The Velocipede Expedition Of Playfair And Puggings.

THE VELOCIPEDE EXPEDITION OF PLAYFAIR AND PUGGINGS .

A little nonsense noiv and then Is relish'd by the wisest men . The New Tale of a Tuh . IT is the Avay of the world , or rather , of a great many of the people who are in it , to fancy that they are well adapted for vocations for which they are altogether unfit . Thu s it was with our two friends , Messrs . Playf air and Puggings , who thought and said that if they had a velocipede they " could make the thing

go , " as Mr . Puggings expressed it , wiping his mouth with his silk ^ pockethandkerchief , after swallowing a glass of prime old port . "What I propose , " he continued , "is that we hire the three-Avheeler which friend Shafto uses when he goes on his country clock-cleaning expeditions , and make a trial . We can but fail at the very worst , and a three-wheeler won't upset so readily as a bicycle would . So I say , let us try . "

"My clear friend , " replied Mr . Playfair , "lam quite agreeable to any proposition you may make . You propose invigorating ourselves , ancl exercising the muscles of our inferior extremities , as , I believe , anatomists call them , by teaching ourselves to ride a velocipede ? So , having nothing much to do , let ' s call upon Shafto forthwith . " It may here be remarked that Mr . Playfairand probablMr . Puggings

, y , too , like a very great many more men , never admitted that he Avas doing nothing . He had " nothing much to do , " or nothing jiarticular on hand , but never nothing to do . He would sit for hours , with pen in hand and paper before him , fully believing that- he ivas doing , or just going to do something , but in reality merely reading the newspaper , or amusing himself with a book which Avas laid on the desk at his side , ancl into which he was " just peeping , " or he

would slumber in his armchair , " going " to do something " soon , " though never doing it—a living proof of the poet Young ' s wise line , " Procrastination is the thief of time . " Like Hamlet in the play / he could reason better than act ; or , like poor Oliver Goldsmith , lay down the wisest maxims for others to follow , but neglect them himselfas though he was the sport of some evil genius . " No man" he would

, , say , " ought to go through the world with his time ill-employed . I have no opinion , " which meant that that he had really a bad opinion , " of the inan that can lounge through life doing nothing . I would send all such to penal servitude for the remainder of their clays , without hope of a ticket-of-leave . "

Good soul ! to have been the means of sending anyone to penal senritude at all would have been to have made himself extremel y miserable . He , like " my Uncle Toby , was a man patient of injuries , " and , like that glorious character of Sterne ' s , " had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly . " The velocipede ivhich Mr . Shafto , the watchmaker , was in the habit of using in going his periodical rounds of clock-cleaning in the country , was one of a rather novel construction . It was , as before stated , a three-wheeled one , and

could carry two persons , one sitting astride on the saddle at the front to steer as well as paddle , ancl the other on the little box , in which Shafts carried his tools , between the two back wheels , working a pair of treadles with his feet . It was , to say the least of it , a very clumsy affair , made , from a drawing he had seen in the Mechanics' Magazine , by BroAvn , the blacksmith , who knew nothing of mechanics , and it was twice as hard Avork propelling it as Avalking . This machine , however , the two Mr . P . ' s hired of Mr . Shafto to begin their practice

upon . Now Mr . Puggings got an idea into his head , with which Mr . Playfair quite coincided , that if they had a donkey t & yoke at the front to pull it , thev