a wrestling-match, but, after my feats at Hornsey Wood, no one will meet me, which is a great pity. My memory has always stood me in good stead whenever I have made it the subject of a wager, for I remember everything that I hear, everything that I read, and everything that everybody says behind my back about me. GOOD MEMORY. You see how my nose turns up, eh? Well, that was the result of my THE BRIDGE IS nose. I won my wager-but at what cost you see. And now; you look incredulous. I will bet you fifty thousand pounds, in English sovereigns, that you do not prove any one of these modest stories to be false. Come! NINCO NANCO, THE NEAPOLITAN BRIGAND. BY WILLIAM H. G. KINGSTON. WHO CHAPTER I. HO has not heard of Ninco Nanco, the daring cut-purse, and sometimes cut-throat, of the Apennines, who, with his band of fifty chosen men, has long kept in awe the district of Basilicata in the once kingdom of Naples? Certainly, those who have travelled from the Adriatic to the Bay of Naples, across that mountainous region which in the map looks very like Italy's ankle-bone, will retain a vivid recollection of the curiosity with which they examined every dry stick projecting from a bush or rock, lest it should prove the barrel of one of his follower's rifles; and the respect which they felt for every shepherd they saw feeding his flocks on the mountain side, lest the said peaceable-avocation-following gentleman should suddenly jump down, joined by many more from among the rocks, who could salute them in the choicest Neapolitan with words which may be freely translated, "Stand and deliver! Your money or your life! Yes; Ninco Nanco is not a hero of romance, but a veritable living, unkempt, unwashed, brown-cloaked, leather-gaitered, breeches-wearing, high-peaked-hatted Italian robber-a pious Catholic of the Ultramontane, or rather to him Cismontane school, and a warm admirer and supporter of that excellent, amiable, and benignminded monarch, King Bomba. But who is Ninco Nanco, or rather who was he? it may be asked, for it may shrewdly be supposed that he was not born a brigand—that he did not practise shooting wayfarers with a small bow and arrows in his infancy. Ninco Nanco was once a Neapolitan gentleman of the ancient régime, who got into trouble by running his stiletto, through a slight misapprehension, into the ribs of the wrong man, which wrong man, having powerful friends, poor Ninco Nanco, bitterly complaining of his misfortune, and of the cruelty of fate in making two men so much alike, was condemned to the galleys for life. Had he killed the right man, no notice, he affirmed, would have been taken of his peccadillo. While thus suffering under the frowns of fortune, he formed the acquaintance of several personages, like-minded with himself, who spent their spare time in grumbling against their hard fate at being placed in durance vile, and in concocting plans for revenging themselves against those who had been instrumental in depriving them of their liberty. There is a tide in the affairs of all men-that in the affairs of Ninco Nanco turned, so he thought, in his favour. An opportunity occurred of making his escape -he availed himself of it, as did a few choice spirits of his own kidney. They were compelled, to be sure, to knock three or four of their gaolers on the head; but to liberal-minded men, like themselves, that was a trifle. They expected soon to be provided with ample funds to buy absolution for that act, or for any other of a similar character they might be compelled to commit. Once free from the precincts of their prison, they were among friends, and by them assisted, hastened off inland, nor pulled rein till they had placed many a mountain range and dark ravine between themselves and those who ought to have pursued them, but did not. There Ninco Nanco raised his standard, and prepared to set the laws of "meum and tuum" at defiance. He and his associates soon. made themselves at home in a hut, which they erected among some rocks, high up on the side of a lofty mountain, where no one was likely to come and look for them. They only mustered nine or ten men, however, and it was agreed that their band must be greatly increased before they could undertake any enterprise of consequence. Each of the party had friends on whom he could rely, so he said, to join them, but as they were rather out of the line of the penny postage, there was some difficulty in getting the letters conveyed to the persons with whom the band desired to communicate. Another difficulty existed in the fact that only Ninco Nanco and Giuseppe Greco, his lieutenant, could write. Their leader, for reasons best known to himself, declined putting his hand to paper, the task of inditing these epistles fell, therefore, on Giuseppe, while another of the band was commissioned to find messengers, by whom to despatch them to their several destinations. Meantime, as gentlemen of the profession these worthies were about to adopt, cannot live without food any more than those of a less enterprising character, they proposed making a little expedition along the high road, for the purpose of obtaining funds to supply their immediate necessities. The proposal, emanating from Ninco Nanco himself, was so much to the taste of all, that it was immediately put into execution. The band mustered but few men; but they were hungry. They posted themselves on either side of the before-mentioned high road, among some rocks and bushes, and waited quietly for what fortune might send them. The chief injunction Ninco Nanco laid on his followers was, not to fire across the road lest they should hit each other, and rather to aim at the men than the horses, as the horses might prove useful, while the men, |