Library Edition

THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA

In Ten Volumes

VOL. VII

[Illustration: GEORGE ADE]

THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA

EDITED BY MARSHALL P. WILDER

_Volume VII_

Funk & Wagnalls CompanyNew York and London

Copyright MDCCCCVII, BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANYCopyright MDCCCCXI, THE THWING COMPANY

CONTENTS

 PAGE Alphabet of Celebrities Oliver Herford 1243 Assault and Battery Joseph G. Baldwin 1391 Associated Widows, The Katharine M. Roof 1338 Bill Nations Bill Arp 1368 Brakeman at Church, The Robert J. Burdette 1323 Breitmann and the Turners Charles Godfrey Leland 1217 By Bay and Sea John Kendrick Bangs 1367 Camp-Meeting, The Baynard Rust Hall 1265 Critic, The William J. Lampton 1336 Cupid, A Crook Edward W. Townsend 1220 Dubious Future, The Bill Nye 1298 Educational Project, An Roy Farrell Greene 1264 Fable Ralph Waldo Emerson 1358 Goat, The R. K. Munkittrick 1247 Happy Land, The Frank Roe Batchelder 1389 He and She Ironquill 1250 Holly Song Clinton Scollard 1260 How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Beard Anne Virginia Culbertson 1328 How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Plumage and Whistle Anne Virginia Culbertson 1360 In Defense of an Offering Sewell Ford 1248 It is Time to Begin to Conclude A. H. Laidlaw 1294 Jack Balcomb's Pleasant Ways Meredith Nicholson 1309 Lost Inventor, The Wallace Irwin 1385 Margins Robert J. Burdette 1297 My Cigarette Charles F. Lummis 1292 Nonsense Verses Gelett Burgess 1244 Notary of Périgueux Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1251 Nothin' Done Sam S. Stinson 1296 Omar in the Klondyke Howard V. Sutherland 1387 Prayer of Cyrus Brown, The Sam Walter Foss 1398 Rhyme for Christmas, A John Challing 1290 Siege of Djklxprwbz, The Ironquill 1246 Skeleton in the Closet, The Edward Everett Hale 1371 Songs Without Words Robert J. Burdette 1261 Talk John Paul 1307 Triolets C. W. M. 1262 Two Cases of Grip M. Quad 1239 Utah Eugene Field 1305 Wicked Zebra, The Frank Roe Batchelder 1322 Winter Fancy, A R. K. Munkittrick 1308 What She Said About It John Paul 1263 Woman-Hater Reformed, The Roy Farrell Greene 1359 Women and Bargains Nina R. Allen 1352

COMPLETE INDEX AT THE END OF VOLUME X. 

BREITMANN AND THE TURNERS

BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND

 Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners Novemper in de fall, Und dey gifed a boostin' bender All in de Toorner Hall. Dere coomed de whole Gesangverein Mit der Liederlich Aepfel Chor, Und dey blowed on de drooms und stroomed on de fifes Till dey couldn't refife no more. 

 Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners, Dey all set oop some shouts, Dey took'd him into deir Toorner Hall, Und poots him a course of shprouts, Dey poots him on de barrell-hell pars Und shtands him oop on his head, Und dey poomps de beer mit an enchine hose In his mout' dill he's 'pout half tead!

 Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners;-- Dey make shimnastig dricks; He stoot on de middle of de floor, Und put oop a fifdy-six. Und den he trows it to de roof, Und schwig off a treadful trink: De veight coom toomple pack on his headt, Und py shinks! he didn't vink!

 Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners:-- Mein Gott! how dey drinked und shwore Dere vas Schwabians und Tyrolers, Und Bavarians by de score. Some vellers coomed from de Rheinland, Und Frankfort-on-de-Main, Boot dere vas only von Sharman dere, Und _he_ vas a _Holstein_ Dane. 

 Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners, Mit a Limpurg' cheese he coom; Ven he open de box it schmell so loudt It knock de musik doomb. Ven de Deutschers kit de flavor, It coorl de haar on dere head; Boot dere vas dwo Amerigans dere; Und, py tam! it kilt dem dead!

 Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners; De ladies coomed in to see; Dey poot dem in de blace for de gals, All in der gal-lerie. Dey ashk: "Vhere ish der Breitmann?" And dey dremple mit awe and fear Ven dey see him schwingen py de toes, A trinken lager bier. 

 Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners:-- I dells you vot py tam! Dey sings de great Urbummellied: De holy Sharman psalm. Und ven dey kits to de gorus You ought to hear dem dramp! It scared der Teufel down below To hear de Dootchmen stamp. 

 Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners:-- By Donner! it vas grand, Vhen de whole of dem goes a valkin' Und dancin' on dere hand, Mit de veet all wavin' in de air, Gottstausend! vot a dricks! Dill der Breitmann fall und dey all go down Shoost like a row of bricks. 

 Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners, Dey lay dere in a heap, And slept dill de early sonnen shine Come in at de window creep; And de preeze it vake dem from deir dream, And dey go to kit deir feed: Here hat' dis song an Ende-- Das ist DES BREITMANNSLIED. 

CUPID, A CROOK

BY EDWARD W. TOWNSEND

The first night assignment Francis Holt received from his city editorwas in these words: "Mr. Holt, you will cover the Tenderloin to-night. Mr. Fetner, who usually covers it, will explain what there is to do. "

Fetner, when his own work was done that night, sought Holt to help himwith any late story which might be troublesome to a new man. They werewalking up Broadway when Fetner, lowering his voice, said: "Here'sDuane, a plain-clothes man, who is useful to us. I'll introduce you. "

As the reporters, in the full flood of after-theater crowds, stoodtalking to the officer, a young man hurrying past abruptly stopped andstepped to Duane's side. 

"Well, Tommy, what's up with you?" the officer asked. Holt noted thatTommy, besides being breathed, was excited. His coat and hat had theprovisional look of the apparel of house servants out of livery, and histrousers belonged to a livery suit. Tommy hesitated, glancing at Duane'scompanions, but the officer said: "Tell your story: these are friends ofmine. "

"I was just on my way to the station house to see the captain, but I'mglad I met you, for we don't want the papers to say anything, andthere's always reporters around the station. "

Holt would have stepped back, but Fetner detained him, while Duane saidcheerfully: "You're a cunning one, Tommy. Now, what's wrong?"

"Well, " began the youth in the manner of a witness on the stand, "I wason duty in the hall this evening and noticed one of our tenants, Mr. Porter H. Carrington, leave the house about ten o'clock. I noticed thathe had no overcoat, which I thought was queer, for I'd just closed thefront door, because it was getting chilly. "

At the mention of the name Holt started, and now paid close attention tothe story. 

"I was reading the sporting extra by the hall light, " Tommy continued, "when, in about twenty minutes, Mr. Carrington returned--that is, Ithought it was Mr. Carrington--and he says to me, 'Tommy, run up to mydressing-room and fetch my overcoat. ' 'Yes, sir, ' I says; 'which one?'for he has a dozen of 'em. 'The light one I wore to-day, ' he says, and Istarts up the stairs, his apartment being on the next floor, thinkingI'd see the coat he wanted on a chair if he'd worn it to-day. I'd justgot to his hall and was unlocking the door, when he comes up behind meand says, 'I'll get it, Tommy; there's something else I want. ' So in hegoes, handing me a dime, and I goes back to the hall. In about fifteenminutes he comes downstairs wearing an overcoat and carrying a bundle, tosses me the key and starts for the door. He's the kind that nevercarries a bundle, so I says to him, 'Shall I ring for a messenger tocarry your package?' 'No, ' says he, and leaves the house. "

Tommy paused, and there was a shake of excitement in his voice when heresumed: "In five minutes Mr. Carrington comes back without anyovercoat, and says, Tommy, run upstairs and get me an overcoat. ' Ilooks, and he was as sober as I am at this minute, Mr. Duane, and Ibegins to feel queer. It sort of comes over me all of a sudden that thevoice of the other man I'd unlocked the door for was different from thisone. But I'd been reading the baseball news, and didn't notice much atthe time. So I says, hoping it was some kind of a jolly, 'Did you losethe one you just wore out, sir?' 'I wore no coat, ' he says, giving me alook. Well, he goes to his apartment, me after him, and there was thingsflung all over the place, and all the signs of a hurry job by asneak-thief. Mr. Carrington was kind of petrified, but I runs downstairsand tells the superintendent, and he chases me off to the station. Thesuperintendent was mad and rags me good, for there never was a job ofthat kind done in the house. But the other man was the same looking asthe real, so how was I to know?"

Duane started off with Tommy, and winked to the reporters to follow. Atthe Quadrangle, a bachelor apartment house noted for its high rents andexclusiveness, Duane was met at the entrance by the superintendent, whotold the officer that there was nothing in the story, after all. It wasa lark of a friend of his, Mr. Carrington had said, and was annoyed thatnews of the affair had been sent to the police. The superintendent wasglad that Tommy had not reached the station house. Duane lookedinquiringly at the superintendent, who gravely winked. 

"Good night, " said Duane, holding out his hand. "Good night, " repliedthe other, taking the hand. "You won't report this at the station?""No, " said Duane, who then put his hand in his pocket and returned tothe reporters. He told them what the superintendent had said. 

"What do you make out of it?" asked Fetner. 

"Nothing, " the officer replied. "If I tried to make out the cases we areasked not to investigate, I'd have mighty little time to work on thecases we are wanted in. If Mr. Carrington says he hasn't been robbed, itisn't our business to prove that he has been. You won't print anythingabout this?"

Fetner said he would not. To have done so after that promise would haveclosed a fruitful source of Tenderloin stories. The reporters left theofficer at Broadway and resumed their interrupted walk to supper. "Lotsof funny things happen in the Tenderloin, " Fetner remarked, in themanner of one dismissing a subject. 

"But, " exclaimed Holt, quite as excited as Tommy had been, "I knowCarrington. "

"So does every one, " answered Fetner, "by name and reputation. He's justa swell--swell enough to be noted. Isn't that all?"

"He was a couple of classes ahead of me at college, " continued Holt. "Ididn't know him there--one doesn't know half of one's own class--but hisfamily and mine are old friends, and without troubling himself to knowme, more than to nod, he sometimes sent me word to use his horses whenhe was away. Before I left college and went to work on a Boston paper, Carrington started on a trip around the world. My people heard of himthrough his people at times, and learned that he was doing a number ofcrazy things, among them getting lost in all sorts of No-man's-lands. His people were usually asking the State Department to locate him, through the diplomatic and consular services. "

"Then this is one of his eccentricities, " commented Fetner. 

"How can you treat it like that?" exclaimed Holt. "I think it is afascinating mystery, and I'm going to solve it. "

"Not for publication, " warned Fetner. 

"For my own satisfaction, " declared Holt, with great earnestness. 

 * * * * *

When the superintendent of the Quadrangle had shaken hands with theofficer he turned to Tommy and said: "You go up to Mr. Carrington. Hewants to see you. "

"Tommy, " said Mr. Carrington, "I think this is a joke on you. "

This view of the event was such a relief to Tommy that he grinnedbroadly. 

"It is certainly a joke on you. Now, Thomas, did my friend make himselfup to look so much like me that you could not have told the difference, even if you were not distracted by the discomfiture of the New York ninethis season?"

"I can't say how much he looked like you, and how much he didn't. Inaturally thought he was you--that's all. "

"Not all, Thomas: nothing is all. He asked in an easy, nice voice for acoat, so you thought he was somebody who had a coat here. How did youknow whose coat he preferred?"

"Because I thought he was you. "

"If I had not been the last tenant to leave the house before that, wouldyou have thought so? If Mr. Hopkins had just left, and that man had comein and asked for 'My coat, ' wouldn't you have got Mr. Hopkins' coat?"

"Mr. Hopkins did go out after you, " Tommy admitted, reluctantly. 

"Oh, he did, eh? Well, Hopkins is always going out. I never knew such aregular out-and-outer as Hopkins. He should reform. It's a joke on you, Thomas, and if I were you I wouldn't say anything about it. "

"I ain't going to say anything, " declared Tommy. "If I don't lose my jobfor it, I'll be lucky. "

"I'll see that you do not lose your job. What police did you see?"

"Only a plain-clothes man I know, and a couple of his side-partners. They won't say anything, for the superintendent fixed them. "

 * * * * *

Mr. Carrington secured his college degree a year after his class. Thedelay resulted from an occurrence which he never admitted deserved ayear's rustication. By mere chance he had learned the date of thebirthday of one of the least known and least important instructors, anddecided that it would be well to celebrate it. So he made theacquaintance of the instructor and invited him to a birthday dinner. Alarge and exultant company were the instructor's fellow guests at theSt. Dunstan, and there was jollity that seemed out of drawing with thedominant lines of the guest of honor; yet the scope of the celebrationwas extended until it included the burning of much red fire andexplosion of many noisy bombs at a late hour, as the instructor wasmaking a speech of thanks in the yard, surrounded by the dinner guests, heartily encouraging him. It seemed that upon the manner in which theaffair was to be presented to the Faculty depended the dismissal of theinstructor or the rustication of Mr. Carrington; and the latter managedto present the case so as to save the instructor. If he had foreseen allthe consequences of taking all the blame for an occurrence promptlydistorted in report into the aspect of a riotous carousal, perhaps Mr. Carrington would not have sacrificed himself for a neutral personalitywhich had so recently swum into his ken. One consequence was a letterfrom Mr. Draper Curtis, of New York, commanding Mr. Carrington to ceasecorrespondence with Miss Caroline Curtis; and a note from Caroline, inwhich a calmer man than a distracted lover would have seen signs ofparental censorship, wherein that young lady said that she had read herfather's letter and added her commands to his. She had heard from manysources, as had numerous indignant relatives and friends, theparticulars of the shocking affair which had compelled the Faculty todiscipline Mr. Carrington; and she could but agree with her family thather happiness would rest upon insecure ground if trusted to the inciterand principal offender in such a terrible transaction. He was to forgether at once, as she would try to forget him. 

Caroline and her mamma sailed for Europe the next day, and severalletters Carrington wrote to her, giving a less censurable version of thelittle dinner to the little instructor, were returned to him unopened. 

After receiving his delayed degree Carrington began a tour around theworld. In the court of the Palace Hotel, the day of his departure fromSan Francisco, a commonplace-looking man stepped up to him briskly, andsaid, placing a hand on his shoulder: "Presidio, you've got a nerve tocome back here. You, to the ferry; or with me to the captain!"

Carrington turned his full face toward the man for the first time as hebrushed aside the hand with some force. The man reddened, blinked, andthen stammered: "Excuse me, but you did look so--Say, you must excuseme, for I see that you are a gentleman. "

"Isn't Presidio a gentleman?" Carrington asked, good-naturedly, when hesaw that the man's confusion was genuine. 

"Why, Presidio is--do you mind sitting down at one of these tables? Ifeel a little shaky--making such a break!"

He explained that he was the hotel's detective, and had been on thecity's police force. In both places he had dealings with a confidenceman, called Presidio--after the part of the city he came from. Presidiowas an odd lot; had enough skill in several occupations to earn honestwages, but seemed unable to forego the pleasure of exercising his wit inconfidence games and sneak-thievery. Among his honest accomplishmentswas the ability to perform sleight-of-hand tricks well enough to workprofitably in the lesser theater circuits. He had married a woman whomade part of the show Presidio operated for a time--a good-lookingwoman, but as ready to turn a confidence trick as to help her husband'sstage work, or do a song and dance as an interlude. They had been warnedto leave San Francisco for a year, and not to return then, unlessbringing proof that they had walked in moral paths during their exile. 

"And you mistook me for Presidio?" asked Carrington, with the manner ofone flattered. 

"For a second, and seeing only your side face. Of course, I saw mymistake when you turned and spoke to me. Presidio is considered thebest-looking crook we've ever had. "

"Now, that's nice! Where did you say he's gone?"

"I don't know. "

Carrington found that out for himself. He first interrupted his voyageby a stop of some weeks in Japan. Later, at the Oriental Hotel inManila, the day of his arrival there, he saw a man observing him withsmiling interest, a kind of smile and interest which prompted Carringtonto smile in return. He was bored because the only officer he knew in thePhilippines was absent from Manila on an expedition to the interior; andthe man who smiled looked as if he might scatter the blues if he werepermitted to try. The stranger approached with a bright, frank look, andsaid, "Don't you remember me, Mr. Carrington?"

"No-o. "

"I was head waiter at the St. Dunstan. "

"Oh, were you? Well, your face has a familiar look, somehow. "

"Excuse my speaking to you, but I guess your last trip was what inducedme to come out here. "

"That's odd. "

"It is sort of funny. I'd saved a good deal--I'm the saving sort--andthe tenner you gave me that night--you remember, the night of _the_dinner--happened to fetch my pile up to exactly five hundred. SoI says to myself that here was my chance to make a break forfreedom--independence, you understand. "

"We're the very deuce for independence down our way. "

"Yes, indeed, sir. I was awfully sorry to hear about the trouble you gotin at college; but, if you don't mind my saying so now, you boys weregoing it a little that night. "

"Going it? What night? There were several. "

"The red-fire night. You tipped me ten for that dinner. "

"Did I? I hope you have it yet, Mr. --"

"James Wilkins, sir. Did you see Mr. Thorpe and Mr. Culver as you passedthrough San Francisco?"

"I did. How did you happen to know that I knew them?"

"I remember that they were chums of yours at college. We heard lots ofcollege gossip at St. Dunstan's. I called on them in San Francisco, andMr. Thorpe got me half-fare rates here. I've opened a restaurant here, and am doing a good business. Some of the officers who knew me at theSt. Dunstan kind of made my place fashionable. Lieutenant Sommers, ofthe cavalry, won't dine anywhere else. "

"Sommers? I expected to find him here. "

"He's just gone out with an expedition. He told me that you'd be along, and that I was to see that you didn't starve. I've named my place theSt. Dunstan, and I'd like you to call there--I remember your favoritedishes. "

"That's very decent of you. "

Mr. Wilkins looked frequently toward the entrance, with seeming anxiety. "I wish the proprietor of this place would come in, " he said at last. "Lieutenant Sommers left me a check on this house for a hundred--Mr. Sommers roomed here, and left his money with the office. I need the cashto pay a carpenter who has built an addition for me. Kind of funny to beworth not a cent less than five thousand gold, in stock and good will, and be pushed for a hundred cash. "

"If you've Mr. Sommers' check, I'll let you have the money--for St. Dunstan's sake. "

"If you could? Of course, you know the lieutenant's signature?"

"As well as my own. Quite right. Here you are. Where is yourrestaurant?"

"You cross the Lunette, turn toward the bay--ask anybody. Hope to seeyou soon. Good day. "

Some officers called on Carrington, as they had been told to do by theabsent Sommers. When introductions were over, one of them handed a paperto Carrington, saying gravely: "Sommers told me to give this to you. Itwas published in San Francisco the day after you left, and reached herewhile you were in Japan. "

What Carrington saw was a San Francisco newspaper story of his encounterwith the Palace Hotel detective, an account of his famous dinner at theSt. Dunstan, some selections of his other college pranks, allusion tothe fact that he was a classmate of two San Franciscans, Messrs. Thorpeand Culver, the whole illustrated with pictures of Carrington andPresidio--the latter taken from the rogues' gallery. "Very pretty, verypretty, indeed, " murmured Carrington, his eyes lingering with thoughtfulpause on the picture of Presidio. "Could we not celebrate my fame insome place of refreshment--the St. Dunstan, for instance?"

They knew of no St. Dunstan's. 

"I foreboded it, " sighed Carrington. He narrated his recent experiencewith one James Wilkins, "who, I now opine, is Mr. Presidio. It's notworth troubling the police about, but I'd give a pretty penny to see Mr. Presidio again. Not to reprove him for the error of his ways, but todiscover the resemblance which has led to this winsome newspaper story. "

The next day one of the officers told Carrington that he had learnedthat Presidio and his wife, known to the police by a number of names, had taken ship the afternoon before. 

"I see, " remarked Carrington. "He needed exactly my tip to move to newfields. He worked me from the article in the paper, which he had seenand I had not. Clever Presidio!"

 * * * * *

When Tommy, the hall-boy, on the night of Mr. Holt's first Tenderloinassignment, went to inform the police, Carrington, looking about theapartment to discover the extent of his loss, found on a table a lettersuperinscribed, "Before sending for the police, read this. " He read:

"Dear Mr. Carrington: Since we met in Manila I have been to about everycountry on top of the earth where a white man's show could be worked. It's been up and down, and down and up, the last turn being down. InIndia I got some sleight-of-hand tricks which are new to this country;but here we land, wife and me, broke. Nothing but our apparatus, whichwe can't eat; and not able to use it, because we are shy on dressclothes demanded by the houses where I could get engagements. In thatcondition I happened to see you on the street, and thought to try atouch; and would, but you might be sore over the little fun we had inManila. I heard in South Africa that you wouldn't let the army officersstart the police after me; and wife says that was as square a deal asshe ever heard of, and to try a touch. But I says we will make a forcedloan, and repay out of our salaries. We hocked our apparatus to get me asuit of clothes which looked something like those you wear, and the restwas easy: finding out Tommy's name and then conning him. I've taken someclothes and jewelry, to make a front at the booking office, and somecash. You should empty your pockets of loose cash: I found some in allyour clothes. Give me and wife a chance, and we will live straight afterthis, and remit on instalment. You can get me pinched easy, for we'll beplaying the continuous circuit in a week; but wife says you won'tsqueal, and I'll take chances. Yours, sincerely as always, Presidio. "

So Carrington told the superintendent to drop the matter. 

The Great Courvatals, Monsieur and Madame, showed their new tricks tothe booking agent and secured a forty weeks' engagement at a salarywhich only Presidio's confidence could have asked. 

Presidio liked New York, and exploited it in as many directions aspossible. With his new fashionable clothing and his handsome face, hewas admitted to resorts of a character his boldest dreams had neverbefore penetrated. He especially liked the fine restaurants. None sojocund, so frank and free as Presidio in ordering the best at the bestplaces. Mrs. Presidio did not accompany him; she was enjoying the morepoignant pleasure of shopping, with a responsible theater manager as herreference! At a restaurant one midday, as Presidio was leisurelybreakfasting, he became aware that he was the object of furtiveobservation by a young lady, seated with an elderly companion at a tablesomewhat removed. Furtive doings were in his line, and he made a closestudy of the party, never turning more than a scant half-face to do so. The manner of the young lady was puzzling. None so keen as Presidio inreading expression, but hers he could not understand. That she was nottrying to flirt with him he decided promptly and definitively; yet herlooks were intended to attract his attention, and to do so secretly. Theelderly companion, when the couple was leaving the restaurant, stoppedin the vestibule to allow an attendant to adjust her wrap, and Presidioseized that chance to pass close to the young lady, moving as slowly ashe dared without seeming to be concerned in her actions. Her head wasaverted, but Presidio distinctly heard her breathe, rather than whisper, "Pass by the house to-morrow afternoon. "

 * * * * *

Presidio pondered. He was supposed to know where her house was; he wasunwelcome to some one there; he was mistaken for some oneelse--Carrington!

When he told his wife about it she was in a fever of romanticexcitement. Bruising knocks in the world, close approaches to the shadesof the prison house, hardships which would have banished romance from anature less robustly romantic, had for Mrs. Presidio but more glowinglysuffused with the tints of romance all life--but her own! "Mr. Carrington has done us right, Willie, " she declared; "once in Manila, when we simply _had_ to get to Hong Kong; and here, where we wouldn'thave had no show on earth if he hadn't lent you the clothes and cash forthe start. There's something doing here, Willie; and I'm all lit up withexcitement. "

Presidio, who, of course, had followed the young lady to learn where shelived, passed the house the next day, the sedatest looking man on thesedate block. Presently a maid came from the house, gave him a beckoningnod, and hurried on round the corner. There she slipped him a note, saying as she walked on, "I was to give you this, Mr. Carrington. "

Presidio took the note to his wife, and she declared for opening it. Itwas sealed, and addressed to another person; but to let such aninformality as opening another's letters stand in the way of knowingwhat was going on around them would have been foreign to the nature ofPresidio activities. This was the note:

 "Dear Porter: Your letters to papa will not be answered. I heard him say so to mamma, yesterday. He is angry that you wrote to him on the very day I returned from Europe. He will send me back there if you try to see me, as you say you will, but dear, even at that cost I must see you once more. I have never forgotten, never ceased to love; but there is no hope! A companion accompanies me always, the one you saw in the restaurant; but the maid who will hand you this is trustworthy, and will bring me any message you give to her. If you can arrange for a moment's meeting it will give me something to cherish in my memory through the remainder of my sad and hopeless life. Only for a moment, dear. 

 "Caroline. "

Mrs. Presidio wept. Here was romance sadder, and therefore better, thanany she had ever read; better, even, than that in the one-act dramaswhich followed their turns on the stage. "Have you ever studied hiswriting?" she asked her husband; and, promptly divining her plan, hereplied, "I made a few copies of his signature on the Manila hotelregister. You never know what will turn up. " After a pause, he addedeagerly, "Better yet!--there was some of his writing in the overcoat Iborrowed from his rooms. "

"Write to her; make an appointment, and have him on hand to keep it. "

Here was work right in Presidio's line; his professional pride wasfired, and he wrote with grave application:

 "Darling Caroline: Thank you, sweetheart, for words which have kept me from suicide. Love of my life, I can not live until we meet! But only for a moment? Nay, for ever and ever!"

"That's beautiful!" declared Mrs. Presidio, looking over Willie'sshoulder. He continued:

 "I shall hand this to your maid; but you must not meet me there; it would be too dangerous. Leave your house one-half hour after receiving this, and go around the corner where you will see a lady, a relative of mine, who will drive with you to a safe tryst. Trust her, and heaven speed the hour! With undying love. Porter. "

This was all written in a good imitation of Carrington's rather unusualhandwriting, and approved by Mrs. Presidio; who, however, thought thereshould be some reference to the young lady's home as a beetled tower, and to her father as several things which Presidio feared might not beesteemed polite in the social plane they were operating in. He passedthe house the next day, and the maid soon appeared. He learned from herthat her mistress's companion was not at home; and then, hopeful becauseof this opportune absence, hurried off, leaving Mrs. Presidio round thecorner in a carriage. He went to a club where, he had ascertained, Carrington usually was at that hour, and sent in the card of "M. Courvatal, " on which he wrote, "Presidio. " Carrington came out to him atonce. "My dear Mr. Presidio, this is so kind of you, " he said, regardinghis caller with interest. "We've not met since Manila. I hope Mrs. Presidio is well, and that your professional engagements prosper. I wentto see you perform last night, and was delighted. "

"Thank you, " the caller said, much pleased with this reception. "I'll besending the balance of my little debt to you as soon as the wife has herdressmaking bills settled. "

"Pray do not incommode the wife. The amount you have already sent was apleasant--surprise. Can I be of any service to you to-day?"

"Well, it's like this, Mr. Carrington: I have an appointment for youthis afternoon. "

"For me?"

"With Miss Caroline Curtis. "

"What do you mean?"

"Don't be offended, sir. Come with me, and see what you'll see. If I tryany game, pitch into me, that's all. "

The man's manner was now so earnest that Carrington, without a word, started with him. In the club entrance Presidio whispered, "Follow;don't walk with me. There's not much chance that any one here willrecognize me, but if I was pinched on any old score you'd better not bein my company. " He went ahead, and Carrington followed. They had walkeddown Fifth Avenue several blocks when Mr. Francis Holt cut in betweenthem, and shadowed Presidio with elaborate caution. Carrington saw this, and mused. "I think I know that young man who has so plainly got friendPresidio under observation. Surely, it's Holt, a year or two after me. What can he--Hello, I say!"

Holt saw the intention of Presidio to turn off the avenue toward alittle church round the corner, and advancing suddenly, laid a stronghand on Presidio's shoulder, saying, "Come quietly with me, and I'llmake no fuss; but if you don't, I'll call a policeman. "

Carrington overtook them. Holt was excited, wild-eyed, disheveled, andseemed not to have slept for a week. Presidio coolly awaited events. 

"Hello, Holt!" exclaimed Carrington. "How are you, old chap? Haven'tseen you for years. "

"Good heavens, this is lucky!" cried Holt. "Carrington, since the nightyour rooms were plundered I've been on the track of this villain. I wasbound to explain the mystery of that night; determined to prove that Icould unravel a plot, detect a crime! Do you understand? This is thefellow who rifled your room. Robbed you!"

"Yes, I know, old fellow, " Carrington replied soothingly, for he sawthat Holt was half hysterical from excitement. "He's always robbing me, this chap is. It's a habit with him. I've come rather to like it. Walkalong with us, and I'll tell you all about it. "

They turned the corner and walked down the side street, but only Holttalked: of his sleepless nights and tireless days solving his firstcrime case. A carriage drove up to the curb and Mrs. Presidio steppedout. At a wink from Presidio Carrington stepped in. 

"Betty, " said Presidio to his wife, "shake hands with an old friend ofmine and of Mr. Carrington's. I want you to know him. Mr. Holt, shakehands with Madame Courvatal, my wife. "

"Why, Mr. Holt, glad to meet you personally!" exclaimed Betty. "This isthe gent, Willie, I've told you about: comes to the show every nightjust before our turn, and goes out as soon as we are off. "

"Glad you like the turn so much, " Presidio said, smiling oddly. Holt, with his hand to his brow was gasping. The carriage door opened andCarrington's head emerged: "Oh, Holt, come here. "

Holt, with a painfully dazed expression, went to the carriage. "Mydear, " Carrington said to some one inside who was struggling to hide, "this is Mr. Francis Holt; one of my oldest and dearest friends. He'sthe discreetest fellow I know and will arrange the whole matter in aminute. You must, darling! Fate has offered us a chance for life'shappiness, and as I say--Holt, like a good fellow, go into the parsonageand explain who I am, and who Miss Caroline Curtis is. Your people knowall the Curtises, and we're going to get married, and--don't protest, darling!--like a good chap, Holt, go and--for God's sake, man, don'tstare like that! You know us, and can vouch for us. Tell the parson thatthe Curtises and Carringtons are always marrying each other. Holt! willyou move?"

An hour later a little banquet was served in the private dining-room ofa hotel, and Mrs. Carrington was explaining, between tears and laughter, how good, kind Madame Courvatal had told her that everything was readyfor a wedding, and that she would be a cruel woman, indeed, not to makesuch a loving lover happy; and she couldn't make up her mind to say yes, and it was hard to say no--just after receiving Porter's despairingnote. 

"My note, dear?" asked Carrington, but Presidio coughed so loudly shedid not hear her husband's question. Holt drank to the bride and groomseveral times before he began soberly to believe he was not in a dream. Mr. And Mrs. Presidio beamed broadly, and declared that life withoutromance was no kind of a life for honest folk to live. 

"Holt!" exclaimed Carrington, when the train carriage was announced, "you've been a brick about all this. I don't know how to show myappreciation. "

"I'll tell you how, " suggested Presidio. "Let Mr. Holt be the one totell Mr. Curtis. He deserves the privilege of informing the governor. "

"The very thing, Holt, old chap!" cried Carrington. "Will you do it?"

"You're awfully kind, " answered Holt, "but I think this old friend coulddo it with more art and understanding. "

"What, my Willie?" cried Willie's wife. "He'll do it to the Queen'staste. Won't you, Willie?"

"I will, in company with Mr. Holt--my friend and your admirer. He sitsin front every night, " he added, in explanation to Carrington. 

As the carriage with the happy pair drove away to the station, Presidio, with compulsive ardor, took the arm of Mr. Francis Holt; and togetherthey marched up the avenue to inform Mr. Curtis of the marriage of hisdaughter. 

TWO CASES OF GRIP

BY M. QUAD

"What's this! What's this!" exclaimed Mr. Bowser, as he came home theother evening and found Mrs. Bowser lying on the sofa and looking verymuch distressed. 

"The doctor says it's the grip--a second attack, " she explained. "I wastaken with a chill and headache about noon and--"

"Grip? Second attack? That's all nonsense, Mrs. Bowser! Nobody can havethe grip a second time. "

"But the doctor says so. "

"Then the doctor is an idiot, and I'll tell him so to his face. I knowwhat's the matter with you. You've been walking around the backyardbarefoot or doing some other foolish thing. I expected it, however. Nowoman is happy unless she's flat down about half the time. How on earthany of your sex manage to live to be twenty years old is a mystery tome. The average woman has no more sense than a rag baby. "

"I haven't been careless, " she replied. 

"I know better! Of course you have! If you hadn't been you wouldn't bewhere you are. Grip be hanged! Well, it's only right that you shouldsuffer for it. Call it what you wish, but don't expect any sympathy fromme. While I use every precaution to preserve my health, you go sloshingaround in your bare feet, or sit on a cake of ice to read a dime novel, or do some other tomfool thing to flatten you out. I refuse tosympathize with you, Mrs. Bowser--absolutely and teetotally refuse toutter one word of pity. "

Mrs. Bowser had nothing to say in reply. Mr. Bowser ate his dinneralone, took advantage of the occasion to drive a few nails and make agreat noise, and by and by went off to his club and was gone untilmidnight. Next morning Mrs. Bowser felt a bit better and made a heroicattempt to be about until he started for the office. 

The only reference he made to her illness was to say:

"If you live to be three hundred years old, you may possibly learnsomething about the laws of health and be able to keep out of bed threedays in a week. "

Mrs. Bowser was all right at the end of three or four days, and nothingmore was said. Then one afternoon at three o'clock a carriage drove upand a stranger assisted Mr. Bowser into the house. He was looking paleand ghastly, and his chin quivered, and his knees wabbled. 

"What is it, Mr. Bowser?" she exclaimed, as she met him at the door. 

"Bed--doctor--death!" he gasped in reply. 

Mrs. Bowser got him to bed and examined him for bullet holes or knifewounds. There were none. He had no broken limbs. He hadn't fallen off ahorse or been half drowned. When she had satisfied herself on thesepoints, she asked:

"How were you taken?"

"W-with a c-chill!" he gasped--"with a c-chill and a b-backache!"

"I thought so. Mr. Bowser, you have the grip--a second attack. As I havesome medicine left, there's no need to send for the doctor. I'll haveyou all right in a day or two. "

"Get the doctor at once, " wailed Mr. Bowser, "or I'm a dead man! Such abackache! So cold! Mrs. Bowser, if I should d-die, I hope--"

Emotion overcame Mr. Bowser, and he could say no more. The doctor cameand pronounced it a second attack of the grip, but a very mild one. Whenhe had departed, Mrs. Bowser didn't accuse Mr. Bowser with putting onhis summer flannels a month too soon; with forgetting his umbrella andgetting soaked through; with leaving his rubbers at home and having dampfeet all day. She didn't express her wonder that he hadn't died yearsago, nor predict that when he reached the age of Methuselah he wouldknow better than to roll in snow-banks or stand around in mud puddles. She didn't kick over chairs or slam doors or leave him alone. When Mr. Bowser shed tears, she wiped them away. When he moaned, she held hishand. When he said he felt that the grim specter was near, and wanted tokiss the baby good-by, she cheered him with the prediction that he wouldbe a great deal better next day. 

Mr. Bowser didn't get up next day, though the doctor said he could. Helay in bed and sighed and uttered sorrowful moans and groans. He wantedtoast and preserves; he had to have help to turn over; he worried abouta relapse; he had to have a damp cloth on his forehead; he wanted tohave a council of doctors, and he read the copy of his last will andtestament over three times. 

Mr. Bowser was all right next morning, however. When Mrs. Bowser askedhim how he felt he replied:

"How do I feel? Why, as right as a trivet, of course. When a man takesthe care of himself that I do--when he has the nerve and will power Ihave--he can throw off 'most anything. You would have died, Mrs. Bowser;but I was scarcely affected. It was just a play spell. I'd like to bereal sick once just to see how it would seem. Cholera, I suppose itwas; but outside of feeling a little tired, I wasn't at all affected. "

And the dutiful Mrs. Bowser looked at him and swallowed it all and neversaid a word to hurt his feelings. 

ALPHABET OF CELEBRITIES

BY OLIVER HERFORD

 E is for Edison, making believe He's invented a clever contrivance for Eve, Who complained that she never could laugh in her sleeve. 

 O is for Oliver, casting aspersion On Omar, that awfully dissolute Persian, Though secretly longing to join the diversion. 

 R's Rubenstein, playing that old thing in F To Rollo and Rembrandt, who wish they were deaf. 

 S is for Swinburne, who, seeking the true, The good, and the beautiful, visits the Zoo, Where he chances on Sappho and Mr. Sardou, And Socrates, all with the same end in view. 

 W's Wagner, who sang and played lots, For Washington, Wesley and good Dr. Watts; His prurient plots pained Wesley and Watts, But Washington said he "enjoyed them in spots. "

NONSENSE VERSES

BY GELETT BURGESS

1

 The Window has Four little Panes: But One have I; The Window-Panes are in its sash, -- I wonder why!

2

 My Feet they haul me 'round the House; They hoist me up the Stairs; I only have to steer them and They ride me everywheres. 

3

 Remarkable truly, is Art! See--Elliptical wheels on a Cart! It looks very fair In the Picture up there; But imagine the Ride when you start!

4

 I'd rather have fingers than Toes; I'd rather have Ears than a Nose And as for my hair, I'm glad it's all there, I'll be awfully sad when it goes!

5

 I wish that my Room had a floor; I don't so much care for a Door, But this walking around Without touching the ground Is getting to be quite a bore!

THE SIEGE OF DJKLXPRWBZ

BY IRONQUILL

 Before a Turkish town The Russians came, And with huge cannon Did bombard the same. 

 They got up close And rained fat bombshells down, And blew out every Vowel in the town. 

 And then the Turks, Becoming somewhat sad, Surrendered every Consonant they had. 

THE GOAT

BY R. K. MUNKITTRICK

 Down in the cellar dark, remote, Where alien cats the larder note, In solemn grandeur stands the goat. 

 Without he hears the winter storm, And while the drafts about him swarm, He eats the coal to keep him warm. 

IN DEFENSE OF AN OFFERING

BY SEWELL FORD

Gracious! You're not going to smoke again? I do believe, my dear, thatyou're getting to be a regular, etc. , etc. (Voice from across thereading table. )

A slave to tobacco! Not I. Singular, the way you women misuse nouns. Iam, rather, a chosen acolyte in the temple of Nicotiana. Daily, aye, thrice daily--well, call it six, then--do I make burnt offering. Nowsome use censers of clay, others employ censers of rare white earthfinely carved and decked with silver and gold. My particular censer, asyou see, is a plain, honest briar, a root dug from the banks of the blueGaronne, whose only glory is its grain and color. The original tint, ifyou remember, was like that of new-cut cedar, but use--I've been smokingthis one only two years now--has given it gloss and depth of tone whichput the finest mahogany to shame. Let me rub it on my sleeve. Now look!

There are no elaborate mummeries about our service in the temple ofNicotiana. No priest or pastor, no robed muezzin or gowned prelate callsme to the altar. Neither is there fixed hour or prescribed point of thecompass towards which I must turn. Whenever the mood comes and thespirit listeth, I make devotion. 

There are various methods, numerous brief litanies. Mine is a common andsimple one. I take the cut Indian leaf in the left palm, so, and roll itgently about with the right, thus. Next I pack it firmly in the censer'shollow bowl with neither too firm nor too light a pressure. Any firewill do. The torch need not be blessed. Thanks, I have a match. 

Now we are ready. With the surplus breath of life you draw in thefragrant spirit of the weed. With slow, reluctant outbreathing you looseit on the quiet air. Behold! That which was but a dead thing, lives. Perhaps we have released the soul of some brave red warrior who, longyears ago, fell in glorious battle and mingled his dust with theunforgetting earth. Each puff may give everlasting liberty to some deadand gone aboriginal. If you listen you may hear his far-off chant. Through the curling blue wreaths you may catch a glimpse of the happyhunting grounds to which he has now gone. That is the part of theservice whose losing or gaining depends upon yourself. 

The first whiff is the invocation, the last the benediction. When youknock out the ashes you should feel conscious that you have done a gooddeed, that the offering has not been made in vain. 

Slave! Still that odious word? Well, have it your own way. Worshipers atevery shrine have been thus persecuted. 

HE AND SHE

BY IRONQUILL

 When I am dead you'll find it hard, Said he, To ever find another man Like me. 

 What makes you think, as I suppose You do, I'd ever want another man Like you?

THE NOTARY OF PÉRIGUEUX

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

 Do not trust thy body with a physician. He'll make thy foolish bones go without flesh in a fortnight, and thy soul walk without a body a sennight after. 

 SHIRLEY. 

You must know, gentlemen, that there lived some years ago, in the cityof Périgueux, an honest notary-public, the descendant of a very ancientand broken-down family, and the occupant of one of those oldweather-beaten tenements which remind you of the times of yourgreat-grandfather. He was a man of an unoffending, quiet disposition;the father of a family, though not the head of it, --for in that family"the hen over-crowed the cock, " and the neighbors, when they spake ofthe notary, shrugged their shoulders, and exclaimed, "Poor fellow! hisspurs want sharpening. " In fine, --you understand me, gentlemen, --he washen-pecked. 

Well, finding no peace at home, he sought it elsewhere, as was verynatural for him to do; and at length discovered a place of rest, farbeyond the cares and clamors of domestic life. This was a little _CaféEstaminet_, a short way out of the city, whither he repaired everyevening to smoke his pipe, drink sugar-water, and play his favorite gameof domino. There he met the boon companions he most loved; heard all thefloating chitchat of the day; laughed when he was in merry mood; foundconsolation when he was sad; and at all times gave vent to hisopinions, without fear of being snubbed short by a flat contradiction. 

Now, the notary's bosom-friend was a dealer in claret and cognac, wholived about a league from the city, and always passed his evenings atthe _Estaminet_. He was a gross, corpulent fellow, raised from afull-blooded Gascon breed, and sired by a comic actor of some reputationin his way. He was remarkable for nothing but his good-humor, his loveof cards, and a strong propensity to test the quality of his own liquorsby comparing them with those sold at other places. 

As evil communications corrupt good manners, the bad practices of thewine-dealer won insensibly upon the worthy notary; and before he wasaware of it, he found himself weaned from domino and sugar-water, andaddicted to piquet and spiced wine. Indeed, it not unfrequentlyhappened, that, after a long session at the _Estaminet_, the two friendsgrew so urbane that they would waste a full half-hour at the door infriendly dispute which should conduct the other home. 

Though this course of life agreed well enough with the sluggish, phlegmatic temperament of the wine-dealer, it soon began to play thevery deuse with the more sensitive organization of the notary, andfinally put his nervous system completely out of tune. He lost hisappetite, became gaunt and haggard, and could get no sleep. Legions ofblue-devils haunted him by day, and by night strange faces peepedthrough his bed-curtains, and the nightmare snorted in his ear. Theworse he grew, the more he smoked and tippled; and the more he smokedand tippled, --why, as a matter of course, the worse he grew. His wifealternately stormed, remonstrated, entreated; but all in vain. She madethe house too hot for him, --he retreated to the tavern; she broke hislong-stemmed pipes upon the andirons, --he substituted a short-stemmedone, which, for safe-keeping, he carried in his waistcoat-pocket. 

Thus the unhappy notary ran gradually down at the heel. What with hisbad habits and his domestic grievances, he became completely hipped. Heimagined that he was going to die; and suffered in quick succession allthe diseases that ever beset mortal man. Every shooting pain was analarming symptom, --every uneasy feeling after dinner a sure prognosticof some mortal disease. In vain did his friends endeavor to reason, andthen to laugh him out of his strange whims; for when did ever jest orreason cure a sick imagination? His only answer was, "Do let me alone; Iknow better than you what ails me. "

Well, gentlemen, things were in this state, when, one afternoon inDecember, as he sat moping in his office, wrapped in an overcoat, with acap on his head and his feet thrust into a pair of furred slippers, acabriolet stopped at the door, and a loud knocking without aroused himfrom his gloomy revery. It was a message from his friend thewine-dealer, who had been suddenly attacked with a violent fever, andgrowing worse and worse, had now sent in the greatest haste for thenotary to draw up his last will and testament. The case was urgent, andadmitted neither excuse nor delay; and the notary, tying a handkerchiefround his face, and buttoning up to the chin, jumped into the cabriolet, and suffered himself, though not without some dismal presentiments andmisgivings of heart, to be driven to the wine-dealer's house. 

When he arrived, he found everything in the greatest confusion. Onentering the house, he ran against the apothecary, who was coming downstairs, with a face as long as your arm; and a few steps farther he metthe housekeeper--for the wine-dealer was an old bachelor--running upand down, and wringing her hands, for fear that the good man should diewithout making his will. He soon reached the chamber of his sick friend, and found him tossing about in a paroxysm of fever, and calling aloudfor a draught of cold water. The notary shook his head; he thought thisa fatal symptom; for ten years back the wine-dealer had been sufferingunder a species of hydrophobia, which seemed suddenly to have left him. 

When the sick man saw who stood by his bedside, he stretched out hishand and exclaimed, --

"Ah! my dear friend! have you come at last? You see it is all over withme. You have arrived just in time to draw up that--that passport ofmine. Ah, _grand diable_! how hot it is here! Water, --water, --water!Will nobody give me a drop of cold water?"

As the case was an urgent one, the notary made no delay in getting hispapers in readiness; and in a short time the last will and testament ofthe wine-dealer was drawn up in due form, the notary guiding the sickman's hand as he scrawled his signature at the bottom. 

As the evening wore away, the wine-dealer grew worse and worse, and atlength became delirious, mingling in his incoherent ravings the phrasesof the Credo and Paternoster with the shibboleth of the dram-shop andthe card-table. 

"Take care! take care! There, now--_Credo in_--Pop! ting-a-ling-ling!give me some of that. Cent-é-dize! Why, you old publican, thiswine is poisoned, --I know your tricks!--_Sanctam ecclesiamcatholicam_--Well, well, we shall see. Imbecile! to have atierce-major and a seven of hearts, and discard the seven! By St. Anthony, capot! You are lurched, --ha! ha! I told you so. I knewvery well, --there, --there, --don't interrupt me--_Carnis resurrectionemet vitam eternam_!"

With these words upon his lips, the poor wine-dealer expired. Meanwhilethe notary sat cowering over the fire, aghast at the fearful scene thatwas passing before him, and now and then striving to keep up his courageby a glass of cognac. Already his fears were on the alert; and the ideaof contagion flitted to and fro through his mind. In order to quietthese thoughts of evil import, he lighted his pipe and began to preparefor returning home. At that moment the apothecary turned round to himand said, --

"Dreadful sickly time, this! The disorder seems to be spreading. "

"What disorder?" exclaimed the notary, with a movement of surprise. 

"Two died yesterday, and three to-day, " continued the apothecary, without answering the question. "Very sickly time, sir, --very. "

"But what disorder is it? What disease has carried off my friend here sosuddenly?"

"What disease? Why, scarlet fever, to be sure. "

"And is it contagious?"

"Certainly!"

"Then I am a dead man!" exclaimed the notary, putting his pipe into hiswaistcoat-pocket, and beginning to walk up and down the room in despair. "I am a dead man! Now don't deceive me, --don't, will you? What--what arethe symptoms?"

"A sharp, burning pain in the right side, " said the apothecary. 

"O, what a fool I was to come here!"

In vain did the housekeeper and the apothecary strive to pacify him;--hewas not a man to be reasoned with; he answered that he knew his ownconstitution better than they did, and insisted upon going home withoutdelay. Unfortunately, the vehicle he came in had returned to the city, and the whole neighborhood was abed and asleep. What was to be done?Nothing in the world but to take the apothecary's horse, which stoodhitched at the door, patiently waiting his master's will. 

Well, gentlemen, as there was no remedy, our notary mounted thisraw-boned steed and set forth upon his homeward journey. The night wascold and gusty, and the wind right in his teeth. Overhead the leadenclouds were beating to and fro, and through them the newly-risen moonseemed to be tossing and drifting along like a cock-boat in the surf;now swallowed up in a huge billow of cloud, and now lifted upon itsbosom and dashed with silvery spray. The trees by the road-side groanedwith a sound of evil omen; and before him lay three mortal miles, besetwith a thousand imaginary perils. Obedient to the whip and spur, thesteed leaped forward by fits and starts, now dashing away in atremendous gallop, and now relaxing into a long, hard trot; while therider, filled with symptoms of disease and dire presentiments of death, urged him on, as if he were fleeing before the pestilence. 

In this way, by dint of whistling and shouting, and beating right andleft, one mile of the fatal three was safely passed. The apprehensionsof the notary had so far subsided, that he even suffered the poor horseto walk up hill; but these apprehensions were suddenly revived againwith tenfold violence by a sharp pain in the right side, which seemed topierce him like a needle. 

"It is upon me at last!" groaned the fear-stricken man. "Heaven bemerciful to me, the greatest of sinners! And must I die in a ditch, after all? He! get up, --get up!"

And away went horse and rider at full speed, --hurry-scurry, --up hill anddown, --panting and blowing like a whirlwind. At every leap the pain inthe rider's side seemed to increase. At first it was a little point likethe prick of a needle, --then it spread to the size of a half-francpiece, --then covered a place as large as the palm of your hand. Itgained upon him fast. The poor man groaned aloud in agony; faster andfaster sped the horse over the frozen ground, --farther and fartherspread the pain over his side. To complete the dismal picture the stormcommenced, --snow mingled with rain. But snow, and rain, and cold werenaught to him; for, though his arms and legs were frozen to icicles, hefelt it not; the fatal symptom was upon him; he was doomed to die, --notof cold, but of scarlet fever!

At length, he knew not how, more dead than alive, he reached the gate ofthe city. A band of ill-bred dogs, that were serenading at a corner ofthe street, seeing the notary dash by, joined in the hue and cry, andran barking and yelping at his heels. It was now late at night, and onlyhere and there a solitary lamp twinkled from an upper story. But on wentthe notary, down this street and up that, till at last he reached hisown door. There was a light in his wife's bedroom. The good woman cameto the window, alarmed at such a knocking, and howling, and clatteringat her door so late at night; and the notary was too deeply absorbed inhis own sorrows to observe that the lamp cast the shadow of two heads onthe window-curtain. 

"Let me in! let me in! Quick! quick!" he exclaimed, almost breathlessfrom terror and fatigue. 

"Who are you, that come to disturb a lone woman at this hour of thenight?" cried a sharp voice from above. "Begone about your business, andlet quiet people sleep. "

"Come down and let me in! I am your husband! Don't you know my voice?Quick, I beseech you; for I am dying here in the street!"

After a few moments of delay and a few more words of parley, the doorwas opened, and the notary stalked into his domicile, pale and haggardin aspect, and as stiff and straight as a ghost. Cased from head to heelin an armor of ice, as the glare of the lamp fell upon him, he lookedlike a knight-errant mailed in steel. But in one place his armor wasbroken. On his right side was a circular spot, as large as the crown ofyour hat, and about as black!

"My dear wife!" he exclaimed with more tenderness than he had exhibitedfor many years, "Reach me a chair. My hours are numbered. I am a deadman!"

Alarmed at these exclamations, his wife stripped off his overcoat. Something fell from beneath it, and was dashed to pieces on the hearth. It was the notary's pipe! He placed his hand upon his side, and, lo! itwas bare to the skin! Coat, waistcoat, and linen were burnt through andthrough, and there was a blister on his side as large as your hand!

The mystery was soon explained, symptom and all. The notary had put hispipe into his pocket without knocking out the ashes! And so my storyends. 

 * * * * *

"Is that all?" asked the radical, when the story-teller had finished. 

"That is all. "

"Well, what does your story prove?"

"That is more than I can tell. All I know is that the story is true. "

"And did he die?" said the nice little man in gosling-green. 

"Yes; he died afterwards, " replied the story-teller, rather annoyed bythe question. 

"And what did he die of?" continued gosling-green, following him up. 

"What did he die of? why, he died--of a sudden!"

HOLLY SONG

BY CLINTON SCOLLARD

 Care is but a broken bubble, Trill the carol, troll the catch; Sooth, we'll cry, "A truce to trouble!" Mirth and mistletoe shall match. 

 _Happy folly! we'll be jolly! Who'd be melancholy now? With a "Hey, the holly! Ho, the holly!" Polly hangs the holly bough. _

 Laughter lurking in the eye, sir, Pleasure foots it frisk and free. He who frowns or looks awry, sir, Faith, a witless wight is he!

 _Merry folly! what a volley Greets the hanging of the bough! With a "Hey, the holly! Ho, the holly!" Who'd be melancholy now?_

SONGS WITHOUT WORDS

BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE

 I can not sing the old songs, Though well I know the tune, Familiar as a cradle song With sleep-compelling croon; Yet though I'm filled with music As choirs of summer birds, "I can not sing the old songs"-- I do not know the words. 

 I start on "Hail Columbia, " And get to "heav'n-born band, " And there I strike an up-grade With neither steam nor sand; "Star Spangled Banner" downs me Right in my wildest screaming, I start all right, but dumbly come To voiceless wreck at "streaming. "

 So, when I sing the old songs, Don't murmur or complain If "Ti, diddy ah da, tum dum, " Should fill the sweetest strain. I love "Tolly um dum di do, " And the "trilla-la yeep da"-birds, But "I can not sing the old songs"-- I do not know the words. 

TRIOLETS

BY C. W. M. 

 She threw me a kiss, But why did she throw it? What grieves me is this-- She threw me a kiss; Ah, what chances we miss If we only could know it! She threw me a kiss But why did she throw it!

 Any girl might have known When I stood there so near! And we two all alone Any girl might have known That she needn't have thrown! But then girls are so queer! Any girl might have known, When I stood there so near!

WHAT SHE SAID ABOUT IT

BY JOHN PAUL

 Lyrics to Inez and Jane, Dolores and Ethel and May; Señoritas distant as Spain, And damsels just over the way!

 It is not that I'm jealous, nor that, Of either Dolores or Jane, Of some girl in an opposite flat, Or in one of his castles in Spain, But it is that salable prose Put aside for this profitless strain, I sit the day darning his hose-- And he sings of Dolores and Jane. 

 Though the winged-horse must caracole free-- With the pretty, when "spurning the plain, " Should the team-work fall wholly on me While he soars with Dolores and Jane?

 _I_ am neither Dolores nor Jane, But to lighten a little my life Might the Poet not spare me a strain-- Although I am only his wife!

AN EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

BY ROY FARRELL GREENE

 Since schools to teach one this or that Are being started every day, I have the plan, a notion pat, Of one which I am sure would pay. 'Twould be a venture strictly new, No shaking up of dusty bones; How does the scheme appeal to you? A regular school for chaperones!

 One course would be to dull the ear, And one would be to dim the eye, So whispered love they'd never hear, And glance coquettish never spy; They'd be taught somnolence, and how Ofttimes closed eye for sleep atones; Had I a million, I'd endow A regular school for chaperones!

 There's crying need in West and East For graduates, and not a source Supplying it. Some one at least Should start a correspondence course; But joy will scarce o'errun the cup Of maidenhood, my candor owns, Till some skilled Mentor opens up A regular school for chaperones!

THE CAMP-MEETING

BY BAYNARD RUST HALL

The camp was furnished with several stands for preaching, exhorting, jumping and jerking; but still one place was the pulpit, above allothers. This was a large scaffold, secured between two noble sugartrees, and railed in to prevent from falling over in a swoon, orspringing over in an ecstasy; its cover the dense foliage of the trees, whose trunks formed the graceful and massive columns. Here was said tobe also the _altar_, but I could not see its _horns_ or any _sacrifice_;and the pen, which I _did_ see--a place full of clean straw, where wereput into fold stray sheep willing to return. It was at this pulpit, withits altar and pen, the regular preaching was done; around here thecongregation assembled; hence orders were issued; here, happened thehardest fights, and were gained the greatest victories, being the spotwhere it was understood Satan fought in person; and here could be seengestures the most frantic, and heard noises the most unimaginable, andoften the most appalling. It was the place, in short, where most crowdedeither with praiseworthy intentions of getting some religion, or withunholy purposes of being amused; we, of course, designing neither onenor the other, but only to see philosophically and make up an opinion. At every grand outcry a simultaneous rush would, however, take placefrom all parts of the camp, proper and improper, towards the pulpit, altar, and pen; till the crowding, by increasing the suffocation andthe fainting, would increase the tumult and the uproar; but this, in theestimation of many devotees, only rendered the meeting more lively andinteresting. 

By considering what was done at this central station one may approximatethe amount of spiritual labor done in a day, and then a week in thewhole camp:

1. About day-break on Sabbath a horn _blasted_ us up for public prayerand exhortation, the exercises continuing nearly two hours. 

2. Before breakfast, another blast for family and private prayer; andthen every tent became, in camp language, "a bethel of struggling Jacobsand prevailing Israels, " every tree "an altar;" and every grove "asecret closet;" till the air all became religious words and phrases, andvocal with "Amens. "

3. After a proper interval came a horn for the forenoon service; thenwas delivered the sermon, and that followed by an appendix of some halfdozen exhortations let off right and left, and even _behind_ the pulpit, that all might have a portion in due season. 

4. We had private and secret prayer again before dinner;--someclambering into thick trees to be hid, but forgetting in theirsimplicity, that they were heard and betrayed. But religious devotionexcuses all errors and mistakes. 

5. The afternoon sermon with its bob-tail string of exhortations. 

6. Private and family prayer about tea time. 

7. But lastly, we had what was termed "a precious season, " in the thirdregular service at the _principia_ of the camp. This season began notlong after tea and was kept up long after I left the ground; which wasabout midnight. And now sermon after sermon and exhortation afterexhortation followed like shallow, foaming, roaring waters; till thespeakers were exhausted and the assembly became an uneasy and billowymass, now hushing to a sobbing quiescence, and now rousing by the groansof sinners and the triumphant cries of folks that had "jist gotreligion"; and then again subsiding to a buzzy state, occasioned by thewhimpering and whining voices of persons giving spiritual advice andcomfort! How like a volcanic crater after the evomition of its lava in afit of burning cholic, and striving to resettle its angry andtumultuating stomach!

It is time, however, to speak of the three grand services and theirconcomitants, and to introduce several master spirits of the camp. 

Our first character, is the Reverend Elder Sprightly. This gentleman wasof good natural parts; and in a better school of intellectual disciplineand more fortunate circumstances, he must have become a worthy ministerof some more tasteful, literary and evangelical sect. As it was, he hadonly become what he never got beyond--"a very smart man;" and his aimhad become one--to enlarge his own people. And in this work, so greatwas his success, that, to use his own modest boastfulness in his sermonto-day, --"although folks said when he came to the Purchase that a singlecorn-crib would hold his people, yet, bless the Lord, they had keptspreading and spreading till all the corn-cribs in Egypt weren't bigenough to hold them!"

He was very happy at repartee, as Robert Dale Owen well knows; and not"slow" (inexpert) in the arts of "taking off"--and--"giving them theirown. " This trait we shall illustrate by an instance. 

Mr. Sprightly was, by accident, once present where a CampbelliteBaptist, that had recently taken out a right for administering six dosesof lobelia, red pepper and steam to men's bodies, and a plunge intocold water for the good of their souls, was holding forth against allDoctors, secular and sacred, and very fiercely against Sprightly'sbrotherhood. Doctor Lobelia's text was found somewhere in PopeCampbell's _New_ Testament; as it suited the following discourseintroduced with the usual inspired preface:

DOCTOR LOBELIA'S SERMON

"Well, I never rub'd my back agin a collige, nor git no sheepskin, andallow the Apostuls didn't nither. Did anybody ever hear of Peter andPoll a-goin' to them new-fangled places and gitten skins to preach by?No, sirs, I allow not; no, sirs, we don't pretend to loguk--this here_new_ testament's sheepskin enough for me. And don't Prisbeteruns andtother baby sprinklurs have reskorse to loguk and skins to show how themwhat's emerz'd didn't go down into the water and come up agin? And as toSprightly's preachurs, don't they dress like big-bugs, and go ridinabout the Purchis on hunder-dollur hossis, a-spunginin on poorpriest-riden folks and a-eatin fried chickin fixins so powerful fastthat chickins has got skerse in these diggins; and then what ain't friedmakes tracks and hides when they sees them a-comin?

"But, dear bruthrun, we don't want store cloth and yaller buttins, andfat hossis and chickin fixins, and the like doins--no, sirs! we onlywants your souls--we only wants beleevur's baptism--we wantsprim--prim--yes, Apostul's Christianity, the Christianity of Christ andthem times, when Christians _was_ Christians, and tuk up thare cross andwent down into the water, and was buried in the gineine sort of baptismby emerzhin. That's all we wants; and I hope all's convinced that's thetrue way--and so let all come right out from among them and gitbeleevur's baptism; and so now if any brothur wants to say a word I'mdone, and I'll make way for him to preach. "

 * * * * *

Anticipating this common invitation, our friend Sprightly, indignant atthis unprovoked attack of Doctor Lobelia, had, in order to disguisehimself, exchanged his clerical garb for a friend's blue coateebedizzened with metal buttons; and also had erected a very tasteful andsharp coxcomb on his head, out of hair usually reposing sleek and quietin the most saint-like decorum; and then, at the bid from thepulpit-stump, out stepped Mr. Sprightly from the opposite spice-woodgrove, and advanced with a step so smirky and dandyish as to createuniversal amazement and whispered demands--"Why! who's that?" And someof his very people, who were present, as they told me, did not knowtheir preacher till his clear, sharp voice came upon the hearing, whenthey showed, by the sudden lifting of hands and eyebrows, how near theywere to exclaiming: "Well! I never!"

Stepping on to the consecrated stump, our friend, without eitherpreliminary hymn or prayer, commenced thus:

"My friends, I only intend to say a few words in answer to the piousbrother that's just sat down, and shall not detain but a few minutes. The pious brother took a good deal of time to tell what we soon foundout ourselves--that he never went to college and don't understand logic. He boasts, too, of having no sheepskin to preach by; but I allow anysensible buck-sheep would have died powerful sorry, if he'd ever thoughthis hide would come to be handled by some preachers. The skin of theknowingest old buck couldn't do some folks any good--some things saltwon't save. 

"I rather allow Johnny Calvin's boys and 'tother baby sprinklers, 'ain't likely to have they idees physicked out of them by steam logic, and doses of No. 6. They can't be steamed up so high as to want coolingby a cold water plunge. But I want to say a word about Sprightly'spreachers, because I have some slight acquaintance with that theregentleman, and don't choose to have them all run down for nothing. 

"The pious brother brings several grave charges; first, they ride goodhorses. Now don't every man, woman and child in the Purchase know thatSprightly and his preachers have hardly any home, and that they live onhorseback? The money most folks spend in land these men spend for a goodhorse; and don't they _need_ a good horse to stand mud and swim floods?And is it any sin for a horse to be kept fat that does so much work? Thebook says 'a merciful man is merciful to his beast, ' and that we mustn't'muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. ' Step round that fencecorner, and take a peep, dear friends, at a horse hung on the stake;what's he like? A wooden frame with a dry hide stretched over it. What'she live on? Ay! that's the pint! Well, what's them buzzards after?--lookat them sailing up there. Now who owns that live carrion?--the piousbrother that's just preached to us just now. And I want to know if itwouldn't be better for him to give that dumb brute something to coverhis bones, before he talks against 'hunder-dollur hossis' and the like?

"The next charge is, wearing good clothes. Friends, don't all folks whenthey come to meeting put on their best clothes? and wouldn't it be wrongif preachers came in old torn coats and dirty shirts? It wouldn't do nohow. Well, Sprightly and his preachers preach near about every day; andoughtn't they always to look decent? Take, then, a peep at the piousbrother that makes this charge; his coat is out at the elbow, and hasonly three or four buttons left, and his arm, where he wipes his noseand mouth, is shiny as a looking glass--his trousers are crawling up toshow he's got no stockings on; and his face has got a crop of beard twoweeks old and couldn't be cleaned by 'baby sprinklin''; yes, look atthem there matters, and say if Sprightly's preachers ain't more like theapostles in decency than the pious brother is. 

"A word now about chickin-fixins and doins. And I say it would be acharity to give the pious brother sich a feed now and then, for he lookshalf-starved, and savage as a meat-ax; and I advise that old hen outthare clucking up her brood not to come this way just now, if she don'twant all to disappear. But I say that Sprightly's preachers are so muchbeliked in the Purchase, that folks are always glad to see them, andmake a pint of giving them the best out of love; an' that's more thancan be said for some folks here. 

"The pious brother says he only wants our souls--then what makes himpeddle about Thomsonian physic? Why don't he and Campbell make steam andNo. 6 as free as preaching? I read of a quack doctor once, who used togive his advice free gratis for nothing to any one what would _buy_ abox of his pills--but as I see the pious brother is crawling round thefence to his anatomical horse and physical saddle-bags, I have nothingto say, and so, dear friends, I bid you all good-by. "

Such was Rev. Elder Sprightly, who preached to us on Sabbath morning atthe Camp. Hence, it is not remarkable that in common with many worthypersons, he should think his talents properly employed in using up"Johnny Calvin and his boys, " especially as no subject is better forpopularity at a camp-meeting. He gave us, accordingly, first, thataffecting story of Calvin and Servetus, in which the latter figuredto-day like a Christian Confessor and martyr, and the former as adiabolical persecutor; many moving incidents being introduced not foundin history, and many ingenious inferences and suppositions tending toblacken the Reformer's character. Judging from the frequency of the deepgroans, loud amens, and noisy hallelujahs of the congregation during thenarrative, had Calvin suddenly thrust in among us his hatchet face andgoat's beard, he would have been hissed and pelted, nay possibly beenlynched and soused in the branch; while the excellent Servetus wouldhave been _toted_ on our shoulders, and feasted in the tents on friedham, cold chicken fixins and horse sorrel pies!

Here is a specimen of Mr. S. 's mode of exciting triumphant exclamation, amens, groans, etc. , against Calvin and his followers: "Dear sisters, don't you love the tender little darling babes that hang on yourparental bosoms? (amen!)--Yes! I know you do--(amen! amen!)--Yes, Iknow, I know it. --(Amen, amen! hallelujah!) Now don't it make yourparental hearts throb with anguish to think those dear infantiledarlings might some day be out burning brush and fall into the flamesand be burned to death! (deep groans. )--Yes, it does, it does! But oh!sisters, oh! mothers! how can you think your babes mightn't get religionand die and be burned for ever and ever? (O! forbid--amen--groans. ) But, oho! only think--only think, oh! would you ever a had them darlinginfantile sucklings born, if you had a known they were to be burned in abrush heap! (No, no!--groans--shrieks. ) What! what! _what!_ if you had_foreknown_ they must have gone to hell?--(hoho! hoho--amen!) And doesanybody think He is such a tyrant as to make spotless, innocent babiesjust to damn them? (No! in a voice of thunder. )--No! sisters! no! no!mothers! No! _no!_ sinners, _no!!_--He ain't such a tyrant!Let John Calvin burn, torture and roast, but He never foreordainedbabies, as Calvin says, to damnation! (damnation!--echoed byhundreds. )--Hallelujah! 'tis a free salvation! Glory! a freesalvation!--(Here Mr. S. Battered the rail of the pulpit with his fists, and kicked the bottom with his feet--many screamed--some criedamen!--others groaned and hissed--and more than a dozen females of twoopposite colors arose and clapped their hands as if engaged instarching, etc. , etc. ) No-h-o! _'tis_ a free, a free, a _free_salvation!--away with Calvin! 'tis for all! _all!_ ALL! Yes! shout itout! clap on! rejoice! rejoice! oho-oho! sinners, sinners, sinners, oh-ho-oho!" etc. , etc. 

Here was maintained for some minutes the most edifying uproar ofshouting, bellowing, crying, clapping and stamping, mingled withhysterical laughing, termed out there "holy laughing, " and even dancing!and barking! called also "holy!"--till, at the partial subsidence of thebedlam, the orator resumed his eloquence. 

It is singular Mr. S. Overlooked an objection to the divine Providencearising from his own illustration. That children do sometimes perish bybeing burnt and drowned, is undeniable; yet is not their existenceprevented--and that in the very case where the sisters were induced tosay _they_ would have prevented their existence! But, in justice to Mr. S. , we must say that he seemed to have anticipated the objection, and tohave furnished the reply; for, said he, in one part of his discourse, "God did not _wish_ to foreknow _some_ things!"

But our friend's mode of avoiding a predestined death--if such anabsurdity be supposed--deserves all praise for the facility andsimplicity of the contrivance. "Let us, " said he, "for argument's sake, grant that I, the Rev. Elder Sprightly, am foreordained to be drowned, in the river, at Smith's Ferry, next Thursday morning, at twenty-twominutes after ten o'clock; and suppose I know it; and suppose I am afree, moral, voluntary, accountable agent, as Calvinists say--do youthink I'm going to be drowned? No!--I would stay at home all day; andyou'll never ketch the Rev. Elder Sprightly at Smith's Ferry--nor nearthe river neither!"

Reader, is it any wonder Calvinism is on the decline? Logic it _can_stand; but human nature thus excited in opposition, it can not stand. Hence, throughout our vast assembly to-day, this unpopular _ism_, inspite of Calvin and the Epistle to the Romans, was put down; if not byacclamation, yet by exclamation--by shouting--by roaring--by groaningand hissing--by clapping and stamping--by laughing, and crying, andwhining; and thus the end of the sermon was gained and the _preacher_glorified!

The introductory discourse in the afternoon was by the Rev. RemarkableNovus. This was a gentleman I had often the pleasure of entertaining atmy house in Woodville; and he _was_ a Christian in sentiment andfeeling; for though properly and decidedly a warm friend to his ownsect, he was charitably disposed toward myself and others that differedfrom him ecclesiastically. His talents were moderate; but his voice wastranscendently excellent. It was rich, deep, mellow, liquid andsonorous, and capable of any inflections. It could preserve its melodyin an unruffled flow, at a pitch far beyond the highest point reached bythe best-cultivated voice. His fancy naturally capricious, was indulgedwithout restraint; yet not being a learned or well-read man, he mistookwords for ideas, and hence employed without stint all the terms in hisvocabulary for the commonest thoughts. He believed, too, like most ofhis brotherhood, that excitement and agitation were necessary toconversion and of the essence of religion; and this, with a pronenessto delight in the music and witchery of his own wonderful voice, madeMr. Novus an eccentric preacher, and induced him often to excel atcamp-meetings, the very extravagances of his clerical brethren, whommore than once he has ridiculed and condemned at my fireside. 

The camp-meeting was, in fact, too great a temptation for my friend'stemperament, and the very theater for the full display of hismagnificent voice; and naturally, this afternoon, off he set at atangent, interrupting the current of his sermon by extemporaneous burstsof warning, entreaty and exhortation. Here is something like hisdiscourse--yet done by me in a _subdued tone_--as, I repeat, are mostextravaganzas of the ecclesiastical and spiritual sort, not only here, but in all other parts of the work. 

"My text, dear hearers, " said he, "on this auspicious, and solemn, andheaven-ordered occasion, is that exhortation of the inspired apostle, 'Walk worthy of your vocation. '

"And what, my dear brethren, what do you imagine and conjecture our holypenman meant by 'walking?' Think ye he meant a physical walking, and amoving, and a going backward and forward thus? (represented by Mr. N. 'sproceeding, or rather marching, _à la militaire_, several times from endto end of the staging). No, sirs!--it was not a literal walking andlocomotion, a moving and agitating of the natural legs and limbs. No, sirs!--no!--but it was a moral, a spiritual, a religious, ay! yes! aphilosophical and metaphorically figurative walking, our holy apostlemeant!

"Philosophic, did I say? Yes: philosophic _did_ I say. For religion isthe most philosophical thing in the universe--ay! throughout the wholeexpansive infinitude of the divine empire. Tell me, deluded infidels andmistaken unbelievers! tell me, ain't philosophy what's according to theconsistency of nature's regular laws? and what's more onsentaneous andhomogeneous to man's sublimated moral nature, than religion? Yes! tellme! Yes! yes! I am for a philosophical religion, and a philosophicalreligion is for _me_--ay! we are mutually made and formed for thisbeautiful reciprocality!

"And yet some say we make too much noise--even some of our respectedWoodville merchants--(meaning the author). But what's worth making anoise about in the dark mundane of our terrestrial sphere, if religionain't? People always, and everywhere in all places, make most noiseabout what they opine to be most precious. See! yon banner streamingwith golden stars and glorious stripes over congregated troops, on theFourth of July, that ever-memorable--that never-to-be-_forgotten_ day, which celebrates the grand annual anniversary of our nation's libertyand independence! when our forefathers and ancestors burst asunder andtore forever off the iron chains of political thraldom! and rose inplenitude, ay! in the magnificence of their grandeur, and crushed theiroppressors!--yes! and hurled down dark despotism from the lofty pinnacleof its summit altitude, where she was seated on her liberty-crushingthrone, and hurled her out of her iron chariot, as her wheels thunderedover the prostrate slaves of power!--(Amen)--Yes!--hark!--we make anoise about that! But what's civil liberty to religious liberty, andemancipated disenthraldom from the dark despotism of yonder terrificprince of darkness! whose broad, black, piniony wings spread wide o'erthe ærial concave like a dense cloud upon a murky sky?--(A-a-men!)--Andain't it, ye men of yards and measures, philosophical to make a noiseabout this?--(Amen!--yes!) Yes! _yes!_ and I ain't ashamed to rejoiceand shout aloud. Ay! as long as the prophet was ordered to stamp withhis foot, I will stamp with my foot;--(here he stamped till the platformtrembled for its safety)--and to smite with his hand, I will _smite_with my hand--(slapping alternate hands on alternate thighs. )--Yes! andI will shout, too!--and cry aloud, and spare not--glory!for--ever!--(and here his voice rang out like the sweet, clear tones ofa bugle). 

"And, therefore, my dear sisters and brethren, let us walk worthy of ourvocation; not with the natural legs of the physical corporation, but inthe apostolical way, with the metaphysical and figurative legs of themind--(here Mr. N. Caught some one smiling). --Take care, sinner, takecare! curl not the scornful nose--I'm willing to be a fool forreligion's sake--but turn not up the scornful nose--do its ministers noharm! Sinner, mark me!--in yon deep and tangled grove, where tall, aspiring trees wave green and lofty heads in the free air of balmyskies--there sinner, an hour ago, when the sonorous horn called on ourembattled hosts to go to private prayer! an hour ago, in yonder grove Iknelt and prayed for you!--(hooh!)--yes! I prayed some poor soul mightbe given for my hire!--and he promised me one!--(Glory! glory!--ah! givehim one!)--laughing sinner!--take care!--I'll have you!--(Grantit--amen!--ooohoo!) Look out, I'm going to fire--(assuming the attitudeof rifle-shooting)--bang!--may He send that through your heart!--may itpierce clean home through joints and marrow!--and let all people sayamen!--(and here amen _was_ said, and not in the tame style of theAmerican Archbishop of Canterbury's cathedral, be assured; but whetherthe spiritual bullet hit the chap aimed at, I never learned; if it did, his groans were inaudible in the alarming thunder of that amen). 

"Ay! ay! that's the way! that's the way! don't be ashamed of yourvocation--that's the way to walk and let your light shine! Now, somewise folks despise light, and call for miracles: but when we can't haveone kind of light, let us be philosophical, and take another. For mypart, when I'm bogging about these dark woods, far away in the silent, somber shadows, I rejoice in sunshine; and would prefer it of choice, rather than all other celestial and translucent luminaries: but when thegentle fanning zephyrs of the shadowy night breathe soft among thetrembling leaves and sprays of the darkening forests, then I rejoice inmoonshine: and when the moonshine dims and pales away, with the waningsilvery queen of heaven in her azure zone, I look up to the blue concaveof the circular vault, and rejoice in starlight. No! _no!_ NO! anylight!--give us any light rather than _none_!--(Ah, do, good--!) Yes!yes! we are the light of the world, and so let us let our light shine, whether sunshine, or moonshine, or starlight!--(oohoo!)--and then thepoor benighted sinner, bogging about this terraqueous, but dark andmundane sphere, will have a light like a pole star of the distant north, to point and guide him to the sunlit climes of yonder world of brightand blazing bliss!"--(A-a-amen!)

Such is part of the sermon. His concluding prayer ended thus--(Divinenames omitted). 

"Oh, come down! come, come down! _down!_ now!--to-night!--do wondersthen! come down in _might_! come down in _power_! let salvation _roll_!_Come_ down! _come!_ and let the earthquaking mighty noise of thythundering chariot wheels be heard, and felt, and seen, and experiencedin the warring elements of our spiritualized hearts!"

During the prayer, many petitions and expressions were so rapturouslyand decidedly encored, that our friend kindly repeated them; andsometimes, like public singers, with handsome variations; and manypetitions by amateur zealots were put forth, without any notice of thecurrent prayer offered by Mr. N. , yet evidently having in view someelegancy of his sermon. And not a few petitions, I regret to say, seemedto misapprehend the drift and scope of the preacher. One of this sortwas the earnest ejaculations of an old and worthy brother, who, in ahollow, sepulchral, and rather growly voice, bellowed out in a verybeautiful part of the grand prayer: "Oohhoo! take away _moonshine_!"

But our first performance was to be at night: and at the first _toot_ ofthe tin horn we assembled in expectation of a "good time. " For, 1. Allday preparation had been making for the night; and the actors seemedevidently in restraint, as in mere rehearsal: 2. The night better suitsdisplays and scenes of any kind: but 3. The African was to preach; andrumor had said, "he was a most powerful big preacher, that could stir upfolks mighty quick, and use up the ole feller in less than no time. "

After prefatory prayers and hymns, and _pithy_ exhortations by severalbrothers of the Circassian breed, our dusky divine, the Rev. MizraimHam, commenced his sermon, founded on the duel between David andGoliath. 

This discourse we shall condense into a few pages; although the comedyor _mellow_-drama--for it greatly mellowed and relaxed themuscles--required for its entire action a full hour. There was, indeed, a prologue, but the rest was mainly dialogue, in which Mr. Hamwonderfully personated all the different speakers, varying his tone, manner, attitude, etc. , as varying characters and circumstancesdemanded. We fear much of the spirit has evaporated in thiscondensation; but that evil is unavoidable. 

REV. MIZRAIM HAM'S DISCOURSE

"Bruthurn and sisturn, tention, if you pleases, while I want you for tounderstand this here battul most partiklur 'zact, or may be youmoughtn't comprend urn. Furst place, I gwyin to undevur to sarcumscribefust the 'cashin of this here battul: second place, the 'comdashins ofthe armies: third place, the folkses as was gwyin for to fite and didn'twant to, and some did: and last and fourth place, I'm gwyin for to showpurtiklur 'zact them as fit juul, and git victry and git kill'd. 

"Tention, if you please, while I fustly sarcumscribe the 'casion of thishere battul. Bruthurn and sisturn, you see them thar hethun Fillystines, what warn't circumcised, they wants to ketch King Sol and his 'ar folksfor to make um slave; and so, they cums down to pick a quorl, and beginsa-totin off all their cawn, and wouldn't 'low um to make no hoes to hoeum, nor no homnee. And that 'ar, you see, stick in King Solsis gizurd;and he ups and says, says he, 'I'm not gwying to be used up that 'araway by them uncircumcis'd hethun Fillystines, and let um tote off ourfolkses cawn to chuck to thar hogs, and take away our hoes so we can'thoe um--and so, Jonathun, we'll drum up and list soljurs and try um abattul. ' And then King Sol and his 'ar folks they goes up, and thehethun and theirn comes down and makes war. And this is the 'cashin whythey fit. 

"Tention, 'gin, if you pleases, I'm gwyin in the next place secondly, toshow the 'comdashins of this here battul, which was so fashin like. TheFillystines they had thar army up thar on a mounting, and King Sol hehad hissin over thar, like, across a branch, amoss like that a onethar--(pointing)--and it was chuck full of sling rock all along on thebottom. And so they was both on um camp'd out; this a one on this 'arside, and tother a one on tother, and the lilly branch tween um--andthem's the 'comdashins. 

"Tention once more agin, as 'caze next place thirdly, I'm a gwyin togive purtiklur 'zact 'count of sum folkses what fit and sum didn't wantto. And lubly sinnahs, maybe you minds um, as how King Sol and hissoljurs was pepper hot for fite when he fust liss um; but now, lublysinnahs, when they gits up to the Fillystines, they cool off mightyquick, I tell you! 'Caze why? I tell you; why, 'caze a grate, big, uglyole jiunt, with grate big eyes, so fashin--(Mr. Ham made giant's eyeshere)--he kums a rampin' out a frount o' them 'ar rigiments, like theole devul a gwyin about like a half-starv'd lion a-seeking to devourpoor lubly sinnahs! And he cum a-jumpin and a-tearin out sofashin--(actions to suit)--to git sum of King Solsis soljurs to fite urnjuul; and King Sol, lubly bruthurn and sisturn, he gits sker'd mightyquick, and he says to Jonathun and tother big officers, says he, 'Iain't a gwyin for to fite that grate big fellah. ' And arter that theyups and says, 'We ain't a gwying for to fite um nuther, 'caze he's allkiver'd with sheetirun, and his head's up so high we muss stand a hossback to reach um!'--the jiunt he was _so big_!!

"And then King Sol he quite down in the jaw, and he turn and ax ifsomebody wouldn't hunt up a soljur as would fite juul with um; and he'dgive um his dawtah, the prinsuss, for wife, and make um king'sson-in-law. And then one old koretur, they call him Abnah, he comes upand says to Sol so: 'Please, your majustee, sir, I kin git a youngfellah to fite um, ' says he. And Abnah tells how Davy had jist rid up inhis carruge and left um with the man what tend the hossis--and how heheern Davy a quorl'n with his bruthers and a wantun to fite the jiunt. Then King Sol, he feel mighty glad, I tell you, sinnahs, and he make umbring um up, and King Sol he begins a-talkin so, and Davy he answersso:--

"'What's your name, lilly fellah?'

"'I was krissen'd Davy. '

"'Who's your farder?'

"'They call um Jesse. '

"'What you follur for livin?'

"'I 'tend my farder's sheep. '

"'What you kum arter? Ain't you affeerd of that 'ar grate ugly ole jiuntup thar, lilly Davy?'

"'I kum to see arter my udder brudurs, and bring um in our carruge somecheese and muttun, and some clene shirt and trowser, and have totherones wash'd. And when I cum I hear ole Golliawh a hollerin out forsomebody to cum and fite juul with um; and all the soljurs round tharthey begins for to make traks mighty quick, I tell you, please yourmajuste, sir, for thar tents; but, says I, what you run for? I'm nota-gwyin for to run away--if King Sol wants somebody for to fite thejiunt, I'll fite um for um. '

"'I mighty feer'd, lilly Davy you too leetul for um--'

"'No! King Sol, I kin lick um. One day I gits asleep ahind a rock, andout kums a lion and a bawr, and begins a-totin off a lilly lam; and whenI heern um roarin and pawin 'bout, I rubs my eyes and sees um gwyin tothe mountings--and I arter and ketch'd up and kill um both without nogun nor sword--and I bring back poor lilly lamb. I kin lick ole Goliawh, I tell you, please your majuste, sir. '

"Then King Sol he wery glad, and pat um on the head, and calls um 'lillyDavy, ' and wants to put on um his own armur made of brass and sheetirumand to take his sword, but Davy didn't like um, but said he'd trust tohis sling. And then out he goes to fite the ole jiunt; and this 'arbrings me to the fourth and last diwishin of our surmun. 

"'Tention once more agin, for lass time, as I'm gwyin to give mostpurtikurlust 'zactest 'count of the juul atween lilly Davy and oleGoliawh the jiunt, to show, lubly sinnah! how the Lord's peepul withoutno carnul gun nor sword, can fite ole Bellzybub and knock um over withthe sling rock of prayer, as lilly Davy knocked over Goliawh with hissinout of the Branch. 

"And to 'lusterut the juul and make um spikus, I'll show 'zactly howthey talk'd, and jaw'd, and fit it all out; and so ole Goliawh when hesees Davy a kumun, he hollurs out so, and lilly Davy he say back so:

"'What you kum for, lilly Jew?--'

"'What I kum for? you'll find out mighty quick, I tell you--I kum forfite juul--'

"'Huhh! huhh! haw!--t'ink I'm gwyin to fite puttee lilly baby? I wantKing Sol or Abnah, or a big soljur man--'

"'Hole your jaw--I'll make you laugh tother side, ole grizzle-gruzzle, 'rectly--I'm man enough for biggust jiunt Fillystine. '

"'Go way, poor lilly boy! go home, lilly baby, to your mudder, and gitsugar plum--I no want kill puttee lilly boy--'

"'Kum on!--don't be afeerd!--don't go for to run away!--I'll ketch youand lick you--'

"'You leetul raskul--I'll kuss you by all our gods--I'll cut out yoursassy tung--I'll break your blackguard jaw--I'll rip you up and give umto the dogs and crows--'

"'Don't cuss so, ole Golly! I 'sposed you wanted to fite juul--so kum onwith your old irun-pot hat on--you'll git belly full mighty quick--'

"'You nasty leetle raskul, I'll kum and kill you dead as choppedsassudge. '"

Here the preacher represented the advance of the parties; and gave aflorid and wonderfully effective description of the closing act partlyby words and partly by pantomime; exhibiting innumerable marches andcounter-marches to get to windward, and all the postures, and gestures, and defiances, till at last he personated David putting his hand into abag for a stone; and then making his cotton handkerchief into a sling, he whirled it with fury half a dozen times around his head, and then letfly with much skill at Goliath; and at the same instant halloing withthe frenzy of a madman--"Hurraw for lilly Davy!" At that cry he, withhis left hand, struck himself a violent slap on the forehead, torepresent the blow of the sling-stone hitting the giant; and then inperson of Goliath he dropped _quasi_ dead upon the platform amid thedeafening plaudits of the congregation; all of whom, some spiritually, some sympathetically, and some carnally, took up the preacher's triumphshout--

"Hurraw! for lilly Davy!"

How the Rev. Mizraim Ham made his exit from the boards I could notsee--perhaps he rolled or crawled off. But he did not sufferdecapitation, like "ole Golly": since in ten minutes, his woolly patesuddenly popped up among the other sacred heads that were visible overthe front railing of the rostrum, as all kept moving to and fro in thewild tossings of religious frenzy. 

Scarcely had Mr. Ham fallen at his post, when a venerable old warrior, with matchless intrepidity, stepped into the vacated spot; and without asign of fear carried on the contest against the Arch Fiend, whose greatally had been so recently overthrown--i. E. , Goliath, (not Mr. Ham). Yetexcited, as evidently was this veteran, he still could not forego hisusual introduction, stating how old he was; where he was born; where heobtained religion; how long he had been a preacher; how many miles hehad traveled in a year; and when he buried his wife--all of whichedifying truths were received with the usual applauses of a devout andenlightened assembly. But this introduction over--which did not occupymore than fifteen or twenty minutes--he began his attack in fine style, waxing louder and louder as he proceeded, till he exceeded all the oldgentlemen to "holler" I ever heard, and indeed old ladies either. 

EXTRACT FROM HIS DISCOURSE

"... Yes, sinners! you'll all have to fall and be knock'd down some timeor nuther, like the great giant we've heern tell on, when the Lord'ssarvints come and fight agin you! Oho! sinner! sinner!--oh!--I hope youmay be knock'd down to-night--now!--this moment--and afore you die andgo to judgment! Yes! oho! yes! oh!--I say judgment--for it's appintedonce to die and then the judgment--oho! oh! And what a time ther'll bethen! You'll see all these here trees--and them 'are stars, and yondersilver moon afire!--and all the alliments a-meltin and runnin down withfervent heat-ah!"--(I have elsewhere stated that the _unlearned_preachers out there (?) are by the vulgar--(not the _poor_)--but the_vulgar_, supposed to be more favored in preaching than man-madepreachers; and that the sign of an unlearned preacher's inspirationbeing in full _blast_ is his inhalations, which puts an ah! tothe end of sentences, members, words, and even exclamations, tillhis breath is all gone, and no more can be _sucked_ in)--"Oho!hoah! fervent heat-ah! and the trumpit a-soundin-ah!--and the deadarisin-ah!--and all on us a-flyin-ah!--to be judged-ah!--O-hoah!sinner--sinner--sinner--sinner-ah! And what do I see awaythar'-ah!--down the Mississippi-ah!--thar's a man jist done a-killin-ahanother-ah!--and up he goes with his bloody dagger-ah! And what's that Isee to the East-ah! where proud folks live clothed in purple-ah! andfine linen-ah!--I see 'em round a table a drinkin a decoction of Indianherb-ah!--and up they go with cups in thar hands-ah! andsee--ohoah!--see! in yonder doggery some a dancin-ah! andfiddlin-ah!--and up they go-ah! with cards-ah! and fiddle-ah!" etc. , etc. 

Here the tempest around drowned the voice of the old hero; although, from the frantic violence of his gestures, the frightful distortion ofhis features, and the Pythonic foam of his mouth, he was plainly blazingaway at the enemy. The uproar, however, so far subsided as to allow myhearing his closing exhortation, which was this:

"... Yes, I say--fall down--fall down all of you, on yourknees!--shout!--cry aloud!--spare not!--stamp with the _foot_!--smitewith the _hand_!--down! _down!_--that's it--down brethren!--downpreachers!--down _sisters_!--pray away!--take it by storm!--_fire_ away!fire _away_! not one at a time! not two together-ah!--a single shot thedevil will _dodge-ah_!--give it to him _all at once_--fire a _wholeplatoon_!--at him!!"

And then such platoon firing as followed! If Satan stood that, he canstand much more than the worthy folks thought he could. And, indeed, theeffect was wonderful!--more than forty thoughtless sinners that came forfun, and twice as many backsliders were instantly knocked over!--andthere all lay, some with violent jerkings and writhings of body, andsome uttering the most piercing and dismaying shrieks and groans! Thefact is, I was nearly knocked down myself--

"You?--Mr. Carlton!!"

Yes--indeed--but not by the hail of spiritual shot falling so thickaround me; it was by a sudden rush towards my station, where I stoodmounted on a stump. And this rush was occasioned by a wish to see astout fellow lying on the straw in the pen, a little to my left, groaning and praying, and yet kicking and pummelling away as ifscuffling with a sturdy antagonist. Near him were several men and womenat prayer, and one or more whispering into his ear; while on a smallstump above stood a person superintending the contest, and so as toinsure victory to the right party. Now the prostrate man, who like aspirited tom-cat seemed to fight best on his back, was no other than ourcelebrated New Purchase bully--Rowdy Bill! And this being reportedthrough the congregation, the rush had taken place by which I was sonearly overturned. I contrived, however, to regain my stand, sharedindeed now with several others, we hugging one another and standing ontip-toes and our necks elongated as possible; and thus we managed tohave a pretty fair view of matters. 

About this time the Superintendent in a very loud voice cried out--"Lethim alone, brothers! let him alone sisters! keep on praying!--it's ahard fight--the devil's got a tight grip yet! He don't want to lose poorBill--but he'll let go soon--Bill's gittin the better on him fast!--Prayaway!"

Rowdy Bill, be it known, was famous as a gouger, and so expert was he inhis antioptical vocation, that in a few moments he usually bored out anantagonist's eyes, or made him cry _peccavi_. Indeed, could he, on thepresent occasion, have laid hold of his unseen foe's head--spirituallywe mean--he would--figuratively, of course--soon have caused him to easeoff or let go entirely his metaphorical grip. So, however, thought onefriend in the assembly--Bill's wife. For Bill was a man after her ownheart; and she often said that "with fair play she sentimentally allowedher Bill could lick ary a man in the 'varsal world, and his weight inwild cats to boot. " Hence, the kind-hearted creature, hearing that Billwas actually fighting with the evil one, had pressed in from theoutskirts to see fair play; but now hearing Bill was in reality down, and apparently undermost, and above all, the words of theSuperintendent, declaring that the fiend had a tight grip of the poorfellow, her excitement would no longer be controlled; and, collectingher vocal energies, she screamed out her common exhortation to Bill, andwhich, when heeded, had heretofore secured him immediatevictories--"Gouge him, Billy!--gouge him, _Billy!--gouge_ him!"

This spirited exclamation was instantly shouted by Bill's cronies andpartizans--mischievously, _maybe_, for we have no right to judge ofmen's motives, in meetings:--but a few--_friends_, doubtless, of the oldfellow--cried out in very irreverent tone--"Bite him! devil--_bite_him!" Upon which the faithful wife, in a tone of voice that beggarsdescription, reiterated her--"Gouge him, " etc. --in which she was againjoined by her husband's allies, and that to the alarm of his invisiblefoe; for Bill now rose to his knees, and on uttering some mystic jargonsymptomatic of conversion, he was said to have "got religion";--and thenall his new friends and spiritual guides united in fresh prayers andshouts of thanksgiving. 

It was now very late at night; and joining a few other citizens ofWoodville, we were soon in our saddles and buried in the darkness of theforest. For a long time, however, the uproar of the spiritual elementsat the camp continued at intervals to swell and diminish on the hearing;and, often came a yell that rose far above the united din of otherscreams and outcries. Nay, at the distance of nearly two miles, could bedistinguished a remarkable and sonorous _oh_!--like the faintly heardexplosion of a mighty elocutional class, practising under a master. Andyet my comrades, who had heard this peculiar cry more than once, alldeclared that this wonderful _oh_-ing was performed by the separatevoice of our townsman, Eolus Letherlung, Esq. !

CONCLUSION

A camp-meeting of _this sort_ is, all things considered, the very bestcontrivance for making the largest number of converts in the shortestpossible time; and also for enlarging most speedily the bounds of aChurch _Visible_ and _Militant_. 

A RHYME FOR CHRISTMAS

BY JOHN CHALLING

Publication delayed by the author's determined but futile attempt tofind the rhyme

 If _Browning_ only were here, This yule-ish time o' the year-- This mule-ish time o' the year, -- Stubbornly still refusing To add to the rhymes we've been using Since the first Christmas-glee (One might say) chantingly Rendered by rudest hinds Of the pelt-clad shepherding kinds Who didn't know Song from b- U-double-l's-foot!--Pah!-- (Haply the old Egyptian _ptah_-- Though I'd hardly wager a baw- Bee--or a _bumble_, for that-- And that's flat!).... But the thing that I want to get at Is a rhyme for _Christmas_-- Nay! nay! nay! nay! not _isthmus_-- The t- and the h- sounds covertly are Gnawing the nice auracular Senses until one may hear them gnar-- And the terminal, too, for m_a_s, is m_u_s, So _that_ will not do for us. Try for it--sigh for it--cry for it--die for it! O _but_ if Browning were here to apply for it, _He'd_ rhyme you _Christmas_-- _He'd_ make a _mist pass_ Over--something o' ruther-- Or find you the rhyme's very brother In lovers that _kissed fast_ _To baffle the moon_, --as he'd lose the _t_-final In fas-t as it blended with _to_ (mark the spinal Elision--tip-clipt as exquisitely nicely And hyper-exactingly sliced to precisely The extremest technical need): Or he'd _twist glass_, Or he'd have a _kissed lass_, Or shake neath our noses some great giant _fist-mass_-- No matter! If Robert were here, _he_ could do it, Though it took us till Christmas next year to see through it. 

MY CIGARETTE[1]

BY CHARLES F. LUMMIS

 My cigarette! The amulet That charms afar unrest and sorrow; The magic wand that far beyond To-day can conjure up to-morrow. Like love's desire, thy crown of fire So softly with the twilight blending, And ah! meseems, a poet's dreams Are in thy wreaths of smoke ascending. 

 My cigarette! Can I forget How Kate and I, in sunny weather, Sat in the shade the elm-tree made And rolled the fragrant weed together? I at her side beatified, To hold and guide her fingers willing; She rolling slow the paper's snow, Putting my heart in with the filling. 

 My cigarette! I see her yet, The white smoke from her red lips curling, Her dreaming eyes, her soft replies, Her gentle sighs, her laughter purling! Ah, dainty roll, whose parting soul Ebbs out in many a snowy billow, I, too, would burn if I might earn Upon her lips so soft a pillow!

 Ah, cigarette! The gay coquette Has long forgot the flames she lighted, And you and I unthinking by Alike are thrown, alike are slighted. The darkness gathers fast without, A raindrop on my window plashes; My cigarette and heart are out, And naught is left me but the ashes. 

[Footnote 1: By permission of Life Publishing Company. ]

IT IS TIME TO BEGIN TO CONCLUDE

BY A. H. LAIDLAW

 Ye Parsons, desirous all sinners to save, And to make each a prig or a prude, If two thousand long years have not made us behave, It is time you began to conclude. 

 Ye Husbands, who wish your sweet mates to grow mum, And whose tongues you have never subdued, If ten years of your reign have not made them grow dumb, It is time to begin to conclude. 

 Ye Matrons of men whose brown meerschaum still mars The sweet kiss with tobacco bedewed, After pleading nine years, if they still puff cigars, It is time you began to conclude. 

 Ye Lawyers, who aim to reform all the land, And your statutes forever intrude, If five thousand lost years have not worked as you planned, It is time to begin to conclude. 

 Ye Lovers, who sigh for the heart of a maid, And forty-four years have pursued, If two scores of young years have not taught you your trade, It is time you began to conclude. 

 Ye Doctors, who claim to cure every ill, And so much of mock learning exude, If the _Comma Bacillus_ still laughs at your pill, It is time to begin to conclude. 

 Ye Maidens of Fifty, who lonely abide, Yet who heartily scout solitude, If Jack with his whiskers is not at your side, It is time to begin to conclude. 

NOTHIN' DONE[2]

BY SAM S. STINSON

 Winter is too cold fer work; Freezin' weather makes me shirk. 

 Spring comes on an' finds me wishin' I could end my days a-fishin'. 

 Then in summer, when it's hot, I say work kin go to pot. 

 Autumn days, so calm an' hazy, Sorter make me kinder lazy. 

 That's the way the seasons run. Seems I can't git nothin' done. 

[Footnote 2: Lippincott's Magazine. ]

MARGINS

BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE

 My dreams so fair that used to be, The promises of youth's bright clime, So changed, alas; come back to me Sweet memories of that hopeful time Before I learned, with doubt oppressed, There are no birds in next year's nest. 

 The seed I sowed in fragrant spring The summer's sun to vivify With his warm kisses, ripening To golden harvest by and by, Got caught by drought, like all the rest-- There are no birds in next year's nest. 

 The stock I bought at eighty-nine, Broke down next day to twenty-eight; Some squatters jumped my silver mine, My own convention smashed my slate; No more in "futures" I'll invest-- There are no birds in next year's nest. 

THE DUBIOUS FUTURE

BY BILL NYE

Without wishing to alarm the American people, or create a panic, Idesire briefly and seriously to discuss the great question, "Whither arewe drifting, and what is to be the condition of the coming man?" We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that mankind is passing through a greatera of change; even womankind is not built as she was a few brief yearsago. And is it not time, fellow citizens, that we pause to consider whatis to be the future of the American?

Food itself has been the subject of change both in the matter ofmaterial and preparation. This must affect the consumer in such a way asto some day bring about great differences. Take, for instance, theoyster, one of our comparatively modern food and game fishes, and watchthe effects of science upon him. At one time the oyster browsed aroundand ate what he could find in Neptune's back-yard, and we had to eat himas we found him. Now we take a herd of oysters off the trail, all rundown, and feed them artificially till they swell up to a fancy size, andbring a fancy price. Where will this all lead at last, I ask as acareful scientist? Instead of eating apples, as Adam did, we work thefruit up into apple-jack and pie, while even the simple oyster isperverted, and instead of being allowed to fatten up in the fall onacorns and ancient mariners, spurious flesh is put on his bones by theartificial osmose and dialysis of our advanced civilization. How canyou make an oyster stout or train him down by making him jerk a healthlift so many hours every day, or cultivate his body at the expense ofhis mind, without ultimately not only impairing the future usefulness ofthe oyster himself, but at the same time affecting the future of thehuman race who feed upon him?

I only use the oyster as an illustration, and I do not wish to causealarm, but I say that if we stimulate the oyster artificially and swellhim up by scientific means, we not only do so at the expense of hisbetter nature and keep him away from his family, but we are making ourmark on the future race of men. Oyster-fattening is now, of course, inits infancy. Only a few years ago an effort was made at St. Louis tofatten cove oysters while in the can, but the system was not wellunderstood, and those who had it in charge only succeeded in making thecan itself more plump. But now oysters are kept on ground feed and givennothing to do for a few weeks, and even the older and overworkedsway-backed and rickety oysters of the dim and murky past are made tofill out, and many of them have to put a gore in the waistband of theirshells. I only speak of the oyster incidentally, as one of the objectstoward which science has turned its attention, and I assert with theutmost confidence that the time will come, unless science should get aset-back, when the present hunting-case oyster will give place to theopen-face oyster, grafted on the octopus and big enough to feed a hotel. Further than that, the oyster of the future will carry in a hip-pocket aflask of vinegar, half a dozen lemons and two little Japanese bottles, one of which will contain salt and the other pepper, and there will besome way provided by which you can tell which is which. But are weimproving the oyster now? That is a question we may well ask ourselves. Is this a healthy fat which we are putting on him, or is it bloat? Andwhat will be the result in the home-life of the oyster? We take him fromall domestic influences whatever in order to make a swell of him by ourmodern methods, but do we improve his condition morally, and what is tobe the great final result on man?

The reader will see by the questions I ask that I am a true scientist. Give me an overcoat pocket full of lower-case interrogation marks and amedical report to run to, and I can speak on the matter of science andadvancement till Reason totters on her throne. 

But food and oysters do not alone affect the great, pregnant future. Ourrace is being tampered with not only by means of adulterations, political combinations and climatic changes, but even our methods ofrelaxation are productive of peculiar physical conditions, malformationsand some more things of the same kind. 

Cigarette smoking produces a flabby and endogenous condition of theoptic nerve, and constant listening at a telephone, always with the sameear, decreases the power of the other ear till it finally just standsaround drawing its salary, but actually refusing to hear anything. Carrying an eight-pound cane makes a man lopsided, and the muscular andnervous strain that is necessary to retain a single eyeglass in placeand keep it out of the soup, year after year, draws the mental stimulusthat should go to the thinker itself, until at last the mind wandersaway and forgets to come back, or becomes atrophied, and the greatmental strain incident to the work of pounding sand or coming in when itrains is more than it is equal to. 

Playing billiards, accompanied by the vicious habit of pounding on thefloor with the butt of the cue ever and anon, produces at last opticalillusions, phantasmagoria and visions of pink spiders with navy-blueabdomens. Baseball is not alone highly injurious to the umpire, but italso induces crooked fingers, bone spavin and hives among habitualplayers. Jumping the rope induces heart disease. Poker is undulysedentary in its nature. Bicycling is highly injurious, especially toskittish horses. Boating induces malaria. Lawn tennis can not be playedin the house. Archery is apt to be injurious to those who stand aroundand watch the game, and pugilism is a relaxation that jars heavily onsome natures. 

Foot-ball produces what may be called the endogenous or ingrowingtoenail, stringhalt and mania. Copenhagen induces a melancholy, and thegame of bean bag is unduly exciting. Horse racing is too brief andtransitory as an outdoor game, requiring weeks and months forpreparation and lasting only long enough for a quick person to ejaculate"Scat!" The pitcher's arm is a new disease, the outgrowth of base-ball;the lawn-tennis elbow is another result of a popular open-air amusement, and it begins to look as though the coming American would hear with oneovergrown telephonic ear, while the other will be rudimentary only. Hewill have an abnormal base-ball arm with a lawn-tennis elbow, a powerfulfoot-ball-kicking leg with the superior toe driven back into the palm ofhis foot. He will have a highly trained biceps muscle over his eye toretain his glass, and that eye will be trained to shoot a curved glanceover a high hat and witness anything on the stage. 

Other features grow abnormal, or shrink up from the lack of use, as aresult of our customs. For instance, the man whose business it is to getalong a crowded street with the utmost speed will have, finally, a hard, sharp horn growing on each elbow, and a pair of spurs growing out ofeach ankle. These will enable him to climb over a crowd and get thereearly. Constant exposure to these weapons on the part of the pedestrianwill harden the walls of the thorax and abdomen until the coming manwill be an impervious man. The citizen who avails himself of all modernmethods of conveyance will ride from his door on the horse car to theelevated station, where an elevator will elevate him to the train and arevolving platform will swing him on board, or possibly the street carwill be lifted from the surface track to the elevated track, and thepassenger will retain his seat all the time. Then a man will simply hangout a red card, like an express card, at his door, and a combination carwill call for him, take him to the nearest elevated station, elevatehim, car and all, to the track, take him where he wants to go, and callfor him at any hour of the night to bring him home. He will do hisexercising at home, chiefly taking artificial sea baths, jerking arowing machine or playing on a health lift till his eyes hang out on hischeeks, and he need not do any walking whatever. In that way the comingman will be over-developed above the legs, and his lower limbs will looklike the desolate stems of a frozen geranium. Eccentricities of limbwill be handed over like baldness from father to son among the dwellersin the cities, where every advantage in the way of rapid transit is tobe had, until a metropolitan will be instantly picked out by his abledigestion and rudimentary legs, just as we now detect the gentleman fromthe interior by his wild endeavors to overtake an elevated train. 

In fact, Mr. Edison has now perfected, or announced that he is on theroad to the perfection of, a machine which I may be pardoned for callinga storage think-tank. This will enable a brainy man to sit at home, and, with an electric motor and a perfected phonograph, he can think into atin dipper or funnel, which will, by the aid of electricity and a newstyle of foil, record and preserve his ideas on a sheet of soft metal, so that when any one says to him, "A penny for your thoughts, " he can goto his valise and give him a piece of his mind. Thus the man who hassuch wild and beautiful thoughts in the night and never can hold on tothem long enough to turn on the gas and get his writing materials, canset this thing by the head of his bed, and, when the poetic thoughtcomes to him in the stilly night, he can think into a hopper, and thegenius of Franklin and Edison together will enable him to fire it backat his friends in the morning while they eat their pancakes and glucosesyrup from Vermont, or he can mail the sheet of tinfoil to absentfriends, who may put it into their phonographs and utilize it. In thisway the world may harness the gray matter of its best men, and it willbe no uncommon thing to see a dozen brainy men tied up in a row in theback office of an intellectual syndicate, dropping pregnant thoughtsinto little electric coffee mills for a couple of hours a day, afterwhich they can put on their coats, draw their pay, and go home. 

All this will reduce the quantity of exercise, both mental and physical. Two men with good brains could do the thinking for 60, 000, 000 of peopleand feel perfectly fresh and rested the next day. Take four men, we willsay, two to do the day thinking and two more to go on deck at night, andsee how much time the rest of the world would have to go fishing. Seehow politics would become simplified. Conventions, primaries, bargainsand sales, campaign bitterness and vituperation--all might be wiped out. A pair of political thinkers could furnish 100, 000, 000 of people withlogical conclusions enough to last them through the campaign and put anunbiased opinion into a man's house each day for less than he now paysfor gas. Just before election you could go into your private office, throw in a large dose of campaign whisky, light a campaign cigar, fasten your buttonhole to the wall by an elastic band, so that therewould be a gentle pull on it, and turn the electricity on yourmechanical thought supply. It would save time and money, and the resultwould be the same as it is now. This would only be the beginning, ofcourse, and after a while every qualified voter who did not feel likeexerting himself so much, need only give his name and proxy to thesalaried thinker employed by the National Think Retort and Supply Works. We talk a great deal about the union of church and state, but that isnot so dangerous, after all, as the mixture of politics and independentthought. Will the coming voter be an automatic, legless, hairlessmollusk with an abnormal ear constantly glued to the tube of a big tankfull of symmetrical ideas furnished by a national bureau of brains inthe employ of the party in power?

UTAH

BY EUGENE FIELD

 Bowed was the old man's snow-white head, A troubled look was on his face, "Why come you, sir, " I gently said, "Unto this solemn burial place?"

 "I come to weep a while for one Whom in her life I held most dear, Alas, her sands were quickly run, And now she lies a sleeping here. "

 "Oh, tell me of your precious wife, For she was very dear, I know, It must have been a blissful life You led with her you treasure so?"

 "My wife is mouldering in the ground, In yonder house she's spinning now, And lo! this moment may be found A driving home the family cow;

 "And see, she's standing at the stile, And leans from out the window wide, And loiters on the sward a while, Her forty babies by her side. "

 "Old man, you must be mad!" I cried, "Or else you do but jest with me; How is it that your wife has died And yet can here and living be?

 "How is it while she drives the cow She's hanging out her window wide, And loiters, as you said just now, With forty babies by her side?"

 The old man raised his snowy head, "I have a sainted wife in Heaven; I am a Mormon, sir, " he said, "My sainted wife on earth are seven. "

TALK

BY JOHN PAUL

 It seems to me that talk should be, Like water, sprinkled sparingly; Then ground that late lay dull and dried Smiles up at you revivified, And flowers--of speech--touched by the dew Put forth fresh root and bud anew. But I'm not sure that any flower Would thrive beneath Niagara's shower! So when a friend turns full on me His verbal hose, may I not flee? I know that I am arid ground, But I'm not watered--Gad! I'm drowned!

A WINTER FANCY

(_Little Tommy Loq_)

BY R. K. MUNKITTRICK

 My father piles the snow-drifts Around his rosy face, And covers all his whiskers-- The grass that grows apace. 

 And then he runs the snow-plough Across his smiling lawn, And all the snow-drifts vanish And then the grass is gone. 

JACK BALCOMB'S PLEASANT WAYS

BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON

There comes a time in the life of young men when their collegefraternity pins lie forgotten in the collar-button box and the spikingof freshmen ceases to be a burning issue. Tippecanoe was one of the fewfreshwater colleges that barred women; but this was not its onlydistinction, for its teaching was sound, its campus charming and thetown of which it was the chief ornament a quiet place noted from thebeginning of things for its cultivated people. 

It is no longer so very laudable for a young man to pay his way throughcollege; and Morris Leighton had done this easily and without caring tobe praised or martyrized for doing so. He had enjoyed his college days;he had been popular with town and gown; and he had managed to get hisshare of undergraduate fun while leading his classes. He had helped inthe college library; he had twisted the iron letter-press on thepresident's correspondence late into the night; he had copied briefs fora lawyer after hours; but he had pitched for the nine and hustled forhis "frat, " and he had led class rushes with ardor and success. 

He had now been for several years in the offices of Knight, Kittredgeand Carr at Mariona, only an hour's ride from Tippecanoe; and he stillkept in touch with the college. Michael Carr fully appreciated a youngman who took the law seriously and who could sit down in a court roomon call mornings, when need be, and turn off a demurrer withoutparaphrasing it from a text-book. 

Mrs. Carr, too, found Morris Leighton useful, and she liked him, becausehe always responded unquestioningly to any summons to fill up a blank ather table; and if Mr. Carr was reluctant at the last minute to attend alecture on "Egyptian Burial Customs, " Mrs. Carr could usually summonMorris Leighton by telephone in time to act as her escort. Young menwere at a premium in Mariona, as in most other places, and it wassomething to have one of the species, of an accommodating turn, and verypresentable, within telephone range. Mrs. Carr was grateful, and so, itmust be said, was her husband, who did not care to spend his eveningsdigging up Egyptians that had been a long time dead, or listening tocomic operas. It was through Mrs. Carr that Leighton came to be wellknown in Mariona; she told her friends to ask him to call, and therewere now many homes besides hers that he visited. 

It sometimes occurred to Morris Leighton that he was not getting aheadin the world very fast. He knew that his salary from Carr was more thanany other young lawyer of his years earned by independent practice; butit seemed to him that he ought to be doing better. He had not drawn onhis mother's small resources since his first year at college; he hadmade his own way--and a little more--but he experienced moments ofrestlessness in which the difficulties of establishing himself in hisprofession loomed large and formidable. 

An errand to a law firm in one of the fashionable new buildings that hadlately raised the Mariona sky-line led him one afternoon past the officeof his college classmate, Jack Balcomb. "J. Arthur Balcomb, " was theinscription on the door, "Suite B, Room 1. " Leighton had seen little ofBalcomb for a year or more, and his friend's name on the ground-glassdoor arrested his eye. 

Two girls were busily employed at typewriters in the anteroom, and oneof them extended a blank card to Morris and asked him for his name. Thegirl disappeared into the inner room and came back instantly followed byBalcomb, who seized Morris's hand, dragged him in and closed the door. 

"Well, old man!" Balcomb shouted. "I'm glad to see you. It's downrightpleasant to have a fellow come in occasionally and feel no temptation totake his watch. Sink into yonder soft-yielding leather and allow me tooffer you one of these plutocratic perfectos. Only the elect get these, I can tell you. In that drawer there I keep a brand made out of carwaste and hemp rope, that does very well for ordinary commercialsociability. Got a match? All right; smoke up and tell me what you'redoing to make the world a better place to live in, as old Prexy used tosay at college. "

"I'm digging at the law, at the same old stand. I can't say that I'mflourishing like Jonah's gourd, as you seem to be. "

Morris cast his eyes over the room, which was handsomely furnished. There was a good rug on the floor and the desk and table were of heavyoak; an engraving of Thomas Jefferson hung over Balcomb's desk, and onthe opposite side of the room was a table covered with financialreference books. 

"Well, I tell you, old man, " declared Balcomb, "you've got to fool allthe people all the time these days to make it go. Those venerablewhiskers around town whine about the good old times and how a youngman's got to go slow but sure. There's nothing in it; and they wouldn'tbe in it either, if they had to start in again; no siree!"

"What is your game just now, Jack, if it isn't impertinent? It's hard tokeep track of you. I remember very well that you started in to learn thewholesale drug business. "

"Oh tush! don't refer to that, an thou lovest me! That is one of thedarkest pages of my life. Those people down there in South High Streetthought I was a jay, and they sent me out to help the shipping clerk. Wouldn't that jar you! Overalls, --and a hand truck. Wow! I couldn't getout of that fast enough. Then, you know, I went to Chicago and spent ayear in a broker's office, and I guess I learned a few up there. Oh, rather! They sent me into the country to sell mining stock and I made arecord. They kept the printing presses going overtime to keep mesupplied. Say, they got afraid of me; I was too good!"

He stroked his vandyke beard complacently, and flicked the ash from hiscigar. 

"What's your line now? Real estate, mortgages, lending money to thepoor? How do you classify yourself?"

"You do me a cruel wrong, Morris, a cruel wrong. You read my sign on theouter wall? Well, that's a bluff. There's nothing in real estate, _perse_, as old Doc Bridges used to say at college. And the loan businesshas all gone to the bad, --people are too rich; farmers are rolling inreal money and have it to lend. There was nothing for little Willie inpetty brokerages. I'm scheming--promoting--and I take my slice off ofeverything that passes. "

"That certainly sounds well. You've learned fast. You had an ambition tobe a poet when you were in college. I think I still have a few pounds ofyour verses in my traps somewhere. "

Balcomb threw up his head and laughed in self-pity. 

"I believe I _was_ bitten with the literary tarantula for a while, butI've lived it down, I hope. Prexy used to predict a bright literaryfuture for me in those days. You remember, when I made Phi Beta Kappa, how he took both my hands and wept over me. 'Balcomb, ' he says, 'you'rean honor to the college. ' I suppose he'd weep again, if he knew I'd onlyforgotten about half the letters of the Greek alphabet, --left them, asone might say, several thousand parasangs to the rear in my mad race fordaily sustenance. Well, I may not leave any vestiges on the sands oftime, but, please God, I shan't die hungry, --not if I keep my health. Dear old Prexy! He was a nice old chump, though a trifle somnolent inhis chapel talks. "

"Well, we needn't pull the planks out of the bridge we've crossed on. Igot a lot out of college that I'm grateful for. They did their best forus, " said Morris. 

"Oh, yes; it was well enough, but if I had it to do over, Tippecanoewouldn't see me; not much! It isn't what you learn in college, it's thefriendships you make and all that sort of thing that counts. A westernman ought to go east to college and rub up against eastern fellows. Theatmosphere at the freshwater colleges is pretty jay. Fred Waters leftTippecanoe and went to Yale and got in with a lot of influential fellowsdown there, --chaps whose fathers are in big things in New York. Fred hasa fine position now, just through his college pull, and first thing youknow, he'll pick up an heiress and be fixed for life. Fred's a winnerall right. "

"He's also an ass, " said Leighton. "I remember him of old. "

"An ass of the large gray and long-eared species, --I'll grant you that, all right enough; but look here, old man, you've got to overlook thefact that a fellow occasionally lifts his voice and brays. Man does notlive by the spirit alone; he needs bread, and bread's getting hard toget. "

"I've noticed it, " replied Leighton, who had covered all this groundbefore in talks with Balcomb and did not care to go into it further. 

"And then, you remember, " Balcomb went on, in enjoyment of his ownreminiscences, "I wooed the law for a while. But I guess what I learnedwouldn't have embarrassed Chancellor Kent. I really had a client once. Ididn't see a chance of getting one any other way, so I hired him. He wasa coon. I employed him for two dollars to go to the Grand Opera Houseand buy a seat in the orchestra when Sir Henry Irving was giving _TheMerchant of Venice_. He went to sleep and snored and they threw him outwith rude, insolent, and angry hands after the second act; and I broughtsuit against the management for damages, basing my claim on the ideathat they had spurned my dusky brother on account of his race, color andprevious condition of servitude. The last clause was a joke. He hadnever done any work in his life, except for the state. He was a verysightly coon, too, now that I recall him. The show was, as I said, _TheMerchant of Venice_, and I'll leave it to anybody if my client wasn't atleast as pleasing to the eye as Sir Henry in his Shylock togs. I supposeif it had been _Othello_, race feeling would have run so high that SirHenry would hardly have escaped lynching. Well, to return. My client gotloaded on gin about the time the case came up on demurrer and gave thesnap away, and I dropped out of the practice to avoid being disbarred. And it was just as well. My landlord had protested against my using theoffice at night for poker purposes, so I passed up the law and soughtthe asphodel fields of promotion. _Les affaires font l'homme_, as oldProfessor Garneau used to say at college. So here I am; and I'm glad Ishook the law. I'd got tired of eating coffee and rolls at the Berlinbakery three times a day. 

"Why, Morris, old man, " he went on volubly, "there were days when theloneliness in my office grew positively oppressive. You may rememberthat room I had in the old Adams and Harper Block? It gave upon acourtyard where the rats from a livery stable came to disport themselveson rainy days. I grew to be a dead shot with the flobert rifle; butlawsy, there's mighty little consideration for true merit in this world!Just because I winged a couple of cheap hack horses one day, when mynerves weren't steady, the livery people made me stop, and one of myfellow tenants in the old rookery threatened to have me arrested forconducting a shooting gallery without a license. He was a dentist, andhe said the snap of the rifle worried his victims. "

The two typewriting machines outside clicked steadily. Some one knockedat the door. 

"Come in!" shouted Balcomb. 

One of the typewriter operators entered with a brisk air of business andhanded a telegram to Balcomb, who tore it open nonchalantly. As he readit, he tossed the crumpled envelope over his shoulder in anabsent-minded way. 

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, slapping his leg as though the news wereimportant. Then, to the girl, who waited with note-book and pencil inhand: "Never mind; don't wait. I'll dictate the answer later. "

"How did it work?" he asked, turning to Leighton, who had been lookingover the books on the table. 

"How did what work?"

"The fake. It was a fake telegram. That girl's trained to bring in amessage every time I have a caller. If the caller stays thirty minutes, it's two messages, --in other words I'm on a fifteen-minute schedule. Itip a boy in the telegraph office to keep me supplied with blanks. It'sa great scheme. There's nothing like a telegram to create theimpression that your office is a seething caldron of business. Old Prexywas in town the other day. I don't suppose he ever got a dose ofelectricity in his life unless he had been sorely bereft of a member ofhis family and was summoned to the funeral baked meats. Say, he musthave thought I had a private wire!"

Leighton sat down and fanned himself with his hat. 

"You'll be my death yet. You have the cheek of a nice, fresh, newbaggage-check, Balcomb. "

"Your cigar isn't burning well, Morris. Won't you try another? No? Ilike my guests to be comfortable. "

"I'm comfortable enough. I'm even entertained. Go ahead and let me seethe rest of the show. "

"Oh, we haven't exactly a course of stunts here. Those are nice girlsout there. I've broken them of the chewing-gum habit, and they cananswer anxious inquiries at the door now without danger ofstrangulation. "

"They seem speedy on the machine. Your correspondence must be somethingvast!"

"Um, yes. It has to be. Every cheap skate of a real estate man keeps onestenographer. My distinction is that I keep two. They're easyadvertising. Now that little one in the pink shirt-waist that brought inthe message from Mars a moment ago is a wonder of intelligence. Do youknow what she's doing now?"

"Trying to break the machine I should guess, from the racket. "

"Bah! It's the Lord's Prayer. "

"You mean it's a sort of prayer machine. "

"Not on your life. Maude hasn't any real work to do just now and she'srunning off the Lord's Prayer. I know by the way it clicks. When shestrikes 'our daily bread' the machine always gives a little gasp. See?The rule of the office is that they must have some diddings doing allthe time. The big one with red hair is a perfect marvel at theDeclaration of Independence. She'll be through addressing circulars in alittle while and will run off into 'All men are created equal'--ablooming lie, by the way--without losing a stroke. "

"You _have_ passed the poetry stage, beyond a doubt. But I should thinkthe strain of keeping all this going would be wearing on your sensitivepoetical nature. And it must cost something. "

"Oh, yes!" Balcomb pursed his lips and stroked his fine soft beard. "Butit's worth it. I'm not playing for small stakes. I'm looking forChristmas trees. Now they've got their eyes on me. These old Elijahsthat have been the bone and sinew of the town for so long that theythink they own it, are about done for. You can't sit in a bank here anymore and look solemn and turn people down because your corn hurts orbecause the chinch-bugs have got into the wheat in Dakota or the czarhas bought the heir apparent a new toy pistol. You've got to present asmiling countenance to the world and give the glad hand to everybodyyou're likely to need in your business. I jolly everybody!"

"That comes easy for you; but I didn't know you could make an asset ofit. "

"It's part of my working capital. Now you'd better cut loose from oldman Carr and move up here and get a suite near me. I've got more than Ican do, --I'm always needing a lawyer, --organizing companies, legality ofbonds, and so on. Dignified work. Lots of out-of-town people come hereand I'll put you in touch with them. I threw a good thing to Van Cleveonly the other day. Bond foreclosure suit for some fellows in the Eastthat I sell stuff to. They wrote and asked me the name of a good man. Ithought of you--old college days and all that--but Van Cleve had justdone me a good turn and I had to let him have it. But you'd better comeover. You'll never know the world's in motion in that musty old hole ofCarr's. You get timid and afraid to go near the water by staying onshore so long. But say, Morris, you seem to be getting along pretty wellin the social push. Your name looks well in the society column. How doyou work it, anyhow?"

"Don't expect me to give the snap away. The secret's valuable. And I'mnot really inside; I am only peering through the pickets!"

"Tush! Get thee hence! I saw you in a box at the theater the othernight, --evidently Mrs. Carr's party. There's nothing like mixingbusiness with pleasure. Ah me!"

He yawned and stroked his beard and laughed, with a fine showing ofwhite teeth. 

"I don't see what's pricking you with small pins of envy. You were therewith about the gayest crowd I ever saw at a theater; and it looked likeyour own party. "

"Don't say a word, " implored Balcomb, putting out his hand. "Members ofthe board of managers of the state penitentiary, their wives, theircousins and their aunts. Say, weren't those beauteous whiskers! My eye!Well, the evening netted me about five hundred plunks, and I got to seethe show and to eat a good supper in the bargain. Some reformers were toappear before them that night officially, and my friends wanted to keepthem busy. I was called into the game to do something, --hence thesetears. Lawsy! I earned my money. Did you see those women?--about twomillion per cent. Pure jay!"

"You ought to cut out that sort of thing; it isn't nice. "

"Oh, you needn't be so virtuous. Carr keeps a whole corps of rascals tospread apple-butter on the legislature corn-bread. "

"You'd better speak to him about it. He'd probably tell Mrs. Carr to askyou to dinner right away. "

"Oh, that will come in time. I don't expect to do everything at once. You may see me up there some time; and when you do, don't shy off like acolt at the choo-choos. By the way, I'd like to be one of the brightparticular stars of the Dramatic Club if you can fix it. You rememberthat amateur theatricals are rather in my line. "

"I do. At college you were one of the most persistent Thespians we had, and one of the worst. But let social matters go. You haven't told me howto get rich quick yet. I haven't had the nerve to chuck the law as youhave. "

"Well, " continued Balcomb, expansively, "a fellow has got to take whathe can when he can. One swallow doesn't make a summer; one suckerdoesn't make a spring; so we must catch the birdling _en route_ or _enpassant_, as our dear professor of modern languages used to try to getus to remark. Say, between us old college friends, I cleared up a coupleof thousand last week just too easy for any use. You know Singerly, thepopular undertaker, --Egyptian secret of embalming, lady and gentlemanattendants, night and day, --always wears a spray of immortelles in hislapel and a dash of tuberose essence on his handkerchief. Well, Singerlyand I operated together in the smoothest way you ever saw. Excuse me!"He lay back and howled. "Well, there was an old house up here on HighStreet just where it begins to get good; very exclusive--old familiesand all that. It belonged to an estate, and I got an option on it justfor fun. I began taking Singerly up there to look at it. We'd measureit, and step it off, and stop and palaver on the sidewalk. In a day ortwo those people up there began to take notice and to do me the honor tocall on me. You see, my boy, an undertaking shop--even a fashionableone--for a neighbor, isn't pleasant; it wouldn't add, as one might say, to the _sauce piquante_ of life; and as a reminder of our mortality--atrifle depressing, as you will admit. "

He took the cigar from his mouth and examined the burning end of itthoughtfully. 

"I sold the option to one of Singerly's prospective neighbors for thematter of eleven hundred. He's a retired wholesale grocer and didn'tneed the money. "

"Seems to me you're cutting pretty near the dead-line, Jack. That's nota pretty sort of hold-up. You might as well take a sandbag and lie inwait by night. "

"Great rhubarb! You make me tired. I'm not robbing the widow and theorphan, but a fat old Dutchman who doesn't ask anything of life but hissauerkraut and beer. "

"And you do! You'd better give your ethical sense a good tonic beforeyou butt into the penal code. "

"Come off! I've got a better scheme even than the Singerly deal. Theschool board's trying to locate a few schools in up-town districts. Veryundesirable neighbors. I rather think I can make a couple of turnsthere. This is all strictly _inter nos_, as Professor Morton used to sayin giving me, as a special mark of esteem, a couple of hundred extralines of Virgil to keep me in o' nights. "

He looked at his watch and gave the stem-key a few turns beforereturning it to his pocket. 

"You'll have to excuse me, old man. I've got a date with Adams, over atthe Central States Trust Company. He's a right decent chap when you knowhow to handle him. I want to get them to finance a big apartment housescheme. I've got an idea for a flat that will make the town sit up andgasp. "

"Don't linger on my account, Jack. I only stopped in to see whether youkept your good spirits. I feel as though I'd had a shower bath. Comealong. "

Several men were waiting to see Balcomb in the outer office and he shookhands with all of them and begged them to come again, taking care tomention that he had been called to the Central States Trust Company andhad to hurry away. 

He called peremptorily to the passing elevator-car to wait, and as heand Leighton squeezed into it, he continued his half of an imaginaryconversation in a tone that was audible to every passenger. 

"I could have had those bonds, if I had wanted them; but I knew therewas a cloud on them--the county was already over its legal limit. Iguess those St. Louis fellows will be sorry they were soenterprising--here we are!"

And then in a lower tone to Leighton: "That was for old man Dameron'sbenefit. Did you see him jammed back in the corner of the car? Queer oldparty and as tight as a drum. When I can work off some assessable andnon-interest bearing bonds on him, it'll be easy to sell Uncle Sam'sTreasury a gold brick. They say the old man has a daughter who is finerthan gold; yea, than much fine gold. I'm going to look her up, if I everget time. You'd better come over soon and pick out an office. _Verbumsat sapienti_, as our loving teacher used to say. So long!"

Leighton walked back to his office in good humor and better contentedwith his own lot. 

THE WICKED ZEBRA[3]

BY FRANK ROE BATCHELDER

 The zebra always seems malicious, -- He kicks and bites 'most all the time; I fear that he's not only vicious, But guilty of some dreadful crime. 

 The mere suggestion makes me falter In writing of this wicked brute; Although he has escaped the halter, He wears for life a convict's suit. 

[Footnote 3: Lippincott's Magazine. ]

THE BRAKEMAN AT CHURCH

BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE

One bright winter morning, the twenty-ninth day of December, Anno Domini1879, I was journeying from Lebanon, Indiana, where I had sojournedSunday, to Indianapolis. I did not see the famous cedars, and I supposedthey had been used up for lead-pencils, and moth-proof chests, andrelics, and souvenirs; for Lebanon is right in the heart of the holyland. That part of Indiana was settled by Second Adventists, and theyhave sprinkled goodly names all over their heritage. As the trainclattered along, stopping at every station to trade off some people whowere tired of traveling for some other people who were tired of stayingat home, I got out my writing-pad, pointed a pencil, and wondered whatmanner of breakfast I would be able to serve for the ever hungry"Hawkeye" next morning. 

I was beginning to think I would have to disguise some "left-overs"under a new name, as the thrifty housekeeper knows how to do, when mycolleague, my faithful yoke-fellow, who has many a time found for me aspring of water in the desert place--the Brakeman, came down the aisleof the car. He glanced at the tablet and pencil as I would look at hislantern, put my right hand into a cordial compress that abode with myfingers for ten minutes after he went away, and seating himself easilyon the arm of the seat, put the semaphore all right for me by saying:

"Say, I went to church yesterday. "

"Good boy, " I said, "and what church did you attend?"

"Guess, " was his reply. 

"Some Union Mission chapel?" I ventured. 

"N-no, " he said, "I don't care to run on these branch roads very much. Idon't get a chance to go to church every Sunday, and when I can go, Ilike to run on the main line, where your trip is regular, and you makeschedule time, and don't have to wait on connections. I don't care torun on a branch. Good enough, I reckon, but I don't like it. "

"Episcopal?" I guessed. 

"Limited express!" he said, "all parlor cars, vestibuled, and twodollars extra for a seat; fast time, and only stop at the big stations. Elegant line, but too rich for a brakeman. All the trainmen in uniform;conductor's punch and lanterns silver-plated; train-boys fenced up bythemselves and not allowed to offer anything but music. Passengers talkback at the conductor. Trips scheduled through the whole year, so whenyou get aboard you know just where you're going and how long it willtake you. Most systematic road in the country and has a mighty niceclass of travel. Never hear of a receiver appointed on that line. But Ididn't ride in the parlor car yesterday. "

"Universalist?" I suggested. 

"Broad gauge, " the Brakeman chuckled; "does too much complimentarybusiness to be prosperous. Everybody travels on a pass. Conductordoesn't get a cash fare once in fifty miles. Stops at all way-stationsand won't run into anything but a union depot. No smoking-car allowed onthe train because the company doesn't own enough brimstone to head amatch. Train orders are rather vague, though; and I've noticed thetrainmen don't get along very well with the passengers. No, I didn't goon the broad gauge, though I have some good friends on that road who arethe best people in the world. Been running on it all their lives. "

"Presbyterian?" I hinted. 

"Narrow gauge, eh?" said the Brakeman; "pretty track; straight as arule; tunnel right through the heart of a mountain rather than go aroundit; spirit level grade; strict rules, too; passengers have to show theirtickets before they get on the train; cars a little bit narrow forsleepers; have to sit one in a seat and no room in the aisle to dance. No stop-over tickets allowed; passenger must go straight through to thestation he's ticketed for, or stay off the car. When the car's full, gates are shut; cars built at the shops to hold just so many, and nomore allowed on. That road is run right up to the rules and you don'toften hear of an accident on it. Had a head-on collision at Schenectadyunion station and run over a weak bridge at Cincinnati, not many yearsago, but nobody hurt, and no passengers lost. Great road. "

"May be you rode with the Agnostics?" I tried. 

The Brakeman shook his head emphatically. 

"Scrub road, " he said, "dirt road-bed and no ballast; no time-card, andno train dispatcher. All trains run wild and every engineer makes hisown time, just as he pleases. A sort of 'smoke-if-you-want-to' road. Toomany side tracks; every switch wide open all the time, switchman soundasleep and the target-lamp dead out. Get on where you please and get offwhen you want. Don't have to show your tickets, and the conductor has noauthority to collect fare. No, sir; I was offered a pass, but I don'tlike the line. I don't care to travel over a road that has no terminus. 

"Do you know, I asked a division superintendent where his road run to, and he said he hoped to die if he knew. I asked him if the generalsuperintendent could tell me, and he said he didn't believe they had ageneral superintendent, and if they had, he didn't know any more aboutthe road than the passengers did. I asked him who he reported to, and hesaid, 'Nobody. ' I asked a conductor who he got his orders from, and hesaid he didn't take no orders from any living man or dead ghost. Andwhen I asked the engineer who gave him orders, he said he'd just like tosee any man on this planet try to give him orders, black-and-white orverbal; he said he'd run that train to suit himself or he'd run it intothe ditch. Now, you see, I'm not much of a theologian, but I'm a gooddeal of a railroad man, and I don't want to run on a road that has noschedule, makes no time, has no connections, starts anywhere and runsnowhere, and has neither signal man, train dispatcher or superintendent. Might be all right, but I've railroaded too long to understand it. "

"Did you try the Methodist?"

"Now you're shoutin'!" he cried with enthusiasm; "that's the hummer!Fast time and crowds of passengers! Engines carry a power of steam, anddon't you forget it. Steam-gauge shows a hundred and enough all thetime. Lively train crews, too. When the conductor shouts 'Alla-b-o-a-r-d!' you can hear him to the next hallelujah station. Everytrain lamp shines like a head-light. Stop-over privileges on alltickets; passenger can drop off the train any time he pleases, do thestation a couple of days and hop on to the next revival train that comesthundering along with an evangelist at the throttle. Good, whole-souled, companionable conductors; ain't a road on earth that makes thepassengers feel more at home. No passes issued on any account;everybody pays full traffic rate for his own ticket. Safe road, too;well equipped; Wesleyanhouse air brakes on every train. It's a road I'mfond of, but I didn't begin this week's run with it. "

I began to feel that I was running ashore; I tried one more lead:

"May be you went with the Baptists?"

"Ah, ha!" he shouted, "now you're on the Shore line! River Road, eh?Beautiful curves, lines of grace at every bend and sweep of the river;all steel rail and rock ballast; single track, and not a siding from theround-house to the terminus. Takes a heap of water to run it, though;double tanks at every station, and there isn't an engine in the shopsthat can run a mile or pull a pound with less than two gauges. Runsthrough a lovely country--river on one side and the hills on the other;and it's a steady climb, up grade all the way until the run ends wherethe river begins, at the fountain head. Yes, sir, I'll take the RiverRoad every time for a safe trip, sure connections, good time, and nodust blowing in when you open a window. And yesterday morning, when theconductor came around taking up fares with a little basket punch, Ididn't ask him to pass me; I paid my fare like a littleJonah--twenty-five cents for a ninety-minute run, with a concert by thepassengers thrown in. I tell you what it is, Pilgrim, never mind yourbaggage, you just secure your passage on the River Road if you want togo to--"

But just here the long whistle announced a station, and the Brakemanhurried to the door, shouting--

"Zions-VILLE! ZIONS-ville! All out for Zionsville! This train makes nostops between here and Indianapolis!"

HOW MR. TERRAPIN LOST HIS BEARD

BY ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON

The "cook-house" stood at some little distance from the "big house, " andevery evening after supper it was full of light and noise and laughter. The light came from the fire on the huge hearth, above which hung thecrane and the great iron pots which Eliza, the cook, declared wereindispensable in the practice of her art. To be sure, there was acook-stove, but 'Liza was wedded to old ways and maintained there wasnothing "stove cooked" that could hope to rival the rich and nuttyflavor of ash cake, or greens "b'iled slow an' long over de ha'th, wid apiece er bacon in de pot. "

The noise and laughter came from a circle of dusky and admiring friends, for Aunt 'Liza was a great favorite with everybody on the plantation, and though hunchbacked and homely, had, nevertheless, had her pick, asshe was fond of boasting, of the likeliest looking men on the place; andthough she had been twice wedded and twice widowed, aspirants were notwanting for the position now vacant for a third time. Indeed, not longbefore, a member of the family, on going to the cook-house to see whydinner was so late, had discovered one Sam, the burly young ox-cartdriver, on his knees, pleading very earnestly with the elderly andhumpbacked little cook, while dinner simmered on and on, unnoticed andforgotten. When remonstrated with she said that she was "'bleeged terhave co'tin' times ez well ez de res' er folks, " and intimated that inaffairs of the heart these things were apt to happen at any time orplace, and that if a gentleman chose an inopportune moment "'twan't herfault, " and no one could, with any show of reason, expect her not to payattention to him. She ruled everybody, her white folks included, thoughjust how she did it no one could say, unless she was one of thosecommanding spirits and born leaders who sometimes appear even in thehumblest walks of life. It is possible that her uncommonly strong willcompelled the affections of her male admirers, but it is also possiblethat she condescended to flatter, and it is certain that she fed themwell. 

One night, between supper and bedtime, the children heard the sound of abanjo proceeding from the cook-house. They had never ventured into Aunt'Liza's domain before, but the plinketty-plunk of the banjo, the soundof patting and the thud of feet keeping time to the music drew themirresistibly. Aunt Nancy was there, in the circle about the embers, aswas also her old-time foe, Aunt 'Phrony, and the banjo was in the handsof Tim, a plow-boy, celebrated as being the best picker for milesaround. Lastly, there were Aunt 'Liza and her latest conquest, Sam, whose hopes she could not have entirely quenched or he would not havebeamed so complacently on the assembled company. 

There was a hush as the three little heads appeared in the doorway, butthe children begged them to go on, and so Tim picked away for dear lifeand Sam did a wonderful double-shuffle with the pigeon-wing thrown in. Then Tim sang a plantation song about "Cindy Ann" that ran somethinglike this:

 _I'se gwine down ter Richmond, I'll tell you w'at hit's for: I'se gwine down ter Richmond, Fer ter try an' end dis war. _

 _Refrain: An'-a you good-by, Cindy, Cindy, Good-by, Cindy Ann; An'-a you good-by, Cindy, Cindy, I'se gwine ter Rappahan. _

 _I oon ma'y a po' gal, I'll tell de reason w'y: Her neck so long an' skinny I'se 'feared she nuver die. _

 _Refrain. _

 _I oon ma'y a rich gal, I'll tell de reason w'y: Bekase she dip so much snuff Her mouf is nuver dry. _

 _Refrain. _

 _I ru'rr ma'y a young gal, A apple in her han', Dan ter ma'y a widdy Wid a house an' a lot er lan'. _

 _Refrain. _

At the reference to a "widdy" he winked at the others and lookedsignificantly at Sam and Aunt 'Liza. Then he declared it was the turn ofthe ladies to amuse the gentlemen. Aunt Nancy and Aunt 'Phrony cried, "Hysh! Go 'way, man! W'at ken we-all do? Done too ol' fer foolishness;leave dat ter de gals!" But 'Liza was not inclined to leave theentertainment of gentlemen to "gals, " whom she declared to be, for themost part, "wu'fless trunnel-baid trash. "

"Come, come, Sis' 'Phrony, an' you, too, Sis' Nancy, " said she, "youknows dar ain' nu'rr pusson on de place kin beat you bofe in der marteruv tellin' tales. I ain' nuver have de knack myse'f, but I knows a goodtale w'en I years hit, an' I bin gittin' myse'f fixed fer one uver senceyou comed in. "

The children added their petitions, seconded by Tim and Sam. Aunt Nancylooked as if she were feeling around in the dusk of half-forgottenthings for a dimly remembered story, perceiving which the nimbler-wittedAunt 'Phrony made haste to say that she believed she knew a story whichmight please the company if they were not too hard to suit. Theypolitely protested that such was far from being the case, whereupon shebegan the story of how the Terrapin lost his beard. 

"Um-umph!" snorted Aunt Nancy, "who uver year tell uv a tarr'pin wid aby'ud!"

"Look-a-yer, ooman, " said 'Phrony, "who tellin' dis, me er you? Yous'pose I'se talkin' 'bout de li'l ol' no-kyount tarr'pins dey has desedays? Naw, suh! I'se tellin' 'bout de ol' time Tarr'pin whar wuz a gre'tchieft an' a big fighter, an' w'ensomuver tu'rr creeturs come roun' an'try ter pay him back, he jes' drord his haid in his shell an' dar hewuz. Dish yer ain' no ol' nigger tale, neener, dish yer a Injun talewhar my daddy done tol' me w'en I wan't no bigger'n Miss Janey. He saydat sidesen de by'ud, Tarr'pin had big wattles hangin' down beneaf hischin, jes' lak de tukkey-gobblers has dese days. Him an' Mistah Wi'yumWil'-tukkey wuz mighty good fren's dem times, an' Tukkey he thoughtTarr'pin wuz a monst'ous good-lookin' man. He useter mek gre't 'mirationan' say, 'Mistah Tarry-long Tarr'pin, you sut'n'y is a harnsum man. Darain' nu'rr creetur in dese parts got such a by'ud an' wattles ez w'atyou is. '

"Den Tarr'pin he'd stroke down de by'ud an' swell out de wattles an'say, 'Sho! sho! Mistah Tukkey, you done praise dese yer heap mo'n w'atdey is wuf, ' but all de same he wuz might'ly please', fer dar's nuttin'lak a li'l bit er flatt'ry fer ilin' up de j'ints an' mekin' folkslimbersome in der feelin's. 

"Tukkey git ter thinkin' so much 'bout de by'ud an' de wattles dat seemter him ez ef he kain't git long no-hows lessen he have some ferhisse'f, 'kase in dem days de gobblers ain' have none. He study an' hestudy, but he kain't see whar he kin git 'em, an' de mo' he study de mo'he hone atter 'em. Las' he git so sharp set atter 'em dat he ain' kyarehow he git 'em, jes' so he git 'em, an' den he mek up his min' he gwinetek 'em 'way f'um Tarr'pin. So one day w'en he met up wid him in de roadhe stop him an' bob his haid an' mek his manners mighty p'litely, an' hesay, sezee, 'Mawnin', Mistah Tarry-long, mawnin'. How you come on disday? I ain' hatter ax you, dough, 'kase you done look so sprucy wid yo'by'ud all comb' out an' yo' wattles puff' up. I wish, suh, you lemmeputt 'em on fer a minnit, so's't I kin see ef I becomes 'em ez good ezw'at you does. '

"Ol' man Tarr'pin mighty easy-goin' an' commodatin', so he say, 'W'y, sut'n'y, Mistah Tukkey, you kin tek 'em an' welcome fer a w'iles. ' SoTukkey he putts 'em on an' moseys down ter de branch ter look at hisse'fin de water. 'Whoo-ee!' sezee ter hisse'f, 'ain' I de caution in deseyer fixin's! I'se saw'y fer de gals now, I sut'n'y is, 'kase w'at wid myshape an' dish yer by'ud an' wattles, dar gwine be some sho'-'nuffheart-smashin' roun' dese diggin's, you year me sesso!'

"Den he go struttin' back, shakin' de by'ud an' swellin' put de wattlesan' jes' mo'n steppin' high an' prancin' w'ile he sing:

 _'Cle'r outen de way fer ol' Dan Tucker, You'se too late ter git yo' supper. '_

"Den he say, sezee, 'Mistah Tarr'pin, please, suh, ter lemme keep deseyer? I b'lieve I becomes 'em mo'n w'at you does, 'kase my neck so longan' thin seem lak I needs 'em ter set hit off mo'n w'at you does wid datshawt li'l neck er yo'n whar you keeps tuck 'way in yo' shell half detime, anyways. Sidesen dat, you is sech a runt dat you g'long draggin'de by'ud on de groun', an' fus' news you know hits 'bleeged ter be wo'out. You bes' lemme have hit, 'kase I kin tek good kyare uv hit. '

"Den Tarr'pin say, sezee, 'I lak ter 'commodate you, Mistah Tukkey, butI ain' see how I kin. I done got so use ter runnin' my fingers thu deby'ud an' spittin' over hit w'en I'se settin' roun' thinkin' er talkin'dat I dunno how I kin do widout hit, an' I kain't git long, no-how, widout swellin' up de wattles w'en I git tetched in my feelin's. Sidesendat, I kin tek kyare er de by'ud, ef I _is_ a runt; I bin doin' it agood w'ile, an' she ain' wo' out yit. So please, suh, ter han' me overmy fixin's. '

"'Not w'iles I got any wind lef' in me fer runnin', ' sez de Tukkey, sezee, an' wid dat he went a-scootin', ol' man Tarr'pin atter him, hot-foot. Dey went scrabblin' up de mountains an' down de mountains, an''twuz pull Dick, pull devil, fer a w'ile. Dey kain't neener one uv 'emclimb up ve'y fas', but w'en dey git ter de top, Tukkey he fly down an'Tarr'pin he jes' natchully turn over an' roll down. But Tukkey git destart an' keep hit. W'en Tarr'pin roll to de bottom uv a mountain denhe'd see Tukkey at de top er de nex' one. Dey kep' hit up dis-a-way'cross fo' ridges, an' las' Tarr'pin he plumb wo' out an' he see hewan't gwine ketch up at dat rate, so he gin up fer dat day. Den he goan' hunt up de cunjerers an' ax 'em fer ter he'p him. He say, 'Y'allknow dat by'ud an' wattles er mine? Well, I done loan 'em to MistahWi'yum Wil'-tukkey, 'kase he wuz my fren' an' he done ax me to. An' nowhe turn out ter be no-kyount trash, an' w'at I gwine do? You bin knowin'I is a slow man, an' if I kain't git some he'p, I hatter say good-byby'ud an' wattles. '"

"What are 'cunjerers, ' Aunt 'Phrony?" said Ned. 

"Well now, honey, " said she, "I dunno ez I kin jes' rightly tell you, but deys w'at de Injuns calls 'medincin'-men, ' an' dey doctors de sickfolks an' he'ps de hunters ter git game an' de gals ter git beaux, an'putts spells on folks an' mek 'em do jes' 'bout w'at dey want 'em to. An' so dese yer cunjerers dey goes off by derse'fs an' has a confab an'den dey come back an' tell Mistah Tarr'pin dat dey reckon dey done fixMistah Tukkey dis time. 

"'W'at you done wid him?' sezee. 

"'We ain' ketch 'im, ' dey ses, 'we lef' dat fer you, dat ain' ow'bizness, but we done fix him up so't you kin do de ketchin' yo'se'f. '

"'W'at has you done to him, den?' sezee. 

"'Son', dey ses, 'we done putt a lot er li'l bones in his laigs, an' datgwine slow him up might'ly, an' we 'pends on you ter do de res', 'kasewe knows dat you is a gre't chieft. '

"Den Tarr'pin amble long 'bout his bizness an' neener stop ner res'ontwel he met up wid Tukkey onct mo'. He ax fer his by'ud an' wattlesag'in, but Tukkey jes' turnt an' stept out f'um dat, Tarr'pin atter him. But seem lak de cunjerers thought Mistah Tarr'pin wuz faster'n w'at hewuz, er dat Mistah Tukkey 'z slower'n w'at _he_ wuz, 'kase Tarr'pin ain'nuver ketch up wid him yit, an' w'ats mo', de tarr'pins is still doin'widout by'uds an' wattles an' de gobblers is still wearin' 'em an'swellin' roun' showin' off ter de gals, steppin' ez high ez ef dem li'lbones w'at de cunjerers putt dar wan't still in der laigs, an' struttin'lak dey wuz sayin' ter ev'y pusson dey meets:

 _'Cle'r outen de way fer ol' Dan Tucker, You'se too late ter git yo' supper. '"_

THE CRITIC

BY WILLIAM J. LAMPTON

 Behold The Critic, bold and cold, Who sits in judgment on The twilight and the dawn Of literature, And, eminently sure, Informs his age What printed page Is destined to be great. His word is Fate, And what he writes Is greater far Than all the books He writes of are. His pen Is dipped in boom Or doom; And when He says one book is rot, And that another's not, That ends it. He Is pure infallibility, And any book he judges must Be blessed or cussed By all mankind, Except the blind Who will not see The master's modest mastery. His fiat stands Against the uplifted hands Of thousands who protest And buy the books That they like best; But what of that? He knows where he is at, And they don't. And why Shouldn't he be high Above them as the clouds Are high above the brooks, For God, He made the Critic, And man, he makes the books. See? Gee whiz, What a puissant potentate the Critic is. 

THE ASSOCIATED WIDOWS

BY KATHARINE M. ROOF

The confirmed bachelor sat apart, fairly submerged by a sea of Sundaypapers; yet a peripheral consciousness of the ladies' presence wasrevealed in his embryonic smile. 

He folded over a voluminous sheet containing an account of the latestmurder, and glanced at a half-page picture, labeled, "The Scene of theCrime. "

"Was there ever yet a woman that could keep a secret, " he demanded, apparently of the newspaper. "Now, if this poor fellow had only kept hislittle plans to himself--but, of course, he had to go and tell somewoman. "

"Looks like the man didn't know how to keep his secret that time, "returned Mrs. Pendleton with a smile calculated to soften harshjudgments against her sex. 

"There are some secrets woman can keep, " observed Elsie Howard. Her gazehappened to rest upon Mrs. Pendleton's golden hair. 

"For instance, " demanded the confirmed bachelor. (His name was Barlow. )

"Oh--her age for one thing. " Elsie withdrew her observant short-sightedeyes from Mrs. Pendleton's crowning glory, and a smile barely touchedthe corners of her expressively inexpressive mouth. Mrs. Pendletonglanced up, faintly suspicious of that last remark. 

Mr. Barlow laughed uproariously. In the two years that he had been a"guest" in Mrs. Howard's boarding-house he had come to regard Miss Elsieas a wit, and it was his habit--like the Italians at the opera--to givehis applause before the closing phrases were delivered. 

"I guess that's right. You hit it that time. That's one secret a womancan keep. " He chuckled appreciatively. 

Mrs. Pendleton laughed less spontaneously than usual and said, "Itcertainly was a dangerous subject, " that "she had been looking forsilver hairs amongst the gold herself lately. " And again Elsie's eyeswere attracted to the hairs under discussion. For three months now shehad questioned that hair. At night it seemed above reproach in itsinfantile fairness, but in the crude unkind daylight there was a garishinsistence about it that troubled the eye. 

At that moment the door opened and Mrs. Hilary came in with her bonneton. She glanced around with frigid greeting. 

"So I'm not late to dinner after all. I had thought you would be attable. The tram was so slow I was sorry I had not walked and saved thefare. " She spoke with an irrational rising and falling of syllables thatat once proclaimed her nationality. She was a short, compact littlewoman with rosy cheeks, abundant hair and a small tight mouth. Mrs. Hilary was a miniature painter by choice and a wife and mother byaccident. She was subject to lapses in which she unquestionably forgotthe twins' existence. She recalled them suddenly now. 

"Has any one seen Gladys and Gwendolen? Dear, dear, I wonder where theyare. They wouldn't go to church with me. Those children are such aresponsibility. "

"But they are such happy children, " said gentle little Mrs. Howard, whohad come in at the beginning of this speech. In her heart Mrs. Howarddreaded the long-legged, all-pervasive twins, but she pitied thewidowed and impoverished little artist. "So sad, " she was wont to sayto her intimates in describing her lodger, "a young widow left all alonein a foreign country. "

"But one would hardly call America a foreign country to anEnglishwoman, " one friend had interpolated at this point. 

"Yes, I know, " Mrs. Howard had acknowledged, "but she _seems_ foreign. Her husband was an American, I believe, and he evidently left her withalmost nothing. He must have been very unkind to her, she has such adislike of Americans. She wasn't able to give the regular price for therooms, but I couldn't refuse her--I felt so sorry for her. "

Mrs. Howard liked to "feel sorry for" people. Yet she was apt to findherself at sea in attempting to sympathize with Mrs. Hilary. She was asweet-faced, tired-looking little woman with a vague smile and dreamyeyes. About five years ago Mrs. Howard had had "reverses" and had beenforced by necessity to live to violate the sanctity of her hearth andhome; grossly speaking, she had been obliged to take boarders, nofeasible alternative seeming to suggest itself. The old house inEleventh Street, in which she had embarked upon this cheerless career, had never been a home for her or her daughter. Yet an irrepressiblesociability of nature enabled her to find a certain pleasure in the lifeimpossible to her more reserved daughter. 

As they all sat around now in the parlor, into which the smell of theSunday turkey had somehow penetrated, a few more guests wandered in andsat about provisionally on the impracticable parlor furniture, waitingfor the dinner signal. Mrs. Howard bravely tried to keep up thesimulation of social interchange with which she ever patheticallystrove to elevate the boarding-house intercourse into the decency of achosen association. 

Suddenly there came a thump and a crash against the door and the twinsburst in, their jackets unbuttoned, their dusty picture hats awry. 

"Oh! mater, mater!" they cried tumultuously, dancing about her. 

"Such sport, mater. We fed the elephant. "

"And the rabbits--"

"And a monkey carried off Gwendolen's gloves--"

"Children, " exclaimed Mrs. Hilary impotently, looking from one to theother, "where _have_ you been?" (She pronounced it bean. )

"To the park, mater--"

"To see the animals--"

"Oh, mater, you should see the ducky little baby lion!"

"What is it that they call you?" inquired a perpetually smiling youngkindergartner who had just taken possession of a top-floor hall-room. 

Mrs. Hilary glanced at her slightingly. 

"What is it that they _call_ me? Why, mater, of course. "

"Ah, yes, " the girl acquiesced pleasantly. "I remember now; it'sEnglish, of course. "

"Oh, no, " returned Mrs. Hilary instructively, "it's not English; it'sLatin. "

The kindergartner was silent. Mrs. Pendleton suppressed a chuckle thatstrongly suggested her "mammy. " Mr. Barlow grinned and Elsie Howard'smouth twitched. 

"They are such picturesque children, " Mrs. Howard put in hastily. "Iwonder you don't paint them oftener. "

"I declare I just wish I could paint, " Mrs. Pendleton contributedsweetly, "I think it's such pretty work. "

Mrs. Hilary was engrossed in the task of putting the twins to rights. 

"I don't know what to do with them, they are quite unmanageable, " shesighed. "It's so bad for them--bringing them up in a lodging-house. "

Mrs. Howard flushed and Mrs. Pendleton's eyes flashed. The dinner bellrang and Elsie Howard rose with a little laugh. 

"An English mother with American children! What do you expect, Mrs. Hilary?"

Mrs. Hilary was busy retying a withered blue ribbon upon the left sideof Gladys' brow. She looked up to explain:

"They are only half-American, you know. But their manners are gettingquite ruined with these terrible American children. "

Then they filed down into the basement dining-room for the noon dinner. 

"Horrid, rude little Cockney, " Mrs. Pendleton whispered in ElsieHoward's ear. 

The girl smiled faintly. "Oh, she doesn't know she is rude. She isjust--English. "

Mrs. Howard, over the characterless soup, wondered what it was about thelittle English artist that seemed so "different. " Conversation with Mrs. Hilary developed such curious and unexpected difficulties. Mrs. Howardlooked compassionately over at the kindergartner who, with thehopefulness of inexperience, started one subject after another with herunresponsive neighbor. What quality was it in Mrs. Hilary thatinvariably brought both discussion and pleasantry to a standstill?Elsie, upon whom Mrs. Howard depended for clarification of her thought, would only describe it as "English. " In her attempts to account for thisalien presence in her household, Mrs. Howard inevitably took refuge inthe recollection of Mrs. Hilary's widowhood. This moving thoughtoccurring to her now caused her to glance in the direction of Mrs. Pendleton's black dress and her face lightened. Mrs. Pendleton was ofanother sort. Mrs. Pendleton had proved, as Mrs. Howard always expressedit, "quite an acquisition to our circle. " She felt almost an affectionfor the merry, sociable talkative Southern woman, with her invariablegood spirits, her endless fund of appropriate platitude and her ready, superficial sympathy. Mrs. Pendleton had "come" through a cousin of afriend of a friend of Mrs. Howard's, and these vague links furnishedunlimited material for conversation between the two women. Mrs. Pendleton was originally from Savannah, and the names which flowed inprofusion from her lips were of unimpeachable aristocracy. Pendleton wasa very "good name" in the South, Mrs. Howard had remarked to Elsie, andwent on to cite instances and associations. 

Besides those already mentioned, the household consisted of three oldmaids, who had been with Mrs. Howard from her first year; a pensive artstudent with "paintable" hair; a deaf old gentleman whose place at tablewas marked by a bottle of lithia tablets; a chinless bank clerk, who hadjokes with the waitress, and a silent man who spoke only to requestfood. 

Mr. Barlow occupied, and frankly enjoyed the place between Miss Elsieand Mrs. Pendleton. He found the widow's easy witticisms, stockanecdotes and hackneyed quotations of unfailing interest and her obviouscoquetry irresistible. Mr. Barlow took life and business in a mostun-American spirit of leisure. He never found fault with the food or theheating arrangements, and never precipitated disagreeable arguments attable. All things considered, he was probably the most contented spiritin the house. 

The talk at table revolved upon newspaper topics, the weather, thehealth of the household, and a comparison of opinions about plays andactresses. At election times it was strongly tinged with politics, andon Sundays, popular preachers were introduced, with some expression asto what was and was not good taste in the pulpit. Among the feminineportion a fair amount of time was devoted to a review of the comparativemerits of shops. 

Mrs. Pendleton's conversation, however, had a somewhat wider range, forshe had traveled. Just what topics were favored in those long undertoneconversations with Mr. Barlow only Elsie Howard could have told, as theseat on the other side of the pair was occupied by the deaf oldgentleman. There were many covert glances and much suppressed laughter, but neither of the two old maids opposite were able to catch the driftof the low-voiced dialogue, so it remained a tantalizing mystery. Mrs. Pendleton, when pleased to be general in her attentions, proved to be, as Mrs. Howard had said, "an acquisition. " She spoke most entertaininglyof Egypt, of Japan and Hawaii. Yet all these experiences seemed tingedwith a certain sadness, as they had evidently been associated with thelast days of the late Mr. Pendleton. They had crossed the Pyrenees when"poor Mr. Pendleton was so ill he had to be carried every inch of theway. " In Egypt, "sometimes it seemed like he couldn't last another day. But I always did say 'while there is life there is hope, '" she wouldrecall pensively, "and the doctors all said the only hope _for_ his lifewas in constant travel, and so we were always, as you might say, seeking'fresh fields and pastures new. '"

Then Mrs. Howard's gentle eyes would fill with sympathy. "Poor Mrs. Pendleton, " she would often say to Elsie after one of these distressingallusions. "How terrible it must have been. Think of seeing some oneyou love dying that way, by inches before your eyes. She must have beenvery fond of him, too. She always speaks of him with so much feeling. "

"Yes, " said Elsie with untranslatable intonation. "I wonder what he diedof. "

"I don't know, " returned her mother regretfully. She had no curiosity, but she had a refined and well-bred interest in diseases. "I never heardher mention it and I didn't like to ask. "

"Poor Mrs. Howard, " Mrs. Pendleton was wont to say with her facilesympathy. "_So_ hard for her to have to take strangers into her home. Ibelieve she was left without anything at her husband's death; mightyhard for a woman at her age. "

"How long has her husband been dead?" the other boarder to whom shespoke would sometimes inquire. 

Mrs. Pendleton thought he must have been dead some time, although shehad never heard them say, exactly. "You never hear Elsie speak of him, "she added, "so I reckon she doesn't remember him right well. "

As the winter wore on the tendency to tête-à-tête between Mrs. Pendletonand Mr. Barlow became more marked. They lingered nightly in the chillyparlor in the glamour of the red lamp after the other guests had left. It was discovered that they had twice gone to the theater together. Theart student had met them coming in late. As a topic of conversationamong the boarders the affair was more popular than food complaints. Asubtile atmosphere of understanding enveloped the two. It became somarked at last that even Mrs. Hilary perceived it--although Elsie alwaysinsisted that Gladys had told her. 

One afternoon in the spring, as Mrs. Pendleton was standing on thedoor-step preparing to fit the latch-key into the lock, the door openedand a man came out uproariously, followed by Gladys and Gwendolen, who, in some inexplicable way, always had the effect of a crowd of children. The man was tall and not ill-looking. Mrs. Pendleton was attired intrailing black velveteen, a white feather boa, and a hat covered withtossing plumes, and the hair underneath was aggressively golden. Apotential smile hovered about her lips and her glance lingered inpassing. Inside the house she bent a winning smile upon Gwendolen, whowas the less sophisticated of the two children. 

"Who's your caller, honey?"

"That's the pater, " replied Gwendolen with her mouth full of candy. "Hebrought us some sweets. You may have one if you wish. "

"Your--your father, " translated Mrs. Pendleton with a gasp. She wasobliged to lean against the wall for support. 

The twins nodded, their jaws locked with caramel. 

"He doesn't come very often, " Gladys managed to get out indistinctly. "Iwish he would. "

"I suppose his business keeps him away, " suggested Mrs. Pendleton. 

Gladys glanced up from a consideration of the respective attractions ofa chocolate cream and caramel. 

"He says it is incompatibility of humor, " she repeated glibly. Gladyswas more than half American. 

"Of _humor_!" Mrs. Pendleton's face broke up into ripples of delight. She flew at once to Mrs. Howard's private sitting room, arriving all outof breath and exploded her bomb immediately. 

"My dear, did you know that Mrs. Hilary is _not_ a widow?"

"Not a widow!" repeated Mrs. Howard with dazed eyes. 

"I met her husband right now at the door. He was telling the childrengood-by. He isn't any more dead than I am. "

"Not dead!" repeated Mrs. Howard, collapsing upon the nearest chair withall the prostration a news bearer's heart could desire. "And she wasalways talking about what he _used_ to do and _used_ to think and _used_to say. Why--why I can't believe it. "

"True as preachin', " declared Mrs. Pendleton, adding that you could haveknocked her down with a feather when she discovered it. 

Elsie Howard came into her mother's room just then and Mrs. Pendletonrepeated the exciting news, adding, "Gladys says they don't livetogether because of incompatibility of humor!"

Elsie smiled and remarked that it certainly was a justifiable ground forseparation and unkindly went off, leaving the subject undeveloped. 

The next day Mrs. Howard had a caller. It was the friend whose cousinhad a friend that had known Mrs. Pendleton. In the process ofconversation the caller remarked casually:

"So Mrs. Pendleton has got her divorce at last. "

Mrs. Howard smiled vaguely and courteously. 

"Some connection of our Mrs. Pendleton? I don't think I have heard hermention it. Dear me, isn't it dreadful how common divorce is getting tobe!"

The guest stared. 

"You don't mean to say--why, my dear Mrs. Howard--is it _possible_ youdon't know? It _is_ your Mrs. Pendleton. "

Mrs. Howard remained looking at her friend. Once or twice her lips movedbut no words came. 

"Her husband is dead, " she said at last, faintly. 

The caller laughed. "Then he must have died yesterday. Why, didn't youknow that was the reason she spent last year in Colorado?"

"For her husband's health, " gasped Mrs. Howard, clinging to the lastshred of her six months' belief in Mrs. Pendleton's widowhood. "I alwayshad an impression that it was there he died. "

The other woman laughed heartlessly. "Did she tell you he was dead?"

Mrs. Howard collected her scattered faculties and tried to think. 

"No, " she said at last. "Now that you speak of it, I don't believe sheever did. But she certainly gave that impression. She seemed to bealways telling of his last illness and his last days. She never actuallymentioned the details of his death--but then, how could she--poorthing?"

"She couldn't, of course. That would have been asking too much. " Mrs. Howard's guest went off again into peals of unseemly laughter. 

When her caller had left, Mrs. Howard climbed up to the chilly skylightroom occupied by her daughter and dropped upon the bed, exclaiming:

"Well, I never would have believed it of Mrs. Pendleton!"

Elsie, who was standing before her mirror, regarded her mother in theglass. 

"What's up. Has she eloped with Billie Barlow at last?"

Mrs. Howard tried to say it, but became inarticulate with emotion. Afterfive minutes of preamble and exclamation, her daughter was in possessionof the fact. 

"That explains about her hair, " was Elsie's only comment. "I am sorelieved to have it settled at last. "

"Why didn't she tell me?" wailed Mrs. Howard. 

"Oh, people don't always tell those things. "

Mrs. Howard was silent. 

As they passed the parlor door on their way down to dinner, Mrs. Pendleton's merry laugh rang out and Elsie caught a glimpse of thegolden hair under the red lamp and the fugitive glimpse of Mr. Barlow'sbald spot. 

About two days later, as the girl came in from an afternoon's shopping, and was on her way upstairs, her mother called to her. Something in thesound of it attracted her attention. She hurried down the few steps andinto her mother's room. Mrs. Howard was sitting over by the window inthe fading light, with a strange look upon her face. An open telegramlay in her lap. Elsie went up to her quickly. 

"What is it, mother?"

Mrs. Howard handed her the telegram. 

"Your father, " she said. 

Elsie Howard read the simple announcement in silence. Then she lookedup, the last trace of an old bitterness in her faint smile. 

"We will miss him, " she said. 

"Elsie!" cried her mother. It was a tone the girl had never heard fromher before. Her eyes fell. 

"No, it wasn't nice to say it. I am sorry. But I can't forget what lifewas with him. " She raised her eyes to her mother's. "It was simply hell, mother; you can't have forgotten. You have said it yourself so often. Wecan not deny that it is a relief to know--"

"Hush, Elsie, never let me hear you say anything like that again. "

"Forgive me, mother, " said the girl with quick remorse. "I never will. Idon't think I have ever felt that death makes such things so different, and I didn't realize how you would--look at it. "

"My child, he was your father, " said Mrs. Howard in a low voice. ThenElsie saw the tears in her mother's eyes. 

 * * * * *

"_Such_ a shock to her, " Mrs. Pendleton murmured, sympathetically, toElsie. "I know, Miss Elsie; I can feel for her--" Elsie mechanicallythought of the last hours of Mr. Pendleton, then recalled herself with astart. "Death always _is_ a shock, " Mrs. Pendleton finished gracefully, "even when one most expects it. You must let me know if there isanything I can do. "

Later in the evening she communicated the astonishing news to Mrs. Hilary, who ejaculated freely: "Only fancy!" and "How veryextraordinary!"

"Didn't you think he had been dead a hundred years?" exclaimed Mrs. Pendleton. 

"One never can tell in the states, " responded Mrs. Hilaryconservatively. "Divorce is so common over here. It isn't the thing atall in England, you know. "

Mrs. Pendleton stared. 

"But they were not divorced, only separated. Do you never do that--inEngland?"

"Divorced people are not received at court, you know, " explained Mrs. Hilary. 

Mrs. Pendleton's glance lingered upon the Englishwoman's immobile faceand a laugh broke into her words. 

"But when you are in Rome, you do as the Romans--is that it, Mrs. Hilary?" But the shot glanced off harmlessly from the thick armor ofBritish literalness. 

"In Rome divorce doesn't exist at all, " she graciously informed hercompanion. "The Romish church does not permit it, you know. "

The American woman looked at the Englishwoman more in sorrow than inanger. 

"How, " she reflected, "is one to be revenged like a lady upon anEnglishwoman?"

It was about a week later that Mrs. Pendleton, finding herself alonewith Mrs. Howard and Elsie, made the final announcement. 

"I hope you-all will be ready to dance at my wedding next month. It'sgoing to be very quiet, but I couldn't think of being married withoutyou and Miss Elsie--and Mr. Barlow, he feels just like I do about it. "

WOMEN AND BARGAINS

BY NINA R. ALLEN

Show me the woman who in her heart of hearts does not delight in abargain, and I will tell you that she is a dead woman. 

I who write this, after having triumphantly passed bargain counters ofevery description, untempted by ribbons worth twenty-five cents butselling for nineteen, insensible to dimities that had sold for nineteencents but were offered at six and a fourth cents a yard, and--though Ihave a weakness for good cooking utensils--blind to the attractions of acopper tea-kettle whose former price was now cut in two, at last fell avictim to a green-and-white wicker chair. 

This is how it happened. I asked the price. Eight dollars, replied theshop-keeper. No. It was a ten-dollar chair. But he had said eight. Itwas a mistake. Nevertheless he would keep his word. I could have it foreight. What heart of woman could resist a bargain like this? Besides, Ithought such honesty ought to be encouraged. It is but too uncommon inthis wicked world. And--well, I really wanted the chair. How could awoman help wanting it when she found that the salesman had made an errorof two dollars? It was a ten-dollar chair, the shop-keeper repeated. Isaw the tag marked "Lax, Jxxx Mxx. " There could be no doubt of it. 

I gazed and gazed, but finally went on, like the seamen of Ulysses, deafening myself to the siren-voice. And though I had hesitated, Imight not have been lost; but returning by the same route, I saw aneighboring druggist rush into that store bareheaded, as I now supposeto change a bill. Need I say that I then thought he had come for mychair? Need I say that I then and there bought that chair?

Thus have I brought shame on a judicious parent--not my mother--who hasconscientiously labored to teach me that the way of the bargain-hunteris hard. 

As well might man attempt to deprive the cat of its mew or the dog ofits bark as to eliminate from the female breast the love of bargains. Ithas been burned in with the centuries. Eve, poor soul, doubtless neverknew the happiness of swarming with other women round a big table piledwith remnants of rumpled table-linen, mis-mated towels and soileddresser-scarfs, or the pleasure of carrying off the bolt of last fall'sribbon on which another woman had her eye; nor had she the proudsatisfaction of bringing home to her unfortunate partner a shirt with abosom like a checker-board, that had been marked down to sixty-threecents. But history, since her day, is not lacking in bargains of variouskinds, of which woman has had her share, though no doubt AnniversarySales, Sensational Mill End Sales, and Railroad Wreck Sales arecomparatively modern. 

A woman's pleasure in a good bargain is akin to the rapture engenderedin the feminine bosom by successful smuggling. It is perhaps a purerjoy. The satisfaction of acquiring something one does not need, or ofbuying an article which one may have some use for in the future, simplybecause it is cheap or because Mrs. X. Paid seventeen cents more for thesame thing at a bargain-sale, can not be understood by a mere man. 

Once in a while some stupid masculine creature endeavors to show hiswife that she is losing the use of her money by tying it up inembroideries for decorating cotton which is still in the fields of theSouth, or laying it out in summer dress-goods when snow-storms can notbe far distant. The use of her money forsooth! What is money for exceptto spend? And if she didn't buy embroideries and dimities, she wouldpurchase something else with it. 

So she goes on hunting bargains, or rather profiting by those that comein her way, for generally it is not necessary to search for them. Theselittle snares of the merchant are only too common in this age, wheneverything from cruisers to clothes-pins and pianos to prunes may oftenbe had at a stupendous sacrifice. 

A man usually goes to a shop where he believes that he will run littleor no risk of being deceived in the quality of the goods, even thoughprices be higher there than at some other places. A woman thinks sheknows a bargain when she sees it. 

She is aware that the store-keeper has craftily spread his web ofbargains, hoping that when lured into his shop she will buy other thingsnot bargains. But she determines beforehand that she will not be cajoledinto purchasing anything but the particular bargain of herdesire, --unless--unless she sees something else which she really wants. And generally, she sees something else which she really wants. 

Most women are tolerably good judges of a bargain, and therefore havesome ground for their confidence in themselves. I have seen a Christmasbargain-table containing china and small ornaments of various wares, completely honeycombed of its actual bargains by veteranbargain-hunters, who left unpurchased as if by instinct goods from theregular stock, offered at usual prices. 

Bargains are a boon to the woman of moderate means. The deepest joys ofbargain-hunting are not known to the rich, though they by no meansdisdain a bargain. To them is not given the delight of saving long, andwaiting for a bargain sale, and at last possessing the thin white chinaor net curtains ardently desired and still out of reach at regularprices. But they have some compensation. They have the advantage notonly of ready money, which makes a bargain available at any time, butalso that of leisure. 

While my lady of the slender purse is still getting the children readyfor school, or exhorting Bridget not to burn the steak that will beentrusted to her tender mercies, they can swoop down upon a bargain andbear it away victoriously. 

A fondness for bargains is not without its dangers, for with some peoplethe appetite grows with what it feeds on, to the detriment of theirpurses as well as of their outlook on life. To them, all the worldbecomes a bargain-counter. 

A few years ago in a city which shall be nameless, two women looked intothe windows of a piano-store. In one, was an ancient instrument marked"1796"; in the other, a beautiful modern piano labeled "1896. " "Why, "said one of the gazers to her companion, indicating the latter, "I'd agood deal rather pay the difference for this one, wouldn't you?"

This is no wild invention of fiction, but a bald fact. So strong had theruling passion become in that feminine heart. 

Upon a friend of mine, the bargain habit has taken so powerful a holdthat almost any sort of a bargain appeals to her. She is the owner of afine parrot, yet not long ago she bought another, which had cost fifteendollars, but was offered to her for ten. Its feathers were bedraggledand grimy, for it had followed its mistress about like a dog; it provedto be so cross that at first it had to be fed from the end of a stick;and though represented as a brilliant talker, its discourse was found tobe limited to "Wow!" and "Rah! Rah!"--but it was a bargain. 

To be sure, she didn't really need two parrots, but had she not savedfive dollars on this one?

The most elusive kind of bargain is that set forth in alluringadvertisements as a small lot, perhaps three, four, or two dozenarticles of a kind, offered at a price unprecedentedly low. 

When you reach the store, you are generally told that they--whateverthey may be--are all gone. The other woman so often arrives earlier thanyou, apparently, that finally you come to doubt their existence. 

Once in a while, if you are eminent among your fellows by some gift ofnature, as is an acquaintance of mine, you may chase down one of thesewill-o'-the-wisps. 

He--yes, it is he, for what woman would own to a number ten foot evenfor the sake of a bargain?--saw a fire sale advertised, with men's shoesoffered at a dollar a pair. He went to the store. Sure enough, a firehad occurred somewhere, but not there. It was sufficiently near, however, for a fire sale. 

A solitary box was brought out, whose edges were scorched, as by a matchpassed over them; within was a pair of number ten shoes. Number tensalone, whether one pair or more, I wot not, represented their giganticfire sale. And I can not say how many men had come only to be confrontedwith tens, before this masculine Cinderella triumphantly filled theircapacious maws with his number ten feet, and gleefully carried off whatmay have been the only bargain in the shop. 

In spite of the suspicions of some doubting Thomases who regard allbargains as snares and delusions, it is certain that many real bargainsare offered among the numerous things advertised as such; but to profitby them, I may add, one must have an aptitude, either natural oracquired, for bargains. 

P. S. --I have just learned that my wicker chair would not have been verycheap at six dollars. 

FABLE

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

 The mountain and the squirrel Had a quarrel, And the former called the latter "Little Prig"; Bun replied, "You are doubtless very big; But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together, To make up a year And a sphere, And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I'm not so large as you, You are not so small as I, And not half so spry. I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I can not carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut. "

THE WOMAN-HATER REFORMED

BY ROY FARRELL GREENE

 He said to sue for maiden's heart And hand required too much of art In framing phrases, making pleas, And swearing vows on bended knees "Till death (or court decree) doth part. "

 One's oh, so apt to get the cart Before the horse, and at the start Break down. It's torture by degrees, He said, to sue!

 Yet when sweet Susan, coy but smart, Safe landed him, and Cupid's dart Went through his breast as through a cheese, And pierced his heart with perfect ease, He--well, I'll not the words impart He said to Sue!

HOW MR. TERRAPIN LOST HIS PLUMAGE AND WHISTLE

BY ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON

"Well, " said Janey, as Aunt 'Phrony finished telling of the loss of Mr. Terrapin's beard, "I saw a terrapin the other day, and it didn't look asthough it ever had had a beard or wattles. I thought it was real ugly. "

"Law, chil', " answered the story-teller, "you kain't tell w'at one'rdese yer creeturs bin in de times pas' jes' by lookin' at 'em now. W'y, de day's bin w'en ol' man Tarr'pin wuz plumb harnsum. He done bin trick'out er mo'n jes' his by'ud an' wattles, I kin tell you. "

"Oh, please _do_ tell us!" cried Janey, and little Kit came and leanedon her knees and looked up into her face and echoed, "'Es, please totell us. "

Thus besieged, Aunt 'Phrony consented to tell how the Terrapin lost hisplumage and his whistle. 

"I done tol' you, " said she. "Tarr'pin wuz onct a harnsum man, an' datde sho'-'nuff trufe, fer he had nice, sof' fedders all over his body an'a fine, big, spreadin' tail, an' his eyes wuz mighty bright an' hisvoice wuz de cle'res' whustle you uver yearn. He wuz a gre't man in demdays, I tell you _dat_, an' his house wuz chock full er all sorts erfine fixin's. He had sof' furs ter set on an' long strings er shells fermoney, an clo'es all imbroider' wid dyed pokkypine quills, an' he hadspears an' bows an' arrers an' deer-hawns, an' I dunno w'at all sidesendat. 

"In dem days de Quail wuz a homely, no-kyount creetur, wid sca'cely anyfedders, an' a shawt, stumpy tail, an' no voice wuf speakin' uv. He wuzpo', too, an' nob'dy tuck much notuss uv him, jes' call him 'dat 'ar ol'Bob White, ' an' he go wannerin' up an' down de kyountry all by hislonesome. 

"One day he come 'long pas' Mistah Tarr'pin's house, an' he peek in thude do', he did, an' w'en he see all de fine doin's, seem lak he kain'ttek his eye 'way f'um de crack. Den he seed Tarr'pin comin' down de roadhome, an' he 'low ter hisse'f, he did, dat dish yer de harnsumes' manw'at he uver seed, an' he be puffickly sassified ef he cu'd look jes'lak dat. He git mo' an' mo' enviable uv 'im an' tuck ter hangin' 'roun'de naberhood, peekin' an' peerin' in at Tarr'pin w'enuver he git dechanct. Las' he say ter hisse'f dat he jes' natchully 'bleeged ter havedem fedders an' tail an' whustle, but he ain' knowin' jes' how ter git'em, so he g'long off ter ax de he'p uv a wise ol' Wolf whar live 'way, 'way up on de mountain an' whar wuz one'r dem cunjerers I done tol' you'bout. Ez he went 'long he wuz fixin' up a tale ter tell Wolf, an' w'enhe git ter de kyave whar de cunjerer live he knock an' Wolf 'spon', 'Come in!' in sech a deep, growly voice dat li'l Quail felt kind erskeery, an' he feel mo' skeery yit w'en he go hoppin' in an' see Wolfsettin' dar wid bones strowed all roun' him, an' showin' dem long, whitetoofs er his ev'y time he open his mouf. But he perch hisse'f up infront er Wolf, an' he say in a voice dat wuz right trim'ly, 'Howdy, Uncle Wolf, howdy! I done comed all de way up yer ter ax yo' he'p, 'kaseI knows dar ain' nair' nu'rr man on dis mountain whar knows half ez muchez w'at you does. Please, suh, tell me w'at ter do. '

"'Bob White, you is a li'l ol' fool, ' sez Wolf, sezee, 'how kin I tellyou w'at ter do w'en you ain' tol' me w'at 'tis you wants?'

"Den Quail he git li'l mo' pearter, an' he try ter mek Wolf feelplease', so he say, 'Laws-a-mussy! Uncle Wolf, I done fergit dat, but Ireckon I do so 'kase you is dat smart I thought you mought know widoutme tellin'. '

"'Drap dat foolishness, ' sez Wolf, sezee, 'an' lemme know w'at you comedatter. ' But all de same he wan't too smart ner too ol' ter feel please'wid de flatt'ry; show me de man whar is; lots uv 'em gits ketched bydat, nuttin' mo' ner less, " and here Aunt 'Phrony cast a scornful glanceat Nancy, who answered it by a toss of the head. 

"Well, den, " she resumed, "Quail start inter de meanness he bin hatchin'up, an' he say, sezee, 'Uncle Wolf, deys a man down dar below whargittin' ter be dangersome. He's rich an' goodlookin', an' a gre't chieftan' a sho'-'nuff fighter, an' he kin do 'bout w'at he please wid tu'rrcreeturs. A man lak dat boun' ter wu'k mischief. Now, suh, ef you sesso, 'pears ter me hit be mighty good notion ter tek 'way his good looks an'dat pleasin' voice whar he uses ter 'suade de people wid, an' gin 'emter some er de quiet an' peace'ble folks whar ain' all de time stickin'derse'fs ter de front an' tryin' ter lead de people. Now yer I is, youbin knowin' me dis good w'ile, an' you knows my numbility an'submissity, an' ef you mek me de one ter do de deed an' den give me defixin's fer my trouble, I gwine feel dat I kain't ve'y well refuge 'em. 'Right dar he putt his haid on one side an' look up at Wolf mighty meekan' innercent. 

"Wolf he say he gwine think 'bout hit, an' he tell Quail ter come backin seven days an' git de arnser. So Quail he go hippitty-hoppin' down demountains, thinkin' he bin mighty smart, an' wunnerin' ef he kin stan'hit ter wait seven mo' days befo' he rob po' ol' Tarr'pin. 

"Wolf he went off higher yit, ter de top er de mountain fer ter ax de'pinion er seven urr wolfs mo' older an' wiser dan w'at he wuz. Deytalked an' dey 'sputed toge'rr fer seven days an' nights. Den Wolf cameback an' Quail made has'e up ter see him ag'in. He say Quail mus' go terTarr'pin's house at midnight an' do jes' lak he tell 'im to, er hit bewusser fer him, stidder better. Quail lissen an' say he gwine do jes'lak he tell 'im, an' wid dat he g'long off. Jes' at de stroke ermidnight, w'en de bats wuz a-flyin' an' de squinch-owls hootin' an' dejacky-my-lanturns trabellin' up an' down, he knock on Mistah Tarr'pin'sdo' an' gin out dat he wuz a trabeller whar comed a fur ways an' wuzpow'ful tired an' hongry. 

"Tarr'pin wuz a kin' man, so he 'vited him in an' gin him sump'n ter eatan' drink an' made him set down on de sof' furs, 'kase he felt saw'y ferany pusson so po' an' ugly ez w'at Quail wuz. Den he say, 'You mus' betired atter yo' journeyin', lemme rub you a w'iles. ' He rub de ugly, rough creetur fer so long time, an' den Quail sez, sezee, 'You sut'n'yis kin', but I ain' wanter tire you out. I is res'ed now, so please, suh, ter lemme rub _you_ a li'l. ' He rub an' he rub Tarr'pin wid onehan', an' all de time he wuz rubbin' hisse'f wid de urr. Dat-a-way herub all de fedders offen Tarr'pin onter his own se'f. Den he rub downTarr'pin's tail 'twel 'twan't nuttin' but a li'l roun', sharp-p'intedstump, an' at de same time he wuz rubbin' his own tail wid tu'rr han'an' puttin' Tarr'pin's fine, spreadin' tail onter his own li'l stump. Hit wuz plumb dark, so't Mistah Tarr'pin ain' see w'at bin done, an'sidesen dat he wuz pow'ful sleepy fum de rubbin'. Den Quail say he'bleeged ter lay down 'kase he mus' git him a early start in de mawnin'. 

"Befo' sun-up he wuz stirrin' an' he say he mus' be gittin' 'long. Tarr'pin go ter de do' wid him an' den Quail say, sezee, 'MistahTarr'pin, I year you has a monst'ous fine whustle, I lak mighty well teryear hit befo' I go. '

"'W'y sut'n'y, ' sez de Tarr'pin, sezee, an' wid dat he whustle long an'loud. Quail lissen at him wid all his years, an' den he say: 'Well, dogmy cats, ef I ain' beat! Yo' voice is de prezack match er mine. 

"'You don't sesso! lemme year you whustle, ' sez Tarr'pin, sezee. 

"'Dat I will, ' sez Quail, 'but lemme go off li'l ways an' show you howfer I kin mek myse'f yearn, ' sezee. He sesso 'kase he'z gittin' mighty'feerd dat Tarr'pin gwine fin' out his fedders wuz gone. So he go 'wayoff inter de bushes an' whustle, an' sho' nuff, 'twuz jes' lak MistahTarr'pin's voice. Den Tarr'pin try ter whustle back, but lo, beholstyou! his voice clean gone, nuttin' lef' but a li'l hiss, an' hit donestay dat-a-way clean ontwel dis day. 'Twuz gittin' daylight, an' he lookdown uv a suddint an' dar he wuz! wid nair' a smidgin' uv a fedder onhis back. He feel so bad he go inter de house an' cry ontwel his eyeswuz so raid dat dey stayed dat-a-way uver sence. 

"Den Mis' Tarr'pin she say, 'Is you a chieft, er is you a ol' ooman?Whyn't you go atter dat man an' gin him a lambastin' an' git back w'atb'long to you?' He feel kind er 'shame', so he pull hisse'f toge'rr an'go out ter see w'at he kin do. 'Fo' long he fin' out dat de cunjerersbin at wu'k, so he know he gotter have he'p, an' he go an' git all tu'rrtarr'pins ter he'p him. Dey went ter de ol' wolfs, de cunjerers, an' deyses: 'We is a slow people an' you is a swif people, but nemmine dat, wedyar's you-all to a race, an' ef you-all wins, den you kin kill we-all;an' ef we-all wins, den we gwine exescoot you. An' ef you ain't dast tertek up dis dyar', den ev'yb'dy gwine know you is cowerds. '

"Co'se de wolfs tucken de dyar' up, an' hit wuz 'greed de race wuz terbe over seben mountain ridges, an' dat hit wuz ter be run 'twix' onewolf an' one tarr'pin, de res' ter look on. 

"Wen de day come, ol' Tarr'pin he tuck an' fix up dis trick; he git sixurr tarr'pins whar look jes' lak him, an' he hide one away in de breshon top uv each er de six mountains, an' he hide hisse'f away on top erde sebent'. Jes' befo' Wolf git ter de top er de fus' mountain, detarr'pin whar wuz hidin' dar crawl outen de bresh an' git ter de topfus' an' gin a whoop, an' went over a li'l ways an' hid in de breshag'in. Wolf think dat mighty cur'ous, but he keep on, an' 'twuz jesso atev'y one, an' at de las' ridge co'se Tarr'pin jes' walk hisse'f outen debresh an' gin a gre't whoop ter let ev'yb'dy know he done won de race. 

"Den de tarr'pins mek up der min's ter kill de wolfs by fire, so dey pen'em all in a big kyave on de mountain an' dey bring bresh an' wood an'pile in front uv hit, a pile mos' ez high ez de mountain, an' den deyset fire to hit, an' de wolfs howl an' de fire hit spit an' sputter an'hiss an' crack an' roar, an' all de creeturs on de mountain set up a bigcry an' run dis-a-way an' dat ter git outen de fire; dey wuz plumb'stracted, an' hit soun' lak all de wil' beas'es in creation wuz turntaloose an' tryin' w'ich kin yell de loudes'. But de tarr'pins jes' drordinter der shells an' sot dar safe an' soun', an' watched de fire burnan' de smoke an' de flame rollin' inter de kyave. 

"De wolfs dey howled an' dey howled _an'_ dey howled, an' de li'l onesdey cried an' dey cried _an'_ dey cried, an' las' de ol' ones felt sobad 'bout de chillen dat dey 'gun ter kill 'em off so's't dey ain'suffer no mo'. Wen de tarr'pins see dat, dey wuz saw'y, an' dey mek upder min's ter let de res' off, so dey turnt 'em aloose f'um de kyave. But lots uv 'em had died in dar, an' dat huccome dar ain' so many wolfsnow ez dey useter be. Some wuz nearer ter de fire dan tu'rrs an' gotswinged, an' some got smoked black, an' dat w'y, ontwel dis day, somewolfs is black an' some gray an' some white, an' some has longer, bushier tails dan tu'rrs. Dey got so hoarse wid all dat cryin' dat dervoices bin nuttin' but a howl uver sence. 

"Quail he year w'at gwine on, an' he tucken hisse'f outen dat kyountryfas' ez his laigs cu'd kyar' him, so Tarr'pin nuver got back de feddersner de whustle, an' ef you goes out inter de fiel' mos' any day you kinsee Quail gwine roun' in de stolen fedders an' year him whustle:

 _'Bob White, do right! do right! Do right! do right, Bob White!'_

jes' ez sassy ez ef _he_ bin doin' right all his days, an' ez ef he binraised wid dat voice stidder stealin' hit way f'um ol' man Tarr'pin. "

BY BAY AND SEA

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

 The little rills of poesie That flow from Helicon Sometimes escape into the sea And rest there all unknown. 

 While others, finding surer guides, Fall into happier ways, And go to swell the rising tides That make the Poet's bays. 

BILL NATIONS

BY BILL ARP

You never knowd Bill, I rekun. Hes gone to Arkensaw, and I don'tknow whether hes ded or alive. He was a good feller, Bill was, asmost all whisky drinkers are. Me and him both used to love itpowerful--especially Bill. We soaked it when we could git it, and whenwe coudent we hankered after it amazingly. I must tell you a littleantidote on Bill, tho I dident start to tell you about that. 

We started on a little jurney one day in June, and took along a bottleof "old rye, " and there was so many springs and wells on the road thatit was mighty nigh gone before dinner. We took our snack, and Billdrained the last drop, for he said we would soon git to Joe Paxton's, and that Joe always kept some. 

Shore enuff Joe dident have a drop, and we concluded, as we was mightydry, to go on to Jim Alford's, and stay all night. We knew that Jim hadit, for he always had it. So we whipped up, and the old Bay had totravel, for I tell you when a man wants whiskey everything has to bendto the gittin' of it. Shore enuff Jim had some. He was mity glad to seeus, and he knowd what we wanted, for he knowd how it was hisself. So hebrought out an old-fashend glass decanter, and a shugar bowl, and atumbler, and a spoon, and says he, "Now, boys, jest wait a minit tillyou git rested sorter, for it ain't good to take whiskey on a hotstomack. I've jest been readin' a piece in Grady's newspaper about afrog--the darndest frog that perhaps ever come from a tadpole. It wasfound up in Kanetucky, and is as big as a peck measure. Bill, do youtake this paper and read it aloud to us. I'm a poor hand to read, and Iwant to hear it. I'll be hanged if it ain't the darndest frog I everhearn of. " He laid the paper on my knees, and I begun to read, thinkin'it was a little short anticdote, but as I turned the paper over I foundit was mighty nigh a column. I took a side glance at Bill, and I saw thelittle dry twitches a jumpin' about on his countenance. He was mightynigh dead for a drink. I warent so bad off myself, and I was about halfmad with him for drainin' the bottle before dinner; so I just read alongslow, and stopped two or three times to clear my throat just to consumetime. Pretty soon Bill got up and commenced walkin' about, and he wouldlook at the dekanter like he would give his daylights to choke the cornjuice out of it. I read along slowly. Old Alford was a listnin' andchawin' his tobakker and spittin' out of the door. Bill come up to me, his face red and twitchin', and leanin' over my shoulder he seed thelength of the story, and I will never forgit his pitiful tone as hewhispered, "Skip some, Bill, for heaven's sake skip some. "

My heart relented, and I did skip some, and hurried through, and we alljined in a drink; but I'll never forgit how Bill looked when hewhispered to me to "skip some, Bill, skip some. " I've got over the likeof that, boys, and I hope Bill has, too, but I don't know. I wish in mysoul that everybody had quit it, for you may talk about slavery, andpenitentiary, and chain-gangs, and the Yankees, and General Grant, and adevil of a wife, but whiskey is the worst master that ever a man hadover him. I know how it is myself. 

But there is one good thing about drinkin'. I almost wish every man wasa reformed drunkard. No man who hasn't drank liker knows what a luxurycold water is. I have got up in the night in cold wether after I hadbeen spreein' around, and gone to the well burnin' up with thirst, feeling like the gallows, and the grave, and the infernal regions wastoo good for me, and when I took up the bucket in my hands, and with myelbows a tremblin' like I had the shakin' ager, put the water to mylips; it was the most delicious, satisfyin', luxurius draft that everwent down my throat. I have stood there and drank and drank until Icould drink no more, and gone back to bed thankin' God for the pure, innocent, and coolin' beverig, and cursin' myself from my inmost soulfor ever touchin' the accursed whisky. In my torture of mind and body Ihave made vows and promises, and broken 'em within a day. But if youwant to know the luxury of cold water, get drunk, and keep at it untilyou get on fire, and then try a bucket full with your shirt on at thewell in the middle of the night. You won't want a gourd full--you'llfeel like the bucket ain't big enuf, and when you begin to drink anearthquake couldn't stop you. My fathers, how good it was! I know ahundred men who will swear to the truth of what I say: but you see its athing they don't like to talk about. It's too humiliatin'. 

But I dident start to talk about drinkin'. In fact, I've forgot what Idid start to tell you. My mind is sorter addled now a days, anyhow, andI hav to jes let my tawkin' tumble out permiskuous. I'll take anotherwhet at it afore long, and fill up the gaps. 

THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET

BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE

(This paper was first published in the _Galaxy_, in 1866. )

I see that an old chum of mine is publishing bits of confidentialConfederate History in Harper's Magazine. It would seem to be time, then, for the pivots to be disclosed on which some of the wheelwork ofthe last six years has been moving. The science of history, as Iunderstand it, depends on the timely disclosure of such pivots, whichare apt to be kept out of view while things are moving. 

I was in the Civil Service at Richmond. Why I was there, or what I did, is nobody's affair. And I do not in this paper propose to tell how ithappened that I was in New York in October, 1864, on confidentialbusiness. Enough that I was there, and that it was honest business. Thatbusiness done, as far as it could be with the resources intrusted to me, I prepared to return home. And thereby hangs this tale, and, as itproved, the fate of the Confederacy. 

For, of course, I wanted to take presents home to my family. Very littlequestion was there what these presents should be, --for I had no boys norbrothers. The women of the Confederacy had one want, which overtoppedall others. They could make coffee out of beans; pins they had fromColumbus; straw hats they braided quite well with their own fair hands;snuff we could get better than you could in "the old concern. " But wehad no hoop-skirts, --skeletons, we used to call them. No ingenuity hadmade them. No bounties had forced them. The Bat, the Greyhound, theDeer, the Flora, the J. C. Cobb, the Varuna, and the Fore-and-Aft alltook in cargoes of them for us in England. But the Bat and the Deer andthe Flora were seized by the blockaders, the J. C. Cobb sunk at sea, theFore-and-Aft and the Greyhound were set fire to by their own crews, andthe Varuna (our Varuna) was never heard of. Then the State of Arkansasoffered sixteen townships of swamp land to the first manufacturer whowould exhibit five gross of a home-manufactured article. But no one evercompeted. The first attempts, indeed, were put to an end, when Schofieldcrossed the Blue Lick, and destroyed the dams on Yellow Branch. Theconsequence was, that people's crinolines collapsed faster than theConfederacy did, of which that brute of a Grierson said there was neveranything of it but the outside. 

Of course, then, I put in the bottom of my new large trunk in New York, not a "duplex elliptic, " for none were then made, but a "Belmonte, " ofthirty springs, for my wife. I bought, for her more common wear, a good"Belle-Fontaine. " For Sarah and Susy each I got two "Dumb-Belles. " ForAunt Eunice and Aunt Clara, maiden sisters of my wife, who lived with usafter Winchester fell the fourth time, I got the "Scotch Harebell, " twoof each. For my own mother I got one "Belle of the Prairies" and one"Invisible Combination Gossamer. " I did not forget good old Mamma Chloeand Mamma Jane. For them I got substantial cages, without names. Withthese, tied in the shapes of figure eights in the bottom of my trunk, asI said, I put in an assorted cargo of dry-goods above, and, favored by apass, and Major Mulford's courtesy on the flag-of-truce boat, I arrivedsafely at Richmond before the autumn closed. 

I was received at home with rapture. But when, the next morning, Iopened my stores, this became rapture doubly enraptured. Words can nottell the silent delight with which old and young, black and white, surveyed these fairy-like structures, yet unbroken and unmended. 

Perennial summer reigned that autumn day in that reunited family. Itreigned the next day, and the next. It would have reigned till now ifthe Belmontes and the other things would last as long as theadvertisements declare; and, what is more, the Confederacy would havereigned till now, President Davis and General Lee! but for that greatmisery, which all families understand, which culminated in our greatmisfortune. 

I was up in the cedar closet one day, looking for an old parade cap ofmine, which, I thought, though it was my third best, might look betterthan my second best, which I had worn ever since my best was lost at theSeven Pines. I say I was standing on the lower shelf of the cedarcloset, when, as I stepped along in the darkness, my right foot caughtin a bit of wire, my left did not give way in time, and I fell, with asmall wooden hat-box in my hand, full on the floor. The corner of thehat-box struck me just below the second frontal sinus, and I faintedaway. 

When I came to myself I was in the blue chamber; I had vinegar on abrown paper on my forehead; the room was dark, and I found mothersitting by me, glad enough indeed to hear my voice, and to know that Iknew her. It was some time before I fully understood what had happened. Then she brought me a cup of tea, and I, quite refreshed, said I must goto the office. 

"Office, my child!" said she. "Your leg is broken above the ankle; youwill not move these six weeks. Where do you suppose you are?"

Till then I had no notion that it was five minutes since I went intothe closet. When she told me the time, five in the afternoon, I groanedin the lowest depths. For, in my breast pocket in that innocent coat, which I could now see lying on the window-seat, were the duplicatedespatches to Mr. Mason, for which, late the night before, I had got theSecretary's signature. They were to go at ten that morning toWilmington, by the Navy Department's special messenger. I had taken themto insure care and certainty. I had worked on them till midnight, andthey had not been signed till near one o'clock. Heavens and earth, andhere it was five o'clock! The man must be half-way to Wilmington by thistime. I sent the doctor for Lafarge, my clerk. Lafarge did his prettiestin rushing to the telegraph. But no! A freshet on the Chowan River, or araid by Foster, or something, or nothing, had smashed the telegraph wirefor that night. And before that despatch ever reached Wilmington thenavy agent was in the offing in the Sea Maid. 

"But perhaps the duplicate got through?" No, breathless reader, theduplicate did not get through. The duplicate was taken by Faucon, in theIno. I saw it last week in Dr. Lieber's hands, in Washington. Well, allI know is, that if the duplicate had got through, the Confederategovernment would have had in March a chance at eighty-three thousand twohundred and eleven muskets, which, as it was, never left Belgium. Somuch for my treading into that blessed piece of wire on the shelf of thecedar closet, up stairs. 

"What was the bit of wire?"

Well, it was not telegraph wire. If it had been, it would have brokenwhen it was not wanted to. Don't you know what it was? Go up in your owncedar closet, and step about in the dark, and see what brings up roundyour ankles. Julia, poor child, cried her eyes out about it. When I gotwell enough to sit up, and as soon as I could talk and plan with her, she brought down seven of these old things, antiquated Belmontes andSimplex Elliptics, and horrors without a name, and she made a pile ofthem in the bedroom, and asked me in the most penitent way what sheshould do with them. 

"You can't burn them, " said she; "fire won't touch them. If you burythem in the garden, they come up at the second raking. If you give themto the servants, they say, 'Thank-e, missus, ' and throw them in the backpassage. If you give them to the poor, they throw them into the streetin front, and do not say, 'Thank-e. ' Sarah sent seventeen over to thesword factory, and the foreman swore at the boy, and told him he wouldflog him within an inch of his life if he brought any more of his saucethere; and so--and so, " sobbed the poor child, "I just rolled up thesewretched things, and laid them in the cedar closet, hoping, you know, that some day the government would want something, and would advertisefor them. You know what a good thing I made out of the bottle corks. "

In fact, she had sold our bottle corks for four thousand two hundred andsixteen dollars of the first issue. We afterward bought two umbrellasand a cork-screw with the money. 

Well, I did not scold Julia. It was certainly no fault of hers that Iwas walking on the lower shelf of her cedar closet. I told her to make aparcel of the things, and the first time we went to drive I hove thewhole shapeless heap into the river, without saying mass for them. 

But let no man think, or no woman, that this was the end of troubles. AsI look back on that winter, and on the spring of 1865 (I do not mean thesteel spring), it seems to me only the beginning. I got out on crutchesat last; I had the office transferred to my house, so that Lafarge andHepburn could work there nights, and communicate with me when I couldnot go out; but mornings I hobbled up to the Department, and sat withthe Chief, and took his orders. Ah me! shall I soon forget that dampwinter morning, when we all had such hope at the office. One or two ofthe army fellows looked in at the window as they ran by, and we knewthat they felt well; and though I would not ask Old Wick, as we hadnicknamed the Chief, what was in the wind, I knew the time had come, andthat the lion meant to break the net this time. I made an excuse to gohome earlier than usual; rode down to the house in the Major'sambulance, I remember; and hopped in, to surprise Julia with the goodnews, only to find that the whole house was in that quiet uproar whichshows that something bad has happened of a sudden. 

"What is it, Chloe?" said I, as the old wench rushed by me with a bucketof water. 

"Poor Mr. George, I 'fraid he's dead, sah!"

And there he really was, --dear handsome, bright George Schaff, --thedelight of all the nicest girls of Richmond; he lay there on AuntEunice's bed on the ground floor, where they had brought him in. He wasnot dead, --and he did not die. He is making cotton in Texas now. But helooked mighty near it then. "The deep cut in his head" was the worst Ithen had ever seen, and the blow confused everything. When McGregor gotround, he said it was not hopeless; but we were all turned out of theroom, and with one thing and another he got the boy out of the swoon, and somehow it proved his head was not broken. 

No, but poor George swears to this day it were better it had been, if itcould only have been broken the right way and on the right field. Forthat evening we heard that everything had gone wrong in the surprise. There we had been waiting for one of those early fogs, and at last thefog had come. And Jubal Early had, that morning, pushed out every man hehad, that could stand; and they lay hid for three mortal hours, within Idon't know how near the picket line at Fort Powhatan, only waiting forthe shot which John Streight's party were to fire at Wilson's Wharf, assoon as somebody on our left centre advanced in force on the enemy'sline above Turkey Island stretching across to Nansemond. I am not in theWar Department, and I forget whether he was to advance _en barbette_ orby _échelon_ of infantry. But he was to advance somehow, and he knewhow; and when he advanced, you see, that other man lower down was torush in, and as soon as Early heard him he was to surprise Powhatan, yousee; and then, if you have understood me, Grant and Butler and the wholerig of them would have been cut off from their supplies, would have hadto fight a battle for which they were not prepared, with their rightmade into a new left, and their old left unexpectedly advanced at anoblique angle from their centre, and would not that have been the end ofthem?

Well, that never happened. And the reason it never happened was, thatpoor George Schaff, with the last fatal order for this man whose name Iforget (the same who was afterward killed the day before High Bridge), undertook to save time by cutting across behind my house, from Franklinto Green Streets. You know how much time he saved, --they waited all dayfor that order. George told me afterward that the last thing heremembered was kissing his hand to Julia, who sat at her bedroom window. He said he thought she might be the last woman he ever saw this side ofheaven. Just after that, it must have been, his horse--that whiteMessenger colt old Williams bred--went over like a log, and poor Georgewas pitched fifteen feet head-foremost against a stake there was in thatlot. Julia saw the whole. She rushed out with all the women, and hadjust brought him in when I got home. And that was the reason that thegreat promised combination of December, 1864, never came off at all. 

I walked out in the lot, after McGregor turned me out of the chamber, tosee what they had done with the horse. There he lay, as dead as oldMessenger himself. His neck was broken. And do you think I looked to seewhat had tripped him? I supposed it was one of the boys' bandy holes. Itwas no such thing. The poor wretch had tangled his hind legs in one ofthose infernal hoop-wires that Chloe had thrown out in the piece when Igave her her new ones. Though I did not know it then, those fatal scrapsof rusty steel had broken the neck that day of Robert Lee's army. 

That time I made a row about it. I felt too badly to go into a passion. But before the women went to bed, --they were all in the sitting-roomtogether, --I talked to them like a father. I did not swear. I had gotover that for a while, in that six weeks on my back. But I did say theold wires were infernal things, and that the house and premises must bemade rid of them. The aunts laughed, --though I was so serious, --andtipped a wink to the girls. The girls wanted to laugh, but were afraidto. And then it came out that the aunts had sold their old hoops, tiedas tight as they could tie them, in a great mass of rags. They had madea fortune by the sale, --I am sorry to say it was in other rags, but therags they got were new instead of old, --it was a real Aladdin bargain. The new rags had blue backs, and were numbered, some as high as fiftydollars. The rag-man had been in a hurry, and had not known what madethe things so heavy. I frowned at the swindle, but they said all wasfair with a peddler, --and I own I was glad the things were well out ofRichmond. But when I said I thought it was a mean trick, Lizzie andSarah looked demure, and asked what in the world I would have them dowith the old things. Did I expect them to walk down to the bridgethemselves with great parcels to throw into the river, as I had done byJulia's? Of course it ended, as such things always do, by my taking thework on my own shoulders. I told them to tie up all they had in as smalla parcel as they could, and bring them to me. 

Accordingly, the next day, I found a handsome brown paper parcel, not sovery large, considering, and strangely square, considering, which theminxes had put together and left on my office table. They had a greatfrolic over it. They had not spared red tape nor red wax. Very officialit looked, indeed, and on the left-hand corner, in Sarah's boldest andmost contorted hand, was written, "Secret service. " We had a great laughover their success. And, indeed, I should have taken it with me the nexttime I went down to the Tredegar, but that I happened to dine oneevening with young Norton of our gallant little navy, and a very curiousthing he told us. 

We were talking about the disappointment of the combined land attack. Idid not tell what upset poor Schaff's horse; indeed, I do not thinkthose navy men knew the details of the disappointment. O'Brien had toldme, in confidence, what I have written down probably for the first timenow. But we were speaking, in a general way, of the disappointment. Norton finished his cigar rather thoughtfully, and then said: "Well, fellows, it is not worth while to put in the newspapers, but what doyou suppose upset our grand naval attack, the day the Yankee gunboatsskittled down the river so handsomely?"

"Why, " said Allen, who is Norton's best-beloved friend, "they say thatyou ran away from them as fast as they did from you. "

"Do they?" said Norton, grimly. "If you say that, I'll break your headfor you. Seriously, men, " continued he, "that was a most extraordinarything. You know I was on the Ram. But why she stopped when she stopped Iknew as little as this wineglass does; and Callender himself knew nomore than I. We had not been hit. We were all right as a trivet for allwe knew, when, skree! she began blowing off steam, and we stopped dead, and began to drift down under those batteries. Callender had totelegraph to the little Mosquito, or whatever Walter called his boat, and the spunky little thing ran down and got us out of the scrape. Walter did it right well; if he had had a monitor under him he could nothave done better. Of course we all rushed to the engine-room. What inthunder were they at there? All they knew was they could get no waterinto her boiler. 

"Now, fellows, this is the end of the story. As soon as the boilerscooled off they worked all right on those supply pumps. May I be hangedif they had not sucked in, somehow, a long string of yarn, and cloth, and, if you will believe me, a wire of some woman's crinoline. And thatFrench folly of a sham Empress cut short that day the victory of theConfederate navy, and old Davis himself can't tell when we shall havesuch a chance again!"

Some of the men thought Norton lied. But I never was with him when hedid not tell the truth. I did not mention, however, what I had throwninto the water the last time I had gone over to Manchester. And Ichanged my mind about Sarah's "secret-service" parcel. It remained onmy table. 

That was the last dinner our old club had at the Spotswood, I believe. The spring came on, and the plot thickened. We did our work in theoffice as well as we could; I can speak for mine, and if otherpeople--but no matter for that! The third of April came, and the fire, and the right wing of Grant's army. I remember I was glad then that Ihad moved the office down to the house, for we were out of the waythere. Everybody had run away from the Department; and so, when thepowers that be took possession, my little sub-bureau was unmolested forsome days. I improved those days as well as I could, --burning carefullywhat was to be burned, and hiding carefully what was to be hidden. Onething that happened then belongs to this story. As I was at work on theprivate bureau, --it was really a bureau, as it happened, one I had madeAunt Eunice give up when I broke my leg, --I came, to my horror, on aneat parcel of coast-survey maps of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. Theywere not the same Maury stole when he left the National Observatory, butthey were like them. Now I was perfectly sure that on that fatal Sundayof the flight I had sent Lafarge for these, that the President might usethem, if necessary, in his escape. When I found them, I hopped out andcalled for Julia, and asked her if she did not remember his coming forthem. "Certainly, " she said, "it was the first I knew of the danger. Lafarge came, asked for the key of the office, told me all was up, walked in, and in a moment was gone. "

And here, on the file of April 3d, was Fafarge's line to me:

"I got the secret-service parcel myself, and have put it in thePresident's own hands. I marked it, 'Gulf coast, ' as you bade me. "

What could Lafarge have given to the President? Not the soundings ofHatteras Bar. Not the working-drawings of the first monitor. I had allthese under my hand. Could it be, --"Julia, what did we do with thatstuff of Sarah's that she marked _secret service_?"

As I live, we had sent the girls' old hoops to the President in hisflight. 

And when the next day we read how he used them, and how Pritchardarrested him, we thought if he had only had the right parcel he wouldhave found the way to Florida. 

That is really the end of this memoir. But I should not have written it, but for something that happened just now on the piazza. You must know, some of us wrecks are up here at the Berkeley baths. My uncle has aplace near here. Here came to-day John Sisson, whom I have not seensince Memminger ran and took the clerks with him. Here we had before, both the Richards brothers, the great paper men, you know, who startedthe Edgerly Works in Prince George's County, just after the war began. After dinner, Sisson and they met on the piazza. Queerly enough, theyhad never seen each other before, though they had used reams ofRichards' paper in correspondence with each other, and the treasury hadused tons of it in the printing of bonds and bank-bills. Of course weall fell to talking of old times, --old they seem now, though it is not ayear ago. "Richards, " said Sisson at last, "what became of that lastorder of ours for water-lined, pure linen government calendered paper of_sureté_? We never got it, and I never knew why. "

"Did you think Kilpatrick got it?" said Richards, rather gruffly. 

"None of your chaff, Richards. Just tell where the paper went, for inthe loss of that lot of paper, as it proved, the bottom dropped out ofthe Treasury tub. On that paper was to have been printed our new issueof ten per cent. , convertible, you know, and secured on that up-countrycotton, which Kirby Smith had above the Big Raft. I had the printersready for near a month waiting for that paper. The plates were reallyvery handsome. I'll show you a proof when we go up stairs. Wholly newthey were, made by some Frenchman we got, who had worked for the Bank ofFrance. I was so anxious to have the thing well done, that I waitedthree weeks for that paper, and, by Jove, I waited just too long. Wenever got one of the bonds off, and that was why we had no money inMarch. "

Richards threw his cigar away. I will not say he swore between histeeth, but he twirled his chair round, brought it down on all fours, both his elbows on his knees and his chin in both hands. 

"Mr. Sisson, " said he, "if the Confederacy had lived, I would have diedbefore I ever told what became of that order of yours. But now I have nosecrets, I believe, and I care for nothing. I do not know now how ithappened. We knew it was an extra nice job. And we had it on an elegantlittle new French Fourdrinier, which cost us more than we shall everpay. The pretty thing ran like oil the day before. That day, I thoughtall the devils were in it. The more power we put on the more the rollersscreamed; and the less we put on, the more sulkily the jade stopped. Itried it myself every way; back current, I tried; forward current; highfeed; low feed; I tried it on old stock, I tried it on new; and, Mr. Sisson, I would have made better paper in a coffee-mill! We drained offevery drop of water. We washed the tubs free from size. Then mybrother, there, worked all night with the machinists, taking down theframe and the rollers. You would not believe it, sir, but that littlebit of wire, "--and he took out of his pocket a piece of this hatefulsteel, which poor I knew so well by this time, --"that little bit of wirehad passed in from some hoop-skirt, passed the pickers, passed thescreens, through all the troughs, up and down through what we call thelacerators, and had got itself wrought in, where, if you know aFourdrinier machine, you may have noticed a brass ring riveted to thecross-bar, and there this cursed little knife--for you see it was aknife by that time--had been cutting to pieces the endless wire webevery time the machine was started. You lost your bonds, Mr. Sisson, because some Yankee woman cheated one of my rag-men. "

On that story I came up stairs. Poor Aunt Eunice! She was the reason Igot no salary on the 1st of April. I thought I would warn other women bywriting down the story. 

That fatal present of mine, in those harmless hourglass parcels, was theruin of the Confederate navy, army, ordinance, and treasury; and it ledto the capture of the poor President, too. 

But, Heaven be praised, no one shall say that my office did not do itsduty!

THE LOST INVENTOR[4]

BY WALLACE IRWIN

 Patriotic fellow-citizens, and did you ever note How we honor Mr. Fulton, who devised the choo-choo boat? How we glorify our Edison, who made the world to go By the bizzy-whizzy magic of the little dynamo? Yet no spirit-thrilling tribute has been ever heard or seen For the fellow who invented our Political Machine. 

 Sure a fine, inventive genius, who has labored long and hard, Till success has crowned his research, should receive a just reward. The Machine's a great invention, that's continually clear, Out of nothing but corruption making millions every year-- Out of muck and filth of cities making dollars neat and clean-- Where's the fellow who invented the Political Machine?

 Hail the complex mechanism, full of cranks and wires and wheels, Fed by graft and loot and patronage, as noiselessly it reels. Press the button, pull the lever, clickety-click, and set the vogue For the latest thing in statesmen or the newest kind of rogue. Who's the man behind the throttle? Who's the Engineer unseen? "Ask me nothin'! Ask me nothin'!" clicks that wizard, the Machine. 

[Footnote 4: From "At the Sign of the Dollar, " by Wallace Irwin. Copyright, 1905, by Fox, Duffield & Co. ]

OMAR IN THE KLONDYKE

BY HOWARD V. SUTHERLAND

 "This Omar seems a decent chap, " said Flapjack Dick one night, When he had read my copy through and then blown out the light. "I ain't much stuck on poetry, because I runs to news, But I appreciates a man that loves his glass of booze. 

 "And Omar here likes a good red wine, although he's pretty mum; On liquors, which is better yet, like whisky, gin, or rum; Perhaps his missus won't allow him things like that to touch, And he doesn't like to own it. Well, I don't blame Omar much. 

 "Then I likes a man what's partial to the ladies, young or old, And Omar seems to seek 'em much as me and you seek gold; I only hope for his sake that his wife don't learn his game Or she'll put a chain on Omar, and that would be a shame. 

 "His language is some florid, but I guess it is the style Of them writer chaps that studies and burns the midnight ile; He tells us he's no chicken; so I guess he knows what's best, And can hold his own with Shakespeare, Waukeen Miller, and the rest. 

 "But I hope he ain't a thinkin' of a trip to this yere camp, For our dancin' girls is ancient, and our liquor's somewhat damp By doctorin' with water, and we ain't got wine at all, Though I had a drop of porter--but that was back last fall. 

 "And he mightn't like our manners, and he mightn't like the smell Which is half the charm of Dawson; and he mightn't live to tell Of the acres of wild roses that grows on every street; And he mightn't like the winter, or he mightn't like the heat. 

 "So I guess it's best for Omar for to stay right where he is, And gallivant with Tottie, or with Flossie, or with Liz; And fill himself with claret, and, although it ain't like beer, I wish he'd send a bottle--just one bottle--to us here. "

THE HAPPY LAND[5]

BY FRANK ROE BATCHELDER

 In the Land of Steady Incomes, Where they get their ten per cent. , There is never need to worry As to how to pay the rent; There they never dodge the grocer, And in winter never freeze, In the Land of Steady Incomes, Where the dollars grow on trees. 

 In the Land of Steady Incomes, Where the cash is ready-made, No one ever thinks of going To the almoner for aid, For the coal-bin's never empty, And the Gray Wolf dare not lurk In the Land of Steady Incomes, Where the check-books do the work. 

 In the Land of Steady Incomes, Where the watches all have fobs, You will see no haggard fathers Pleading, in despair, for jobs; You will hear no hungry children Crying, while their mothers pray, In the Land of Steady Incomes, Where there's dinner every day. 

 In the Land of Steady Incomes, It is easy to forget All about that far-off country Where are hunger, cold, and debt; And the woes of other people It is easy to dismiss In the Land of Steady Incomes, Where inheritance is bliss. 

[Footnote 5: Lippincott's Magazine. ]

ASSAULT AND BATTERY

BY JOSEPH G. BALDWIN

A trial came off, not precisely in our bailiwick, but in theneighborhood, of great comic interest. It was really a case of a gooddeal of aggravation, and the defendants, fearing the result, employedfour of the ablest lawyers practicing at the M. Bar to defend them. Theoffense charged was only assault and battery; but the evidence showed aconspiracy to inflict great violence on the person of the prosecutor, who had done nothing to provoke it, and that the attempt to effect itwas followed by severe injury to him. The prosecutor was an original. Hehad been an old-field school-master, and was as conceited and pedantic afellow as could be found in a summer's day, even in that profession. Itwas thought the policy of the defense to make as light of the case aspossible, and to cast as much ridicule on the affair as they could. J. E. And W. M. Led the defense, and, although the talents of the former wererather adapted to grave discussion than pleasantry, he agreed to doffhis heavy armor for the lighter weapons of wit and ridicule. M. Was inhis element. He was at all times and on all occasions at home when funwas to be raised: the difficulty with him was rather to restrain than tocreate mirth and laughter. The case was called and put to the jury. Thewitness, one Burwell Shines, was called for the prosecution. A broadgrin was upon the faces of the counsel for the defense as he cameforward. It was increased when the clerk said, "_Burrell_ Shines, cometo the book;" and the witness, with deliberate emphasis, remarked, "MyChristian name is not _Burrell_, but _Burwell_, though I am vulgarlydenominated by the former epithet. " "Well, " said the clerk, "Bur-_well_Shines, come to the book, and be sworn. " He _was_ sworn, and directed totake the stand. He was a picture!

He was dressed with care. His toilet was elaborate and befitting themagnitude and dignity of the occasion, the part he was to fill, and thehigh presence into which he had come. He was evidently favorablyimpressed with his own personal pulchritude; yet with an air of modestdeprecation, as if he said by his manner, "After all, what _is_ beauty, that man should be proud of it; and what are fine clothes, that thewearers should put themselves above the unfortunate mortals who havethem not?"

He advanced with deliberate gravity to the stand. There he stood, hislarge bell-crowned hat, with nankeen-colored nap an inch long, in hishand; which hat he carefully handed over the bar to the clerk to holduntil he should get through his testimony. He wore a bluesingle-breasted coat with new brass buttons, a vest of bluish calico, nankeen pants that struggled to make both ends meet, but failed, by afew inches, in the legs, yet made up for it by fitting a little betterthan the skin everywhere else. His head stood upon a shirt collar thatheld it up by the ears, and a cravat, something smaller than atable-cloth, bandaged his throat; his face was narrow, long, and grave, with an indescribable air of ponderous wisdom, which, as Fox said ofThurlow, "proved him _necessarily_ a hypocrite; as it was _impossible_for _any_ man to be as wise as _he_ looked. " Gravity and decorum markedevery lineament of his countenance and every line of his body. All thewit of Hudibras could not have moved a muscle of his face. Hisconscience would have smitten him for a laugh almost as soon as for anoath. His hair was roached up, and stood as erect and upright as hisbody; and his voice was slow, deep, in "linked sweetness long drawnout, " and modulated according to the camp-meeting standard of elocution. Three such men at a country frolic would have turned an old Virginiareel into a dead march. He was one of Carlyle's earnest men. Cromwellwould have made him ensign of the Ironsides, and _ex-officio_ chaplainat first sight. He took out his pocket-handkerchief, slowly unfolded itfrom the shape in which it came from the washerwoman's, and awaited theinterrogation. As he waited, he spat on the floor, and nicely wiped itout with his foot. The solicitor told him to tell about the difficultyin hand. He gazed around on the court, then on the bar, then on thejury, then on the crowd, addressing each respectively as he turned: "Mayit please your honor, gentlemen of the bar, gentlemen of the jury, audience: Before proceeding to give my testimonial observations, I mustpremise that I am a member of the Methodist Episcopal, otherwise calledWesleyan, persuasion of Christian individuals. One bright Sabbathmorning in May, the 15th day of the month, the past year, while thebirds were singing their matutinal songs from the trees, I sallied forthfrom the dormitory of my seminary to enjoy the reflections so wellsuited to that auspicious occasion. I had not proceeded far before myears were accosted with certain Bacchanalian sounds of revelry, whichproceeded from one of those haunts of vicious depravity located at thecross-roads, near the place of my boyhood, and fashionably denominated adoggery. No sooner had I passed beyond the precincts of this diabolicalrendezvous of rioting debauchees, than I heard behind me the sounds ofapproaching footsteps, as if in pursuit. Having heard previously sundrymenaces, which had been made by these preposterous and incarnadineindividuals of hell, now on trial in prospect of condign punishment, fulminated against the longer continuance of my corporeal salubrity, forno better reason than that I reprobated their criminal orgies, and notwishing my reflections to be disturbed, I hurried my steps with agradual accelerated motion. Hearing, however, their continued advance, and the repeated shoutings, articulating the murderous accents, 'Killhim! Kill Shadbelly, with his praying clothes on!' (which was a profanedesignation of myself and my religious profession), and casting my headover my left shoulder in a manner somehow reluctantly, thus, (throwinghis head to one side), and perceiving their near approximation, Iaugmented my speed into what might be denominated a gentle slope, andsubsequently augmented the same into a species of dog-trot. But allwould not do. Gentlemen, the destroyer came. As I reached the fence, andwas about propelling my body over the same, felicitating myself on myprospect of escape from my remorseless pursuers, they arrived, and JamesWilliam Jones, called by nickname, Buck Jones, that red-headed characternow at the bar of this honorable court, seized a fence rail, grasped itin both hands, and, standing on tip-toe, hurled the same, with mightyemphasis, against my cerebellum, which blow felled me to the earth. Straightway, like ignoble curs upon a disabled lion, these banditruffians and incarnadine assassins leaped upon me, some pelting, somebruising, some gouging, --'everything by turns, and nothing long, ' as thepoet hath it; and one of them, --which one unknown to me, having no eyesbehind, --inflicted with his teeth a grievous wound upon my person;where, I need not specify. At length, when thus prostrate on the ground, one of those bright ideas, common to minds of men of genius, struck me. I forthwith sprang to my feet, drew forth my cutto, circulated the samewith much vivacity among their several and respective corporeal systems, and every time I circulated the same I felt their iron grasp relax. Ascowardly recreants, even to their own guilty friendships, two of thesemiscreants, though but slightly perforated by my cutto, fled, leavingthe other two, whom I had disabled by the vigor and energy of myincisions, prostrate and in my power. These lustily called for quarter, shouting out 'Enough!' or, in their barbarous dialect, being as corruptin language as in morals, 'Nuff!' which quarter I magnanimously extendedthem, as unworthy of my farther vengeance, and fit only as subject ofpenal infliction at the hands of the offended laws of their country, towhich laws I do now consign them, hoping such mercy for them as theircrimes will permit; which, in my judgment (having read the code) is notmuch. This is my statement on oath, fully and truly, nothing extenuatingand naught setting down in malice; and if I have omitted anything, inform or substance, I stand ready to supply the omission; and if I havestated anything amiss, I will cheerfully correct the same, limiting theaverment, with appropriate modifications, provisions, and restrictions. The learned counsel may now proceed more particularly to interrogate meof and respecting the premises. "

After this oration, Burwell wiped the perspiration from his brow, andthe counsel for the state took him. Few questions were asked him, however, by that official, he confining himself to a recapitulation insimple terms, of what the witness had declared, and procuring Burwell'sassent to his translation. Long and searching was the cross-examinationby the defendant's counsel; but it elicited nothing favorable to thedefense, and nothing shaking, but much to confirm, Burwell's statement. 

After some other evidence, the examination closed, and the argument tothe jury commenced. The solicitor very briefly adverted to the leadingfacts, deprecated any attempt to turn the case into ridicule, admittedthat the witness was a man of eccentricity and pedantry, but harmlessand inoffensive; a man, evidently, of conscientiousness andrespectability; that he had shown himself to be a peaceable man, butwhen occasion demanded, a brave man; that there was a conspiracy toassassinate him upon no cause except an independence, which washonorable to him, and an attempt to execute the purpose, in pursuance ofprevious threats, and severe injury by several confederates on a singleperson, and this on the Sabbath, and when he was seeking to avoid them. 

W. M. Rose to reply. All Screamersville turned out to hear him. Williamwas a great favorite, --the most popular speaker in the country, --had theversatility of a mocking-bird, an aptitude for burlesque that would havegiven him celebrity as a dramatist, and a power of acting that wouldhave made his fortune on the boards of a theater. A rich treat wasexpected, but it didn't come. The witness had taken all the wind out ofWilliam's sails. He had rendered burlesque impossible. The thing asacted was more ludicrous than it could be as described. The crowd hadlaughed themselves hoarse already; and even M. 's comic powers seemed, and were felt by himself, to be humble imitations of a greater master. For once in his life M. Dragged his subject heavily along. The matterbegan to grow serious, --fun failed to come when M. Called it up. M. Closed between a lame argument, a timid deprecation, and some onlytolerable humor. He was followed by E. , in a discursive, argumentative, sarcastic, drag-net sort of speech, which did all that could be donefor the defense. The solicitor briefly closed, seriously and confidentlyconfining himself to a repetition of the matters first insisted, andanswering some of the points of the counsel. 

It was an ominous fact that a juror, before the jury retired, underleave of the court, recalled a witness for the purpose of putting aquestion to him: the question was how much the defendants were worth;the answer was, about two thousand dollars. 

The jury shortly after returned into the court with a verdict which"sized their pile. "

THE PRAYER OF CYRUS BROWN

BY SAM WALTER FOSS

 "The proper way for a man to pray, " Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes, "And the only proper attitude Is down upon his knees. "

 "No, I should say the way to pray, " Said Rev. Dr. Wise, "Is standing straight, with outstretched arms, And rapt and upturned eyes. "

 "Oh, no; no, no, " said Elder Slow, "Such posture is too proud; A man should pray with eyes fast closed And head contritely bowed. "

 "It seems to me his hands should be Austerely clasped in front, With both thumbs pointing toward the ground, " Said Rev. Dr. Blunt. 

 "Las' year I fell in Hodgkin's well Head first, " said Cyrus Brown, "With both my heels a-stickin' up, My head a-pinting down. 

 "An' I made a prayer right then an' there-- Best prayer I ever said. The prayingest prayer I ever prayed, A-standing on my head. "

"Well told and dramatically strong, it breathes again the spirit ofDumas and Bulwer-Lytton. "--_Portland Oregonian. _

The Palace of Danger

A STORY OF LA POMPADOUR

By MABEL WAGNALLS

_Author of "Stars of the Opera, " "Miserere, " etc. _

 "There have been few groups of characters who have been used more frequently in fiction than the members of the court of Louis XV. , and there have been few attempts to make romance of their lives that are quite so delightful as this story. Around the heroine and hero Miss Wagnalls has spun a tale that has the quality of holding the reader's attention from first page to last. _It is charged with dramatic movement and a wealth and charm of style. _"--_New York Press. _

 "A powerful novel, exciting, interesting, and well worked out. "--_San Francisco Examiner. _

 "The author has shown skill in the use of her materials. "--_Boston Globe. _

 "It is a thoroughly human story, and so well constructed that the interest holds one to the end. "--_The Review of Reviews_, New York. 

 "The author gives a splendid picture of that magnificent court and the conditions which eventually brought about the revolution. The precarious position of every member of that court from La Pompadour down to the meanest lackey, whose very lives were in constant danger from the whims of the weak but self-indulgent king, is made very real by the author. "--_Globe-Democrat_, St. Louis. 

_Illustrations by John Ward Dunsmore. 12mo, Cloth. $1. 50_

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, PublishersNEW YORK AND LONDON

MISERERE

By MABEL WAGNALLS

_Author of "Stars of the Opera, " &c. _

A brief, but beautiful romance in which the discovery of a rich andpowerful voice leads ultimately to a climax as thrilling as the deathscene in "Romeo and Juliet. " The story is told with simple grace anddirectness, and is singularly pathetic and forceful. 

 "It is perfectly delightful. The theme is new and interesting. "--_Ella Wheeler Wilcox. _

 "It is a story of tender and pathetic interest--the story of a woman with a wonderfully beautiful voice. A dainty and fascinating romance which will appeal to music lovers. "--_Chicago News. _

 "It vibrates with musical sentiment. There is a good deal of artistic skill displayed in its description. "--_Boston Watchman. _

 "A story unique in theme, delightfully told with many delicate touches. "--_The Arena_, Boston. 

_Small 12mo, Cloth. Illustrated. 40 Cents, net_

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, PublishersNEW YORK AND LONDON