The Humour of America / Selected, with an Introduction and Index of American Humorists

by Unknown

PECK’S BAD BOY.

“PA TAKING HIS DEGREE.”

“SAY, are you a Mason, or a Nodfellow, or anything?” asked the bad boy of the grocery man, as he went to the cinnamon bag on the shelf and took out a long stick of cinnamon bark to chew.

“Why, yes, of course I am; but what set you to thinking of that?” asked the grocery man, as he went to the desk and charged the boy’s father with a half-pound of cinnamon.

“Well, do the goats bunt when you nishiate a fresh candidate?”

“No, of course not. The goats are cheap ones, that have no life, and we muzzle them, and put pillows over their heads, so they can’t hurt anybody,” says the grocery man, as he winked at a brother Oddfellow who was seated on a sugar barrel, looking mysterious. “But why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothin’, only I wish me and my chum had muzzled our goat with a pillow. Pa would have enjoyed his becoming a member of our lodge better. You see, Pa had been telling us how much good the Masons and Oddfellers did, and said we ought to try and grow up good so we could jine the lodges when we got big; and I asked Pa if it would do any hurt for us to have a play lodge in my room, and purtend to nishiate, and Pa said it wouldn’t do any hurt. He said it would improve our minds and learn us to be men. So my chum and me borried a goat that lives in a livery stable. Say, did you know they keep a goat in a livery stable so the horses won’t get sick? They get used to the smell of the goat, and after that nothing can make them sick but a glue factory. You see my chum and me had to carry the goat up to my room when Ma and Pa was out riding, and he blatted so we had to tie a handkerchief around his nose, and his feet made such a noise on the floor that we put some baby’s socks on his hoofs.

“Well, my chum and me practised with that goat until he could bunt the picture of a goat every time. We borried a bock beer sign from a saloon man and hung it on the back of a chair, and the goat would hit it every time. That night Pa wanted to know what we were doing up in my room, and I told him we were playing lodge, and improving our minds; and Pa said that was right, there was nothing that did boys of our age half so much good as to imitate men, and store by useful nollidge. Then my chum asked Pa if he didn’t want to come up and take the grand bumper degree, and Pa laffed and said he didn’t care if he did, just to encourage us boys in innocent pastime that was so improving to our intellex. We had shut the goat up in a closet in my room, and he had got over blatting; so we took off the handkerchief, and he was eating some of my paper collars and skate straps. We went upstairs, and told Pa to come up pretty soon and give three distinct raps, and when we asked him who comes there he must say, ‘A pilgrim, who wants to join your ancient order and ride the goat.’ Ma wanted to come up, too, but we told her if she come in it would break up the lodge, cause a woman couldn’t keep a secret, and we didn’t have any side-saddle for the goat. Say, if you never tried it, the next time you nishiate a man in your Mason’s lodge you sprinkle a little kyan pepper on the goat’s beard just afore you turn him loose. You can get three times as much fun to the square inch of goat. You wouldn’t think it was the same goat. Well, we got all fixed and Pa rapped, and we let him in and told him he must be blindfolded, and he got on his knees a laffing, and I tied a towel around his eyes, and then I turned him around and made him get down on his hands also, and then his back was right towards the closet sign, and I put the bock beer sign right against Pa’s clothes. He was a laffing all the time, and said we boys were as full of fun as they made ’em, and we told him it was a solemn occasion, and we wouldn’t permit no levity, and if he didn’t stop laffing we couldn’t give him the grand bumper degree. Then everything was ready, and my chum had his hand on the closet door, and some kyan pepper in his other hand, and I asked Pa in low bass tones if he felt as though he wanted to turn back, or if he had nerve enough to go ahead and take the degree. I warned him that it was full of dangers, as the goat was loaded for bear, and told him he yet had time to retrace his steps if he wanted to. He said he wanted the whole bizness, and we could go ahead with the menagerie. Then I said to Pa that if he had decided to go ahead, and not blame us for the consequences, to repeat after me the following: ‘Bring forth the Royal Bumper and let him Bump.’

“Pa repeated the words, and my chum sprinkled the kyan pepper on the goat’s moustache, and he sneezed once and looked sassy, and then he see the lager beer goat rearing up, and he started for it just like a crow-catcher, and blatted. Pa is real fat, but he knew he got hit, and he grunted and said, ‘What you boys doin’?’ and then the goat gave him another degree, and Pa pulled off the towel and got up and started for the stairs, and so did the goat; and Ma was at the bottom of the stairs listening, and when I looked over the banisters Pa and Ma and the goat were all in a heap, and Pa was yelling murder, and Ma was screaming fire, and the goat was blatting, and sneezing, and bunting, and the hired girl came into the hall and the goat took after her, and she crossed herself just as the goat struck her and said, ‘Howly mother, protect me!’ and went down stairs the way we boys slide down hill, with both hands on herself, and the goat reared up and blatted, and Pa and Ma went into their room and shut the door, and then my chum and me opened the front door and drove the goat out. The minister, who comes to see Ma every three times a week, was just ringing the bell, and the goat thought he wanted to be nishiated too, and gave him one for luck, and then went down the side walk, blatting, and sneezing, and the minister came in the parlour and said he was stabbed, and then Pa came out of his room with his suspenders hanging down, and he didn’t know the minister was there, and he said cuss words, and Ma cried and told Pa he would go to the bad place sure, and Pa said he didn’t care, he would kill that kussid goat afore he went, and I told Pa the minister was in the parlour, and he and Ma went down and said the weather was propitious for a revival, and it seemed as though an outpouring of the spirit was about to be vouchsafed, and none of them sot down but Ma, cause the goat didn’t hit her, and while they were talking relidgin with their mouths, and kussin’ the goat inwardly, my chum and me adjourned the lodge, and I went and stayed with him all night, and I haven’t been home since. But I don’t believe Pa will lick me, ’cause he said he would not hold us responsible for the consequences. He ordered the goat hisself, and we filled the order, don’t you see? Well, I guess I will go and sneak in the back way, and find out from the hired girl how the land lays. She won’t go back on me, ’cause the goat was not loaded for hired girls. She just happened to get in at the wrong time. Good-bye, sir. Remember and give your goat kyan pepper in your lodge.”

George W. Peck.

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THE BRITISH KNOCK

London, October 30, 1802.

I HAVE lately made a most important discovery which has disclosed one of the great secrets of English rank. You, in the United States, knowing nothing of this, will consider the following authentic history of rank a singular curiosity.

They have confined the several species of man within such definite limits, in this country, that the moment they hear a knocking at the doors, they can tell you whether it be a servant, a postman, a milkman, a half or whole gentleman, a very great gentleman, a knight, or a nobleman.

A servant is bound to lift the knocker once; should he usurp a nobleman’s knock he would hazard his situation. A postman knocks twice, very loudly. A milkman knocks once, at the same time sending forth an artificial noise, not unlike the yell of an American Indian. A mere gentleman usually knocks three times, moderately; a terrible fellow feels authorised to knock thrice, very loudly, generally adding to these two or three faint knocks, which seem to run into each other; but there is considerable art in doing this elegantly, therefore it is not always attempted; but it is a valuable accomplishment. A stranger who should venture at an imitation would undoubtedly be taken for an upstart. A knight presumes to give a double knock, that is six raps, with a few faint ones at the end. I have not yet ascertained the various peculiarities which distinguish the degrees between the baronet and the nobleman; but this I know too well, that a nobleman, at any time of night, is allowed to knock so long and loud, that the whole neighbourhood is frequently disturbed; and although fifty people may be deprived of their night’s rest, there is no redress at law or at equity. Nor have I learned how long and loud a prince of the blood presumes to knock, though doubtless he might knock an hour or two by way of distinction.

You may hold your sides if you please, but I assure you I am perfectly serious. These people are so tenacious of their prerogative, that a true-blooded Englishman goes near to think it a part of British liberty. Indeed, I am convinced I could place certain Englishmen in a situation, in which, rather than knock at a door but once, they would fight a duel every day in the week. Good heavens, how would a fine gentleman appear if obliged to knock but once at the door of a fashionable lady to whose party he had been invited, while at the same moment a number of his everyday friends, passing by, might observe the circumstance! I cannot conceive of a more distressing occurrence. The moment he entered the room the eyes of the whole company would be turned on him; he would believe himself disgraced for ever, he would feel himself annihilated, for all his imaginary consequence, without which an Englishman feels himself to be nothing, would have forsaken him.

You may imagine it a very easy matter to pass from the simple rap of the servant to that of the nobleman; but let me inform you these little monosyllables stand in the place of Alpine mountains, which neither vinegar nor valour can pass. Hercules and Theseus, those vagabond but respectable bullies, who govern by personal strength instead of a standing army, would have hesitated an enterprise against these raps. They have, by prescription, risen nearly to the dignity of Common Law, of which strangers as well as natives are bound to take notice. I was lately placed in a pleasant position through ignorance of this. Soon after my arrival I received an invitation to dine with a gentleman, and in my economical way, with the greatest simplicity, I gave one reasonable rap; after a considerable time a servant opened the door and asked me what I wanted! I told him Mr. ——. He replied “His master has company, but will see if he can be spoken with.” In the meantime I was left in the entry. Presently Mr. —— came, who, a little mortified, began to reprove the servant; but it appeared in the sequel he was perfectly right, for on telling Mr. —— “I knocked but once,” he burst into a laugh, and said he would explain that at dinner.

Should an honest fellow, ignorant of the consequences of these raps, come to London in search of a place, and unfortunately knock at a gentleman’s door, after the manner of noblemen, it might prejudice him as much as a prayer-book once prejudiced a certain person in Connecticut. The anecdote is this:—

A young adventurer, educated Church-of-England-wise, on going forth to seek his fortune, very naturally put his prayer-book in his pocket. Wandering within the precincts of Connecticut, he offered his service to a farmer, who, after asking him a thousand questions (a New England custom), gave him employment; but in the evening, the unlucky prayer-book being discovered, he fairly turned the poor wight out of doors to get a lodging where he could.

You know the Connecticut Blue Laws made it death for a priest, meaning a clergyman of the Church of England, to be found within that State. Thank heaven, those days are past. “God, liberty, and toleration,” whether a man prefers a prayer-book to the missal, or the Koran to a prayer-book, or a single rap at a door to the noise of a dozen.

Adieu.

N.B.—You must keep this letter a profound secret, as we have certain gentlemen on our side of the Atlantic who would, in imitation of the noblemen here, disturb their neighbours.

William Austin.

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A CAPTIVE MAIDEN.

“WHILE PITMAN SEIZED THE SUFFERER BY ONE ARM, I GRASPED THE OTHER.”

IT is extremely probable that we shall lose our servant-girl. She was the victim of a very singular catastrophe a night or two since, in consequence of which she has acquired a prejudice against the house of Adeler. We were troubled with dampness in our cellar, and in order to remove the difficulty we got a couple of men to come and dig the earth out to the depth of twelve or fifteen inches, and fill it in with a cement and mortar floor. The material was, of course, very soft, and the workmen laid boards upon the surface, so that access to the furnace and the coal-bin was possible. That night, just after retiring, we heard a woman screaming for help; but after listening at the open window, we concluded that Cooley and his wife were engaged in an altercation, and so we paid no more attention to the noise. Half-an-hour afterwards there was a violent ring at the front door bell, and upon going to the window again I found Pitman standing upon the door-step below. When I spoke to him he said—

“Max,”—the judge is inclined sometimes, especially during periods of excitement, to be unnecessarily familiar,—“there’s somethin’ wrong in your cellar. There’s a woman down there screechin’ and carryin’ on like mad. Sounds ’s if somebody’s a-murderin’ her.”

I dressed and descended; and securing the assistance of Pitman, so that I would be better prepared in the event of burglars being discovered, I lighted a lamp and we went into the cellar.

There we found the maid-servant standing by the refrigerator, knee-deep in the cement, and supporting herself with the handle of a broom, which was also half-submerged. In several places about her were air-holes marking the spot where the milk-jug, the cold veal, the Lima beans, and the silver-plated butter-dish had gone down. We procured some additional boards, and while Pitman seized the sufferer by one arm I grasped the other. It was for some time doubtful if she would come to the surface without the use of more violent means, and I confess that I was half inclined to regard with satisfaction the prospect that we would have to blast her loose with gunpowder. After a desperate struggle, during which the girl declared that she would be torn in pieces, Pitman and I succeeded in getting her safely out, and she went upstairs with half a barrel of cement on each leg, declaring that she would leave the house in the morning.

The cold veal is in there yet. Centuries hence some antiquarian will perhaps grub about the spot whereon my cottage once stood, and will blow that cold veal out in a petrified condition, and then present it to a museum as the fossil remains of some unknown animal. Perhaps, too, he will excavate the milk-jug and the butter-dish, and go about lecturing upon them as utensils employed in bygone ages by a race of savages called “The Adelers.” I should like to be alive at the time to hear that lecture. And I cannot avoid the thought that if our servant had been completely buried in the cement, and thus carefully preserved until the coming of that antiquarian, the lecture would be more interesting, and the girl more useful than she is now. A fossilised domestic servant of the present era would probably astonish the people of the twenty-eighth century.

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MRS. PARTINGTON IN COURT.

“I TOOK my knitting-work and went up into the gallery,” said Mrs. Partington, the day after visiting one of the city courts; “I went up into the gallery, and, after I had adjusted my specs, I looked down into the room, but I couldn’t see any courting going on. An old gentleman seemed to be asking a good many impertinent questions,—just like some old folks,—and people were sitting around making minuets of the conversation. I don’t see how they made out what was said, for they all told different stories. How much easier it would be to get along if they were all made to tell the same story! What a sight of trouble it would save the lawyers! The case, as they call it, was given to the jury, but I couldn’t see it, and a gentleman with a long pole was made to swear that he’d keep an eye on ’em, and see that they didn’t run away with it. Bimeby in they came agin, and then they said somebody was guilty of something, who had just said he was innocent, and didn’t know nothing about it no more than the little baby that had never subsistence. I come away soon afterwards; but I couldn’t help thinking how trying it must be to sit there all day, shut out from the blessed air!”

Benjamin Penhallon Shillaber

(“Mrs. Partington”).

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THE MUSIC-GRINDERS.

“IT’S HARD TO MEET SUCH PRESSING FRIENDS, IN SUCH A LONELY SPOT.”

THERE are three ways in which men take

One’s money from his purse,

And very hard it is to tell

Which of the three is worse;

But all of them are bad enough

To make a body curse.

You’re riding out some pleasant day,

And counting up your gains;

A fellow jumps from out a bush,

And takes your horse’s reins,

Another hints some words about

A bullet in your brains.

It’s hard to meet such pressing friends,

In such a lonely spot;

It’s very hard to lose your cash,

But harder to be shot;

And so you take your wallet out,

Though you would rather not.

Perhaps you’re going out to dine,—

Some odious creature begs

You’ll hear about the cannon-ball

That carried off his pegs,

And says it is a dreadful thing

For men to lose their legs.

He tells you of his starving wife,

His children to be fed,

Poor little lovely innocents,

All clamorous for bread,—

And so you kindly help to put

A bachelor to bed.

You’re sitting on your window-seat,

Beneath a cloudless moon;

Your hear a sound that seems to wear

The semblance of a tune,

As if a broken fife should strive

To drown a cracked bassoon.

And nearer, nearer still, the tide

Of music seems to come;

There’s something like a human voice,

And something like a drum;

You sit in speechless agony,

Until your ear is numb.

Poor “Home, sweet home” should seem to be

A very dismal place;

Your “Auld Acquaintance” all at once

Is altered in the face;

Their discords sting through Burns and Moore,

Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.

You think they are crusaders, sent

From some infernal clime,

To pluck the eyes of Sentiment,

And dock the tail of Rhyme,

To crack the voice of Melody,

And break the legs of Time.

But hark! the air again is still,

The music all is ground,

And silence, like a poultice, comes

To heal the blows of sound;

It cannot be,—it is,—it is,—

A hat is going round!

No! pay the dentist when he leaves

A fracture in your jaw,

And pay the owner of the bear

That stunned you with his paw,

And buy the lobster that has had

Your knuckles in his claw;

But, if you are a portly man,

Put on your fiercest frown,

And talk about a constable

To turn them out of town;

Then close your sentence with an oath,

And shut the window down!

And, if you are a slender man,

Not big enough for that,

Or if you cannot make a speech

Because you are a flat,

Go very quietly and drop

A button in the hat!

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

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MISS CRUMP’S SONG.

MISS CRUMP was inexorable. She declared that she was entirely out of practice. “She scarcely ever touched the piano;” “Mamma was always scolding her for giving so much of her time to French and Italian, and neglecting her music and painting; but she told mamma the other day that it really was so irksome to her to quit Racine and Dante, and go to thrumming upon the piano, that, but for the obligations of filial obedience, she did not think she should ever touch it again.”

Here Mrs. Crump was kind enough, by the merest accident in the world, to interpose, and to relieve the company from farther anxiety.

“Augusta, my dear,” said she, “go and play a tune or two; the company will excuse your hoarseness.”

Miss Crump rose immediately at her mother’s bidding, and moved to the piano, accompanied by a large group of smiling faces.

“Poor child,” said Mrs. Crump, as she went forward, “she is frightened to death. I wish Augusta could overcome her diffidence.”

Miss Crump was educated in Philadelphia; she had been taught to sing by Madame Piggisqueaki, who was a pupil of Ma’m’selle Crokifroggietta, who had sung with Madame Catalani; and she had taken lessons on the piano from Seignor Buzzifussi, who had played with Paganini.

She seated herself at the piano, rocked to the right, then to the left, leaned forward, then backward, and began. She placed her right hand about midway the keys, and her left about two octaves below it. She now put off to the right in a brisk canter up the treble notes, and the left after it. The left then led the way back, and the right pursued it in like manner. The right turned, and repeated its first movement; but the left outran it this time, hopped over it, and flung it entirely off the track. It came in again, however, behind the left on its return, and passed it in the same style. They now became highly incensed at each other, and met furiously on the middle ground. Here a most awful conflict ensued for about the space of ten seconds, when the right whipped off all of a sudden, as I thought, fairly vanquished. But I was in the error against which Jack Randolph cautions us; “it had only fallen back to a stronger position.” It mounted upon two black keys, and commenced the note of a rattlesnake. This had a wonderful effect upon the left, and placed the doctrine of “snake charming” beyond dispute. The left rushed furiously towards it repeatedly, but seemed invariably panic-struck when it came within six keys of it, and as invariably retired with a tremendous roaring down the bass keys.

It continued its assaults, sometimes by the way of the naturals, sometimes by the way of the sharps, and sometimes by a zigzag through both; but all its attempts to dislodge the right from its stronghold proving ineffectual, it came close up to its adversary, and expired.

Any one, or rather no one, can imagine what kind of noises the piano gave forth during the conflict. Certain it is, no one can describe them, and, therefore, I shall not attempt it. The battle ended, Miss Augusta moved as though she would have arisen, but this was protested against by a number of voices at once.

“One song, my dear Aurelia,” said Miss Small; “you must sing that sweet little French air you used to sing in Philadelphia, and which Madame Piggisqueaki was so fond of.”

Miss Augusta looked pitifully at her mamma, and her mamma looked “sing” at Miss Augusta; accordingly, she squared herself for a song.

“SOME VERY CURIOUS SOUNDS, WHICH APPEARED TO PROCEED FROM
THE LIPS OF MISS AUGUSTA.”

She brought her hands to the campus this time in fine style, and they seemed now to be perfectly reconciled to each other. They commenced a kind of colloquy; the right whispering treble very softly, and the left responding bass very loudly. The conference had been kept up until I began to desire a change of the subject, when my ear caught, indistinctly, some very curious sounds, which appeared to proceed from the lips of Miss Augusta; they seemed to be compounded of a dry cough, a grunt, a hiccough, and a whisper; and they were introduced, it appeared to me, as interpreters between the right and the left.

Things progressed in this way for about the space of fifteen seconds, when I happened to direct my attention to Mr. Jenkins, from Philadelphia. His eyes were closed, his head rolled gracefully from side to side; a beam of heavenly complacency rested upon his countenance; and his whole man gave irresistible demonstration that Miss Crump’s music made him feel good all over. I had just turned from the contemplation of Mr. Jenkins’ transports, to see whether I could extract from the performance anything intelligible, when Miss Crump made a fly-catching grab at half-a-dozen keys in a row and at the same instant she fetched a long, dunghill-cock crow, at the conclusion of which she grabbed as many keys with her left. This came over Jenkins like a warm bath, and over me like a rake of bamboo briers.

My nerves had not recovered from this shock before Miss Augusta repeated the movement, and accompanied it with a squall of a pinched cat. This threw me into an ague fit; but, from respect to the performer, I maintained my position.

She now made a third grasp with the right, boxed the faces of six keys in a row with the left, and at the same time raised one of the most unearthly howls that ever issued from the throat of a human being. This seemed the signal for universal uproar and destruction. She now threw away all her reserve, and charged the piano with her whole force. She boxed it, she clawed it, she raked it, she scraped it. Her neck-vein swelled, her chin flew up, her face flushed, her eye glared, her bosom heaved; she screamed, she howled, she yelled, cackled, and was in the act of dwelling upon the note of a screech-owl, when I took the St. Vitus’s dance, and rushed out of the room. “Good Lord,” said a bystander, “if this be her singing, what must her crying be!” As I reached the door I heard a voice exclaim, “By heavens! she’s the most enchanting performer I ever heard in my life!” I turned to see who was the author of this ill-timed compliment, and who should it be but Nick Truck, from Lincoln, who seven years before was dancing “Possum up the Gumtree” in the chimney-corner of his father’s kitchen. Nick had entered the counting-room of a merchant in Charleston some five or six years before, had been sent out as supercargo of a vessel to Bordeaux, and while the vessel was delivering one cargo and taking in another, had contracted a wonderful relish for French music.

As for myself, I went home in convulsions; took sixty drops of laudanum, and fell asleep. I dreamed that I was in a beautiful city, the streets of which intersected each other at right angles; that the birds of the air and the beasts of the forest had gathered there for battle, the former led on by a Frenchman, the latter by an Italian; that I was looking on their movements towards each other, when I heard the cry of “Hecate is coming!” I turned my eye to the north-east, and saw a female flying through the air toward the city, and distinctly recognised in her the features of Miss Crump. I took the alarm, and was making my escape, when she gave command for the beasts and birds to fall on me. They did so, and, with all the noises of the animal world, were in the act of tearing me to pieces, when I was waked by the stepping of Hall, my room-mate, into bed.

“Oh, my dear sir,” exclaimed I, “you have waked me from a horrible dream. What o’clock is it?”

“Ten minutes after twelve,” said he.

“And where have you been to this late hour?”

“I have just returned from the party.”

“And what kept you so late?”

“Why, I disliked to retire while Miss Crump was playing.”

“In mercy’s name!” said I, “is she playing yet?”

“Yes,” said he; “I had to leave her playing at last.”

“And where was Jenkins?”

“He was there, still in ecstasies, and urging her to play on.”

“And where was Truck?”

“He was asleep.”

“And what was she playing?”

“An Italian——”

Here I swooned, and heard no more.

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet.

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A POLYGLOT BARBER.

MY first tonsorial experience is in a barber shop of the old town of Prinkipo. Most of the barbers are polyglotically inclined. My particular barber is either a Greek, a Maltese, a Sclav, a Bulgarian, or a Montenegrin. It is impossible at first to tell his native tongue. He has French glibly. He speaks a “leetle Inglis,” and understands less. He is well up in Italian, as many of the families in this vicinage are. He had some knowledge of Spanish, as kindred to the Italian. This extraordinary learning always gives me a shudder, and especially when under his razor or shears. Being a stranger on the island, and having no very pronounced national features, it was equally difficult for him to ascertain my nationality, except by inquisition long and pitiless. All I could do was to arm myself with the affirmatives and negatives of various languages. With these I made myself complaisant, to save my face from bloodshed. My first conversation with this artist confirmed the general reputation as to the gossipy quality of the Barber of Seville. He had all the gossip of the isles, including its languages. The conversation ran somewhat after this style—

Barber: “You have been here long?”

I reply in Bohemian, “Ne!”

He easily understood that.

“You are here for your health?”

I reply in Danish, affirmatively and negatively, “Ja!” “Nei, minherre!” “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir.” This puzzled him.

“An army gentleman, perhaps?”

I reply in German, “Nein, mein herr.”

“Oh, then you are a navy officer?”

Having in view my position as admiral of the launch, I reply in Hungarian; because, lucus a non lucendo, Hungary is an inland country, and, like our own, without a navy.

“Igen!” “Yes.”

“Your vessel is at Constantinople?”

Remembering that there was an Italian emigrant named Christopher Columbus of naval renown, I reply: “Si, signore.”

“You will bring your vessel to Prinkipo?”

Ah! here was my opportunity. It is the modern Greek in which I reply: “Nae vevayos.”

He is thunderstruck. It is evidently his mother-tongue. Likely he has a Polish father; who knows? When he asks me in French—

“Will your vessel touch at Athens?”

I respond in Polish, “Tak!” “No.” And then, with some hesitation, I add the French word, “peut-être.” “Perhaps.”

“You will visit Egypt?”

“Sim, senhor.” This is Portuguese for “Yes, sir.”

The gesture or the manner with which these responses are made encourages him, for he immediately asks whether I have ever been in Alabania. I have no negative or affirmative in any of the languages of the Adriatic. My Dalmatian servitor, Pedro, is absent, and my next best affirmative is in Russian.

“Do prawda.” Perhaps, being affiliated with the Sclav, he understands this language.

“You have never been in Egypt?”

As the pine and the palm are associated in my mind, and having connected the Polar midnight sun with the Pyramids of the Pharaohs, I respond in Swedish, making it intense—

“Ja!” adding a little affirmative in Roumanian, to give intensity to the remark, “Gie.”

After a pause in the conversation he resumes. He believes that he has my nationality fixed. He surmises that I am from some Balkan province, and he asks—

“Have you been in Roumelia, Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro, and Herzegovina?”

Knowing that I could not answer this truthfully, and not being able to answer it partially, I give him back in Roumanian an emphatic negative—

“Na canna, bucca.”

“You have been quite a traveller!”

This suggests the Chinese as the fitting language for the affirmative, and I say—

“She!”

Having no reference to Haggard’s novel, for it was not then out. To make the “she” expressive I add another affirmative, which I had carefully studied while boarding with the Chinese Legation in Washington.

“Ta Jin!”

“You like the Chinese, Monsieur?”

Having succeeded so well with the Chinese, I answer promptly in the negative—

“Puh!”

This monosyllable disgusts him. His subordinates gather around the chair where I was being shaved, interested in this composite conversation. The artist then asks if I had visited Jerusalem. Here was my great breakdown. Notwithstanding I had represented a Hebrew community in New York, with more synagogues than Jerusalem had in the time of Solomon, I was at a loss for a Hebrew affirmative. Happy thought! I respond promptly in the Arabic tongue, with its guttural peculiarity—

“Na’am.”

It sounded to me after I uttered it like profanity, and I fell back as gracefully as I could, waiting for the next attack, and equipped with a Japanese expletive.

“You like Constantinople?”

I respond in a sweet Japanese accent—

“Sama, san!”

“How long have you been in Constantinople?”

I give it to him in English—

“I arrived there in the year 1851—thirty-six years ago.”

“Mon Dieu!—mon Dieu!—mon Dieu!” he exclaims, “Have you lived there ever since that time?”

“Beaucoup, Monsieur!”

He has not yet learned my nationality. I am afraid every moment that he will strike America. It comes—

“Perhaps you have been in America?”

“Wa’al, yaas, I guess!”

He could not understand this, for he had not been educated at Robert College, nor had he abided in Vermont. I ask him in French which America he means. He says—

“South America. I have a cousin of my wife’s there, and I would like to know how the country looks.”

“Le nom du cousin de votre femme?” I ask.

“Pierre Moulka Pari Michipopouli. He is like you, Monsieur—quite a traveller.”

Then began a fusillade of questions and rattling replies.

“You have lived in Paris, Monsieur?”

“Jamais!” “Never.” “Been to Genoa?” “Si, Signore.” “Ah, you are English, are you not?” With the intense Turkish negative I respond, “Yok!” “French?” “Non.” “German?” “Nein.” “Sclav?” “Nee.” “Italian?” “No, Signore.” “Ah! Espagnol? You look like one.”

“Pardon, Monsieur, I am not.”

“Well,” said he, taking breath, “will you tell me, Monsieur, where you do come from?”

“Don’t you remember the only nation in the world where the barber is as good as a king?” I said proudly.

“Oh, Switzerland. Sapristi! Corpo de Bacco!”

Understanding that last remark perfectly, I offer him a cigarette, and say, “No, I am not Swiss.”

“Brazeel?” “Jamais.”

The way that barber rubs the unguent into my hairless scalp and hirsute beard shows that he is a disappointed man.

The next time I visit the shop I receive marked attention. The hands all rise up. They pick up the earth in a Turkish salaam. They distribute it in courtesy to the American minister, whom they have meanwhile discovered. As I have been frequently turned away from the doors of our American Congress after twenty-five years’ service, because I did not act or look like a member, so I was unrecognised here, by the “Oi Barberoi,” as having no national characterisation. America was the last race or people to which this Greek barber assigned me.

Samuel S. Cox.

---

AT THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.

“YIS, sur. It’s many a wan av yure countrymin Oi’ve taken over the Causeway, sur.”

“How do you know what countryman I am?”

“Thrust me fur knowing the American accent, sur.”

“I haven’t the American accent. You have it. Go to New York if you don’t believe me.”

“There’s many an Oirishman there, I’m tould, sur.”

“More than in Dublin.”

“De ye tell me thot, sur? Well, sur, Oi took Gineral Grant himsilf over the Causeway, and a foine mawn he was. An’ Gineral Sheridan, too, sur. Many’s the great mawn Oi’ve taken over the Causeway, sur.”

“Besides me?”

“Well, sur, ye may be the greatest av thim all, sur; fur, as Oi’ve often noticed, them that’s laste like it is sometimes bether than they look, sur.”

“True. So we won’t pursue that subject any further.”

“Oi took the Duke av Connaught himsilf down this very road, sur, an’ do you know what he says to me, sur? He says, ‘Pat,’ says he, ‘have ye had anything to ate the day?’ ‘Saving yer presence, sur,’ says Oi, ‘except a bite at breakfast’—an’ before the words were out of my mout’, says the Duke to me, says he, ‘Sit down wid us,’ says he; an’ no sooner said than done, and Oi had moy lunch with the Duke av Connaught. De ye moind thot, now?”

“That was a great honour—for the Duke.”

“It was—what’s that, sur? It was a great honour fur me, sur.”

“Just depends on how a man looks at it. If you think it was a great honour for you, it was.”

“An’ Oi’ve taken great professors over the Causeway, sur—min that knew more in wan minute, sur, than you and Oi wud know in all our loives, sur. An’ they’ve tould me that this was the greatest soight in the whole wurrold.”

“Curious how education develops the power of lying.”

“Loying is it, sur? Don’t you know that there’s nothing in the whole wurrold loike the Goiant’s Causeway, sur?”

“What for? For mud?”

“The road is a troifle muddy at this toime av the year, sur. It’s not many comes to see it in the winther toime, sur; indade, yure the first wan this week. There’s a power av rain in the nort’ av Oireland in the winter toime, sur.”

“How much further away is this Causeway?”

“Is it the Causeway, sur? But a troifle, sur. Ye’ll see it the minute we turn that bit av rock, sur. Sure an’ begorra it’s well worth the walk, for there is no place that is as noted as the Causeway, sur.”

“Yes. They told me about it at Derry. That’s why I came.”

“De ye mane to say, sur, that ye niver heard av the Goiant’s Causeway till ye came to Derry? Well, sur, Oi’ve taken tins av thousands av people over this ground, sur, and yure the first wan that iver tould me he never heard av the Causeway. Where were ye brought up, sur?”

“I’m a Belfast man.”

“De ye mane thot? Troth! Oi don’t think the professors are the biggest loiers, saving yer prisince, sur.”

“Where’s your old Causeway? We’re round that rock now.”

“Where’s the Causeway is it, sur? Where should it be but just before yer two eyes?”

“You don’t mean that foundation, do you?”

“What foundation, sur?”

“Looks like as if a building society had started a big stone tabernacle, and went bankrupt when the foundation was laid.”

“The greatest min in this wurrold, sur, tould me that——”

“Never mind what the greatest men said. Is that the Causeway? That’s what I want settled.”

“It is, sur.”

“Let’s get back.”

“Back, is it, sur? Troth, ye’r not there yet. Divil a fut will Oi go back till ye’ve seen what ye paid for, sur.”

“All right, I’ll go on—under protest—merely to please you, you know.”

“Oi’m afraid ye’r hard to plaze yersilf, sur. It’s wan av the siven wondhers av the wurrold, sur.”

“That people come here? It is a wonder, as you say. I’ll bet they don’t come a second time.”

“Now, beggin’ ye’r pardon, ye’r wrong there, sur. Not the sickond toime, but the twintieth toime have Oi known educated min to come, sur. And the aftener a man av sinse sees it, sur, the more wondherful he thinks it. Now, sur, ye’r fut is on the smaller Causeway, and be careful how you stip, fur it’s moighty slippery undherfut. There are three Causeways, sur, the Great Causeway bein’ in the centhre, and that we’ll come to in a minute, sur.”

“What is it used for?”

“The Causeway, is it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s used for nothin’ at all, sur.”

“Then why did they go to all this expense?”

“What expinse, sur?”

“The building of it.”

“Be all the powers, sur, it’s surely not running through your hid that the Goiant’s Causeway was built by the hand av man, sur!”

“How was it built, then? By contract?”

“Oi see plainly Oi’ll hay to begin at the beginnin’ wid you, sur. It was built by a mighty convulsion av nathure, sur.”

“Oh, yes, I remember reading about it in the papers at the time. It was the beginning of the Irish troubles.”

“It was at the beginning av toime, sur. Professor Gneiss, av Edinburgh, tould me its origin was volcanic, and that——”

“Oh, you can’t believe what a professor says. Was he there?”

“He was not.”

“Well, then!”

“If you, sur, will excuse the liberty Oi’ll take, sur, in recommending you to kape silence fur a few minutes, sur, ye’ll know a good dale more whin ye lave here than ye did whin ye came, sur.”

“All right; go ahead.”

“These columns, sur, are basaltic.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a term used by Professor Gneiss. Now Oi’ll call ye’r attention to the ind av this column. That we call octagon, meaning eight-sided, as ye can see. And if yer measure the eight sides, sur, yer’ll foind them the same to a hair’s breadth.”

“And yet you say nobody chiselled it?”

“Oi do, sur.”

“You evidently think I’ll believe anything. But no matter. Go on, go on.”

“Now, if ye’ll notice, around this octagon are eight other pillars, forming an octagon group, as we call thim here, sur, all the columns being aqual in size. Now, sur, if ye follow me here, ye will see a septagon column, from the Latin word maning siven, and around that there are siven columns.”

“Is there any sixtogon one?”

“There is not, sur.”

“It’s a sort of seven-by-eight Causeway then?”

“There, sur, Oi tould ye ye would slip down, sur. A man broke his leg there once. Are ye hurt, sur?”

“Not in the least.”

“Thank the powers for that, sur! Oi always notice that the quieter a man kapes, the more attention he can pay to his futin’.”

“And you’re paid to do the talking, too. I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Now, sur, ye see from here the Great Causeway. Isn’t that a grand soight, sur?”

“Well, that depends on what you call a——”

“Oh! tare an’ ’owns, sur, ye’ve kilt yerself entoirely this toime. Don’t attempt to roise, sur, till Oi get down to ye. Dear! dear!! Are ye badly hurt, sur?”

“‘DON’T ATTEMPT TO ROISE, SUR, TILL OI GET DOWN TO YE.’”

“Groggy, but still in the ring. Say, are my trousers——”

“They are torn a little, sur, Oi regret to say.”

“Why the Old Harry didn’t you tell me this place was so slippery? Do you want to break a man’s neck over this Causeway of yours?”

“Sure, sur, Oi warned ye the very first afgo. Beggin’ your pardon, sur, if ye’d pay as much attintion to ye’r fut as you do to your tongue——”

“Who’s been doing all the talking? Have I opened my mouth since we started? Well, now that we’re down here, what’s there to see?”

“Ye see these columns, sur. They’re the tallest in the Causeway. Ye can see their formation now, sur. They’re all in short lengths of three or four feet, and every joint is a perfect ball and socket wan.”

“What’s the object of the ball and socket?”

“Ah, who can tell that, sur?”

“Hadn’t the professor some pet fiction about it?”

“He did say, sur——”

“I was sure of it.”

“——That it was on account of the uneven cooling of the lava. Now, look at this, sur. This is—be careful, sur. Ye were nearly aff that toime again. This is the Goiant’s Wishin’ Chair. If ye sit down here, ye can have three wishes, sur.”

“I won’t sit down.”

“Have ye nothing to wish, sur?”

“No. All I wanted was to meet the biggest liar in the world, but I don’t need to wish for that now.”

“Then ye’ve met him, sur. Well, Oi suppose ye like company, sur?”

“Anything else to be seen around here?”

“Do ye see those basaltic columns on the face av the cliff, sur? That’s the Goiant’s Organ, sur.”

“Who plays on it?”

“Well, sur, the storms do. When the wind comes dhriving in from the Atlantic, and the waves lash up the Causeway, they do be sayin’ that whin the timpast is at its hoight all the grand tones av an organ can be heard comin’ from thim pipes.”

“Good enough. That’s worth the money. Here you are. I must be going now to catch my train. Good-bye.”

“Here’s a very dacent mon, sur, that sells picturs av the Causeway.”

“I don’t care for any.”

“They’re very chape, sur.”

“I want to forget the Causeway.”

“Then good-bye, sur, an’ thank ye, sur.”

“Good-bye.”

---

The Guide (to the Picture-seller): “De ye see thot mon sprawlin’ over the Causeway? Well, thot’s the dombdest fule Oi iver tuk over these racks. Oi wouldn’t take that mon over the Causeway agin fur all the money in the North av Oireland. De ye mind thot now?”

Robert Barr (“Luke Sharp”).

---

HANS BREITMANN’S BARTY.

HANS BREITMANN gife a barty;

Dey had biano-blayin’,

I felled in lofe mit a ’Merican frau,

Her name vas Madilda Yane.

She hat haar as prown ash a pretzel,

Her eyes vas himmel-plue,

Und vhen dey looket indo mine,

Dey shplit mine heart in dwo.

“VENT SHPINNEN’ ROUND UND ROUND.”

Hans Breitmann gife a barty,

I vent dere you’ll pe pound;

I valtzet mit Madilda Yane,

Und vent shpinnen’ round und round.

De pootiest Fraulein in de house,

She vayed ’pout dwo hoondred pound,

Und every dime she gife a shoomp

She make de vindows sound.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty,

I dells you it cost him dear;

Dey rolled in more ash sefen kecks

Of foost-rate lager beer.

Und vhenefer dey knocks de shpicket in

De Deutschers gifes a cheer;

I dinks dat so vine a barty

Nefer coom to a het dis year.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty;

Dere all vas Souse and Brouse,

Vhen de sooper comed in, de gompany

Did make demselfs to house;

Dey ate das Brot and Gensy broost,

De Bratwurst and Braten vine,

Und vash der Abendessen down

Mit four parrels of Neckarwein.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty;

Ve all cot troonk ash bigs.

I poot mine mout’ to a parrel of beer,

Und emptied it oop mit a schwigs;

Und den I gissed Madilda Yane.

Und she shlog me on de kop,

Und de gompany vighted mit daple-lecks

Dill de coonshtable made oos shtop.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty—

Vhere ish dot barty now?

Vhere ish de lofely golden cloud

Dot float on de moundain’s prow?

Vhere ish de himmelstrahlende stern—

De shtar of de shpirit’s light?

All goned afay mit de lager beer—

Afay in de Ewigkeit.

Charles Godfrey Leland.

---

OUR NEW BEDSTEAD.

“WE HAD TO TURN OUT EVERY HOUR.”

I HAVE bought me a new patent bedstead, to facilitate early rising, called a “wake-up.” It is a good thing to rise early in the country. Even in the winter time it is conducive to health to get out of a warm bed by lamplight; to shiver into your drawers and slippers; to wash your face in a basin of ice-flakes; and to comb out your frigid hair with an uncompromising comb, before a frosty looking-glass. The only difficulty about it lies in the impotence of human will. You will deliberate about it and argue the point. You will indulge in specious pretences, and lie still with only the tip end of your nose outside the blankets; you will pretend to yourself that you do intend to jump out in a few minutes; you will tamper with the good intention, and yet indulge in the delicious luxury. To all this the “wake-up” is inflexibly and triumphantly antagonistic. It is a bedstead with a clock scientifically inserted in the head-board. When you go to bed you wind up the clock, and point the index-hand to that hour on the dial at which you wish to rise in the morning. Then you place yourself in the hands of the invention and shut your eyes.

You are now, as it were, under the guardianship of King Solomon and Doctor Benjamin Franklin. There is no need to recall those beautiful lines of the poet’s—

“Early to bed and early to rise,

Will make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

Science has forestalled them. The “wake-up” is a combination of hard wood, hinges, springs, and clock-work, against sleeping late o’ mornings. It is a bedstead with all the beautiful vitality of a flower—it opens with the dawn. If, for instance, you set the hand against six o’clock in the morning, at six the clock at the bed’s head solemnly strikes a demi-twelve on its sonorous bell. If you pay no attention to the monitor, or idly, dreamily endeavour to compass the coherent sequence of sounds, the invention, within the succeeding two minutes, drops its tail-board and lets down your feet upon the floor. While you are pleasantly defeating this attempt upon your privacy by drawing up your legs within the precincts of the blankets, the virtuous head-board and the rest of the bed suddenly rise up in protest; and the next moment, if you do not instantly abdicate, you are launched upon the floor by a blind elbow that connects with the crank of an eccentric, that is turned by a cord that is wound around a drum, that is moved by an endless screw, that revolves within the body of the machinery. So soon as you are turned out, of course, you waive the balance of the nap and proceed to dress.

“Mrs. Sparrowgrass,” said I, contemplatively, after the grimy machinists had departed, “this machine is one of the most remarkable evidences of progress the ingenuity of man has yet developed. In this bedstead we see a host of cardinal virtues made practical by science. To rise early one must possess courage, prudence, self-denial, temperance, and fortitude. The cultivation of these virtues, necessarily attended with a great deal of trouble, may now be dispensed with, as this engine can entirely set aside, and render useless, a vast amount of moral discipline. I have no doubt in a short time we shall see the finest attributes of the human mind superseded by machinery. Nay, more; I have very little doubt that, as a preparatory step in this great progress, we shall have physical monitors of cast-iron and wheel-work to regulate the ordinary routine of duty in every family.”

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she did not precisely understand what I meant.

“For instance,” said I, in continuation, “we dine every day; as a general thing, I mean. Now sometimes we eat too much, and how easy, how practicable it would be to regulate our appetites by a banquet-dial. The subject, having had the superficial area of his skull and the cubic capacity of his body worked out respectively by a licensed craniologist and by a licensed corporalogist, gets from each a certificate, which certificates are duly registered in the county clerk’s office. From the county clerk he received a permit, marked, we will say, ten.”

“Not ten pounds, I hope,” said Mrs. S.

“No, my dear,” I replied, “ten would be the average of his capacity. We will now suppose the chair, in which the subject is seated at dinner, rests upon a pendulous platform, over a delicate arrangement of levers, connected with an upright rod, that runs through the section of table in front of his plate, and this rod, we will suppose, is toothed into a ratchet-wheel, that moves the index of the banquet-dial. You will see at once that, as he hangs balanced in this scale, any absorption of food would be instantly indicated by the index. All then he is called upon to do is to watch the dial until the hand points to ‘ten,’ and then stop eating.”

“But,” said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, “suppose he shouldn’t be half through?”

“Oh!” said I, “that would not make any difference. When the dial says he has had enough, he must quit.”

“But,” said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, “suppose he would not stop eating?”

“Then,” said I, “the proper way to do would be to inform against him, and have him brought immediately before a justice of the peace, and if he did not at once swear that he had eaten within his limits, fine him, and seize all the victuals on his premises.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. S., “you would have a law to regulate it, then?”

“Of course,” said I, “a statute—a statutory provision, or provisionary act. Then, the principle once being established, you see how easily and beautifully we could be regulated by the simplest motive powers. All the obligations we now owe to society and to ourselves could be dispensed with, or rather transferred to, or vested in, some superior machine, to which we would be accountable by night and day. Nay, more than that, instead of sending representatives to legislate for us, how easy it would be to construct a legislature of bronze and wheel-work—an incorruptible legislature. I would suggest a hydraulic or pneumatic congress as being less liable to explode, and more easily graduated than one propelled by steam simply. All that would be required of us then would be to elect a state engineer annually, and he, with the assistance of a few underlings, could manage the automata as he pleased.”

“I do not see,” replied Mrs. Sparrowgrass, “how that would be an improvement upon the present method, from all I hear.”

This unexpected remark of Mrs. S. surprised me into silence for a moment, but immediately recovering, I answered, that a hydraulic or pneumatic legislature would at least have this advantage—it would construct enactments for the State at, at least, one-fiftieth part of the present expense, and at the same time do the work better and quicker.

“Now, my dear,” said I, as I wound up the ponderous machinery with a huge key, “as you are always an early riser, and as, of course, you will be up before seven o’clock, I will set the indicator at that hour, so that you will not be disturbed by the progress of science. It is getting to be very cold, my dear, but how beautiful the stars are to-night. Look at Orion and the Pleiades! Intensely lustrous in the frosty sky.”

The sensations one experiences in lying down upon a complication of mechanical forces are somewhat peculiar if they are not entirely novel. I once had the pleasure, for one week, of sleeping over the boiler of a high-pressure Mississippi steamboat; and, as I knew in case of a blow up I should be the first to hear of it, I composed my mind as well as I could under the circumstances. But this reposing upon a bed of statics and dynamics, with the constant chirping and crawling of wheel-work at the bed’s head, with a thought now and then of the inexorable iron elbow below, and an uncertainty as to whether the clock itself might not be too fast, or too slow, caused me to be rather reflective and watchful than composed and drowsy.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the lucent stars in their blue depths, and the midnight moon, now tipping the Palisades with a fringe of silver fire, and was thinking how many centuries that lovely light had played upon those rugged ridges of trap and basalt, and so finally sinking from the reflective to the imaginative, and from the imaginative to the indistinct, at last reached that happy state of half consciousness, between half asleep and asleep, when the clock in the machine woke up, and suddenly struck eight. Of course I knew it was later, but I could not imagine why it should at all, as I presumed the only time of striking was in the morning by way of signal. As Mrs. S. was sound asleep, I concluded not to say anything to her about it; but I could not help thinking what an annoyance it would be if the clock should keep on striking the hours during the night. In a little while the bedclothes seemed to droop at the foot of the bed, to which I did not pay much attention, as I was just then engaged listening to the drum below, that seemed to be steadily engaged in winding up its rope and preparing for action. Then I felt the upper part of the patent bedstead rising up, and then I concluded to jump out, just as the iron elbow began to utter a cry like unto the cry of a steel Katydid, and did jump, but was accidentally preceded by the mattress, one bolster, two pillows, ditto blankets, a brace of threadbare linen sheets, one coverlid, the baby, one cradle (overturned), and Mrs. Sparrowgrass. To gather up these heterogeneous materials of comfort required some little time, and, in the meanwhile, the bedstead subsided. When we retired again, and were once more safely protected from the nipping cold, although pretty well cooled, I could not help speaking of the perfect operation of the bedstead in high terms of praise, although, by some accident, it had fulfilled its object a little earlier than had been desirable. As I am very fond of dilating upon a pleasant theme, the conversation was prolonged until Mrs. Sparrowgrass got sleepy, and the clock struck nine. Then we had to turn out again. We had to turn out every hour during the long watches of the night for that wonderful epitome of the age of progress.

When the morning came we were sleepy enough, and the next evening we concluded to replace the “wake-up” with a common, old-fashioned bedstead. To be sure I had made a small mistake the first night, in not setting the “indicator” as well as the index of the dial. But what of that? Who wants his rest, that precious boon, subjected to contingencies? When we go to sleep, and say our prayers, let us wake up according to our natures, and according to our virtues; some require more sleep, some less; we are not mere bits of mechanism after all; who knows what world we may chance to wake up in? For my part, I have determined not to be a humming-top, to be wound up and to run down, just like that very interesting toy one of the young Sparrowgrassii has just now left upon my table, minus a string.

Frederick Swartout Cozzens.

---

A QUILTING.

I MUST tell you, however, of a quilting which I did not share with Mr. Sibthorpe, though I wished for him many times during the afternoon. It was held at the house of a very tidy neighbour, a Mrs. Boardman, the neatness of whose dwelling and its outworks I have often admired in passing. She invited all the neighbours, and, of course, included my unworthy self, although I had never had any other acquaintance than that which may be supposed to result from John and Sophy’s having boarded with her for some time. The walking being damp, an ox cart was sent round for such of the guests as had no “team” of their own, which is our case as yet. This equipage was packed with hay, over which was disposed, by way of musnud, a blue and white coverlet; and by this arrangement half-a-dozen goodly dames, including myself, found reclining room, and were carried at a stately pace to Mrs. Boardman’s. Here we found a collection of women busily occupied in preparing the quilt, which you may be sure was a curiosity to me. They had stretched the lining on a frame, and were now laying fleecy cotton on it with much care; and I understood from several aside remarks, which were not intended for the ear of our hostess, that a due regard for etiquette required that this laying of the cotton should have been performed before the arrival of the company, in order to give them a better chance for finishing the quilt before tea, which is considered a point of honour.

“CARRIED AT A STATELY PACE.”

However, with so many able hands at work, the preparations were soon accomplished. The “bats” were smoothly disposed, and now consenting hands on either side

Induced a splendid cover, green and blue,

Yellow and red,

wherein stars and garters, squares and triangles, figured in every possible relation to each other, and produced, on the whole, a very pretty mathematical piece of work, on which the eyes of Mrs. Boardman rested with no small amount of womanly pride.

Now needles were in requisition, and every available space round the frame was filled by a busy dame.

Several of the company, being left-handed, or rather, ambidextrous (no unusual circumstance here), this peculiarity was made serviceable at the corners, where common seamstresses could only sew in one direction, while these favoured individuals could turn their double power to double account. This beginning of the solid labour was a serious time. Scarcely a word was spoken beyond an occasional request for the thread, or an exclamation at the snapping of a needle. This last seemed of no unfrequent occurrence, as you may well suppose, when you think of the thickness of the materials, and the necessity for making at least tolerably short stitches. I must own that the most I could accomplish for the first hour was the breaking of needles, and the pricking of my fingers in the vain attempt to do as I was bid, and take my stitches “clear through.”

By-and-by it was announced that it was time to roll—and all was bustle and anxiety. The frame had to be taken apart at the corners, and two of the sides rolled several times with much care, and at this diminished surface we began again with renewed spirit. Now all tongues seemed loosened. The evidence of progress had raised everybody’s spirits, and the strife seemed to be who should talk fastest without slackening the industry of her fingers. Some held tête-à-tête communications with a crony in an undertone; others discussed matters of general interest more openly; and some made observations at nobody in particular, but with a view to the amusement of all. Mrs. Vining told the symptoms of each of her five children through an attack of the measles; Mrs. Keteltas gave her opinion as to the party most worthy of blame in a late separation in the village; and Miss Polly Mittles said she hoped the quilt would not be “scant of stitches, like a bachelor’s shirt.”

Tea-time came before the work was completed, and some of the more generous declared they would rather finish it before tea. These offers fell rather coldly, however, for a real tea-drinker does not feel very good-humoured just before tea.

So Mr. Boardman drove four stout nails in the rafters overhead, corresponding in distance with the corners of the quilt, and the frame was raised and fastened to these, so as to be undisturbed, and yet out of the way during the important ceremony that was to succeed.

Is it not well said that “Necessity is the mother of invention”?

A long table was now spread, eked out by boards laid upon carpenters’ “horses,” and this was covered with a variety of table-cloths, all shining clean, however, and carefully disposed. The whole table array was equally various, the contributions, I presume, of several neighbouring log-houses. The feast spread upon it included every variety that ever was put upon a tea-table; from cake and preserves to pickles and raw cabbage cut up in vinegar.

Pies there were, and custards and sliced ham, and cheese, and three or four kinds of bread. I could do little besides look, and try to guess out the dishes. However, everything was very good, and our hostess must have felt complimented by the attention paid to her various delicacies.

The cabbage, I think, was rather the favourite; vinegar being one of the rarities of a settler’s cabin.

I was amused to see the loads of cake and pie that accumulated upon the plates of the guests.

When all had finished, most of the plates seemed full. But I was told afterwards that it was not considered civil to decline any one kind of food, though your hostess may have provided a dozen. You are expected at least to try each variety. But this leads to something which I cannot think very agreeable.

After all had left the table, our hostess began to clear it away, that the quilt might be restored to its place; and, as a preliminary, she went all round to the different plates, selecting such pieces of cake as were but little bitten, and paring off the half-demolished edges with a knife, in order to replace them in their original circular position in the dishes. When this was accomplished, she assiduously scraped from the edges of the plates the scraps of butter that had escaped demolition, and wiped them back on the remains of the pat. This was doubtless a season of delectation to the economical soul of Mrs. Boardman; you may imagine its effects upon the nerves of your friend. Such is the influence of habit! The good woman doubtless thought she was performing a praiseworthy action, and one in no wise at variance with her usual neat habits; and if she could have peeped into my heart, and there have read the resolutions I was tacitly making against breaking bread again under the same auspices, she would have pitied or despised such a lamentable degree of pride and extravagance. So goes this strange world.

The quilt was replaced, and several good housewives seated themselves at it, determined to “see it out.” I was reluctantly compelled to excuse myself, my inexperienced fingers being pricked to absolute rawness. But I have since ascertained that the quilt was finished that evening, and placed on Mrs. Boardman’s best bed immediately; where indeed I see it every time I pass the door, as it is not our custom to keep our handsome things in the background. There were some long stitches in it, I know, but they do not show as far as the road; so the quilt is a very great treasure, and will probably be kept as an heirloom.

I have some thoughts of an attempt in the “patchwork” line myself. One of the company at Mrs. Boardman’s remarked that the skirt of the French cambric dress I wore would make a “splendid” quilt. It is a temptation, certainly.

Sam Slick.

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A PATENTED CHILD.

THE town of Sussex, Pennsylvania, has lately been profoundly stirred by an extraordinary and romantic lawsuit. The case was an entirely novel one, and no precedent bearing upon it is to be found in the common or statute law. While it is necessarily a matter of great interest to the legal profession, its romantic side cannot fail to attract the attention of persons of all ages and every kind of sex. In fact, it is destined to be one of the most celebrated cases in the annals of American jurisprudence.

Some time last winter a lady whom we will call Mrs. Smith, who kept a boarding-house in Sussex, took her little girl, aged four, with her to make a call on Mrs. Brown, her near neighbour. Mrs. Brown was busy in the kitchen, where she received her visitor with her usual cordiality. There was a large fire blazing in the stove, and while the ladies were excitedly discussing the new bonnet of the local Methodist minister’s wife, the little girl incautiously sat down on the stove hearth. She was instantly convinced that the hearth was exceedingly hot, and on loudly bewailing the fact, was rescued by her mother and carried home for medical treatment. A few days later Mrs. Smith burst in great excitement into the room of a young law student, who was one of her boarders, and with tears and lamentations disclosed to him the fact that her child was indelibly branded with the legend, “Patented, 1872.” These words in raised letters had happened to occupy just that part of the stove-hearth on which the child had seated herself, and being heated nearly to red heat they had reproduced themselves on the surface of the unfortunate child.

The law student entered into the mother’s sorrow with much sympathy, but after he had in some degree calmed her mind he informed her that a breach of law had been committed. “Your child,” he remarked, “has never been patented, but she is marked ‘Patented, 1872.’ This is an infringement of the statute. You falsely represent by that brand that a child for whom no patent was issued is patented. This false representation is forgery, and subjects you to penalty made and provided for that crime.”

Mrs. Smith was, as may be supposed, greatly alarmed at learning this statement, and her first impulse was to beg the young man to save her from a convict’s cell. With a gravity suited to the occasion, he explained the whole law of patents. He told her that had she desired to patent the child, she should have either constructed a model of it or prepared accurate drawings, with specifications showing distinctly what parts of the child she claimed to have invented. This model or these drawings she should have forwarded to the Patent Office, and she would then have received in due time a patent—provided, of course, the child was really patentable—and would have been authorised to label it “Patented.” “Unfortunately,” he pursued, “it is now too late to take this course, and we must boldly claim that a patent was issued, but that the record was destroyed during the recent fire in the Patent Office.”

This suggestion cheered the spirits of Mrs. Smith, but they were again dashed by the further remarks of the young man. He reminded her that the child might find it very inconvenient to be patented. “If we claim,” he went on to say, “that she has been regularly patented, it follows that the ownership of the patent, including the child herself, belongs to you, and will pass at your death into the possession of your heirs. Holding the patent, they can prevent any husband taking possession of the girl by marriage, and they can sell, assign, transfer, and set over the patent right and the accompanying girl to any purchaser. If she is sold to a speculator or to a joint-stock company, she will find her position a most unpleasant one; and to sum up the case, madam, either your child is patented or she is not. If she is not patented, you are guilty of forgery. If she is patented, she is an object of barter and sale, or in other words a chattel.”

This was certainly a wretched state of things, and Mrs. Smith, to ease her mind, began to abuse Mrs. Brown, whose stove had branded the unfortunate little girl. She loudly insisted that the whole fault rested with Mrs. Brown, and demanded to know if the latter could not be punished. The young man, who was immensely learned in the law, thereupon began a new argument. He told her that where there is a wrong there must, in the nature of things, be a remedy. “Mrs. Brown, by means of her stove, has done you a great wrong. In accordance with the maxim, Qui facit per alium facit per se, Mrs. Brown, and not the stove, is the party from whom you must demand redress. She has wickedly and maliciously, and at the instigation of the devil, branded your child, and thus rendered you liable for an infringement of the patent law. It is my opinion, madam, that an action for assault and an action for libel will both lie against Mrs. Brown, and ‘semble’ that there is also ground for having her indicted for procurement of forgery.” Finally, after much further argument, the young man advised her to apply to a magistrate and procure the arrest and punishment of Mrs. Brown.

Accordingly, Mrs. Smith applied to the Mayor, who, after vainly trying to comprehend the case, and to find out what was the precise crime alleged against Mrs. Brown, compromised the matter by unofficially asking the lady to appear before him. When both the ladies were in court Mrs. Smith, prompted by the clerk, put her complaint in the shape of a charge that Mrs. Brown had branded the youthful Smith girl. The latter was then marked “Exhibit A,” and formally put in evidence, and both complainant and defendant told their respective stories.

The result was that the court, in a very able and voluminous opinion, decided that nobody was guilty of anything, but that, with a view of avoiding the penalty of infringing the patent law, the mother must apply to Congress for a special act declaring the child regularly and legally patented.

If Congress finds time to attend to this important matter, little Miss Smith will be the first girl ever patented in this country, and the legal profession will watch with unflagging interest the law-suits to which in future any infringement of the patent may lead.

W. L. Alden.

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A TALK ABOUT TEA.

“OUR LEARNED FRIEND, DR. BUSHWHACKER.”

“SIR,” said our learned friend, Dr. Bushwhacker, “we are indebted to China for the four principal blessings we enjoy. Tea came from China, the compass came from China, printing came from China, and gunpowder came from China—thank God! China, sir, is an old country, a very old country. There is one word, sir, we got from China that is oftener in the mouths of American people than any other word in the language. It is cash, sir, cash! That we derive from the Chinese. It is the name, sir, of the small brass coin they use, the coin with a square hole in the middle. And then look at our Franklin; he drew the lightning from the skies with his kite; but who invented the kite, sir? The long-tailed Chinaman, sir. Franklin had no invention; he never would have invented a kite or a printing-press. But he could use them, sir, to the best possible advantage, sir; he had no genius, sir, but he had remarkable talent and industry.

“Then, sir, we got our umbrella from China. The first man that carried an umbrella, in London, in Queen Anne’s reign, was followed by a mob. That is only one hundred and fifty years ago. We get the art of making porcelain from China. Our ladies must thank the Celestials for their tea-pots.

“Queen Elizabeth never saw a tea-pot in her life. In 1664 the East India Company brought two pounds two ounces of tea as a present for his Majesty King Charles the Second. In 1667 they imported one hundred pounds of tea.

“Then, sir, rose the reign of scandal. Queen scandal, sir! Then, sir, rose the intolerable race of waspish spinsters who sting reputations and defame humanity over their dyspeptic cups. Then, sir, the astringent principle of the herb was communicated to the heart, and domestic troubles were brewed and fomented over the tea-table. Then, sir, the age of chivalry was over, and women grew acrid and bitter; then, sir, the first temperance society was founded, and high duties were laid upon wines, and in consequence they distilled whisky instead, which made matters a great deal better, of course; and all the abominations, all the difficulties of domestic life, all the curses of living in a country village; the intolerant canvassing of character, reputation, piety; the nasty, mean, prying spirit; the uncharitable, defamatory, gossiping, tale-bearing, whispering, unwomanly, unchristianlike behaviour of those who set themselves up for patterns over their vile decoctions, sir, arose with the introduction of tea. Yes, sir; when the wine-cup gave place to the tea-cup, then the devil, sir, reached his culminating point.

“The curiosity of Eve was bad enough; but, sir, when Eve’s curiosity becomes sharpened by turgid tonics, and scandal is added to inquisitiveness, and innuendo supplies the place of truth, and an imperfect digestion is the pilot instead of charity; then, sir, we must expect to see human nature vilified, and levity condemned, and good fellowship condemned, and all good men, from Washington down, damned by Miss Tittle, and Miss Tattle, and the widow Blackleg, and the whole host of tea-drinking conspirators against social enjoyment.”

Here Dr. Bushwhacker grew purple with eloquence and indignation. We ventured to remark that he had spoken of tea “as a blessing” at first.

“Yes, sir,” responded Dr. Bushwhacker, shaking his bushy head, “that reminds one of Doctor Pangloss. Yes, sir, it is a blessing, but like all other blessings it must be used temperately, or else it is a curse! China, sir,” continued the doctor, dropping the oratorical and taking up the historical; “China, sir, knows nothing of perspective, but she is great in pigments. Indian ink, sir, is Chinese, so are vermilion and indigo; the malleable properties of gold, sir, were first discovered by this extraordinary people; we must thank them for our gold leaf. Gold is not a pigment, but roast pig is, and Charles Lamb says the origin of roast pig is Chinese; the beautiful fabric we call silk, sir, came from the Flowery Nation, so did embroidery, so did the game of chess, so did fans. In fact, sir, it is difficult to say what we have not derived from the Chinese. Cotton, sir, is our great staple, but they wove and spun, long staple and short staple, yellow cotton and white cotton, before Columbus sailed out of the port of Palos in the Santa Maria.”

Frederick S. Cozzens.

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OLD AUNT MARY’S.

WASN’T it pleasant, O brother mine,

In those old days of the lost sunshine

Of youth—when the Saturday’s chores were through,

And the “Sunday’s wood” in the kitchen, too,

And we went visiting, “me and you,”

Out to Old Aunt Mary’s?

It all comes back so clear to-day!

Though I am as bald as you are grey—

Out by the barn-lot, and down the lane,

We patter along in the dust again,

As light as the tips of the drops of the rain,

Out to Old Aunt Mary’s!

We cross the pasture, and through the wood

Where the old grey snag of the poplar stood,

Where the hammering “red-heads” hopped awry,

And the buzzard “raised” in the “clearing” sky,

And lolled and circled, as we went by

Out to Old Aunt Mary’s!

And then in the dust of the road again;

And the teams we met, and the countrymen;

And the long highway, with sunshine spread

As thick as butter on country bread,

Our cares behind, and our hearts ahead,

Out to Old Aunt Mary’s!

Why, I see her now in the open door,

Where the little gourds grew up the sides and o’er

The clapboard roof!—and her face—ah, me!

Wasn’t it good for a boy to see—

And wasn’t it good for a boy to be

Out to Old Aunt Mary’s!

And oh, my brother, so far away,

This is to tell you she waits to-day

To welcome us:—Aunt Mary fell

Asleep this morning, whispering, “Tell

The boys to come!” And all is well

Out to Old Aunt Mary’s!

James Whitcomb Riley.

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A PETITION OF THE LEFT HAND.

TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE SUPERINTENDENCY OF EDUCATION.

I ADDRESS myself to all the friends of youth, and conjure them to direct their compassionate regards to my unhappy fate, in order to remove the prejudices of which I am the victim. There are twin sisters of us; and the two eyes of man do not more resemble, nor are capable of being upon better terms with each other, than my sister and myself, were it not for the partiality of our parents, who make the most injurious distinctions between us. From my infancy I have been led to consider my sister as a being of a more elevated rank. I was suffered to grow up without the least instruction, while nothing was spared in her education.

She had masters to teach her writing, drawing, music, and other accomplishments; but if by chance I touched a pencil, a pen, or a needle, I was bitterly rebuked; and more than once I have been beaten for being awkward, and wanting a graceful manner. It is true, my sister associated me with her upon some occasions; but she always made a point of taking the lead, calling upon me only from necessity, or to figure by her side.

But conceive not, sirs, that my complaints are instigated merely by vanity. No; my uneasiness is occasioned by an object much more serious. It is the practice in our family, that the whole business of providing for its subsistence falls upon my sister and myself. If any indisposition should attack my sister,—and I mention it in confidence upon this occasion, that she is subject to the gout, the rheumatism, and cramp, without making mention of other accidents,—what would be the fate of our poor family?

Must not the regret of our parents be excessive, at having placed so great a difference between sisters who are so perfectly equal? Alas! we must perish from distress; for it would not be in my power even to scrawl a suppliant petition for relief, having been obliged to employ the hand of another in transcribing the request which I have now the honour to prefer to you.

Condescend, sirs, to make my parents sensible of the injustice of an exclusive tenderness, and of the necessity of distributing their care and affection among all their children equally. I am, with a profound respect, sirs, your obedient servant,

The Left Hand.

Benjamin Franklin.

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WOMEN’S FASHIONS.

SHOULD I not keepe promise in speaking a little to Women’s fashions, they would take it unkindly. I was loath to pester better matter with such stuffe; I rather thought it meet to let them stand by themselves, like the Quæ Genus in the Grammar, being Deficients, or Redundants, not to be brought under any Rule: I shall therefore make bold for this once, to borrow a little of their loose-tongued Liberty, and misspend a word or two upon their long-wasted, but short-skirted patience; a little use of my stirrup will doe no harme.

Ridentem dicere verum, quid prohibet?

Gray Gravity itselfe can well beteam,

That Language be adapted to the Theme.

He that to Parrots speaks, must parrotize;

He that instructs a foole, may act th’ unwise.

It is known more then enough, that I am neither Nigard, nor Cinick, to the due bravery of the true Gentry: if any man mislikes a bully ’mong drossock more than I, let him take her for his labour! I honour the woman that can honour her selfe with her attire: a good Text alwayes deserves a fair Margent: I am not much offended if I see a trimme, far trimmer than she that wears it: in a word, whatever Christianity or Civility will allow, I can afford with London measure: but when I heare a nugiperous Gentledame inquire what dresse the Queen is in this week: what the nudiustertian fashion of the court; I meane the very newest: with egge to be in it in all haste, what ever it be; I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cypher, the epitome of nothing, fitter to be kickt, if shee were of a kickable substance, than either honour’d or humour’d.

To speak moderately, I truly confesse, it is beyond the ken of my understanding to conceive, how those women should have any true grace, or valuable vertue, that have so little wit, as to disfigure themselves with such exotick garbes, as not only dismantles their native lovely lustre, but trans-clouts them into gant bar-geese, ill-shapen-shotten-shell-fish, Egyptian hyeroglyphicks, or at the best into French flurts of the pastery, which a proper English-woman should scorne with her heels; it is no marvell they weare drailes on the hinder part of their heads, having nothing as it seems in the fore part, but a few Squirril’s brains to help them frisk from one ill-favor’d fashion to another.

These whimm-Crown’d shees, these fashion-fansying wits,

Are empty thin-brained shells, and fiddling Kits.

The very troublers and impoverishers of mankind, I can hardly forbear to commend to the world a saying of a Lady living sometime with the Queen of Bohemia. I know not where shee found it, but it is a pitty it should be lost.

The World is full of care, much like unto a bubble;

Women and care, and care and women, and women and care and trouble.

The Verses are even enough for such odde pegma’s. I can make myselfe sicke at any time, with comparing the dazling splender wherewith our Gentlewomen were embellished in some former habits, with the goosdom wherewith they are now surcingled and debauched. Wee have about five or six of them in our Colony; if I see any of them accidentally, I cannot cleanse my phansie of them for a moneth after. I have been a solitary widdower almost twelve yeares, purposed lately to make a step over to my Native Country for a yoke fellow; but when I consider how women there have tripe-wifed themselves with their cladments, I have no heart to the voyage, least their nauseous shapes and the Sea, should work too sorely upon my stomach. I speak sadly; me thinkes it should breake the hearts of Englishmen to see so many goodly Englishwomen imprisoned in French Cages, peering out of their hood-holes for some men of mercy to help them with a little wit, and no body relieves them.

It is a more common than convenient saying, that nine Taylors make a man; it were well if nineteene could make a woman to her minde; if Taylors were men indeed, well furnished, but with meer morall principles, they would disdain to be led about like Apes, by such mymick Marmosets. It is a most unworthy thing, for men that have bones in them, to spend their lives in making fidle-cases for futilous women’s phansies; which are the very pettitoes of infirmity, the gyblets of perquisquilian toyes. I am so charitable to think, that most of that mystery would worke the cheerfuller while they live, if they might bee well discharged of the tyring slavery of mis-trying women; it is no little labour to be continually putting up English-women into Out-landish caskes; who if they be not shifted anew, once in a few moneths, grow too sowre for their Husbands. What this Trade will answer for themselves when God shall take measure of Taylors’ consciences is beyond my skill to imagine. There was a time when

The joyning of the Red-Rose with the White,

Did set our State into a Damask plight.

But now our Roses are turned to Flore de lices, our Carnations to Tulips, our Gilliflowers to Dayzes, our City Dames, to indenominable Quæmalry of overturcas’d things. Hee that makes Coates for the Moone had need take measure every noone; and he that makes for women, as often, to keepe them from Lunacy.

I have often heard divers Ladies vent loud feminine complaints of the wearisome varieties and chargeable changes of fashions! I marvell themselves preferre not a Bill of redresse. I would Essex Ladies would lead the Chore, for the honour of their County and persons; or rather the thrice honourable Ladies of the Court, whom it best beseemes; who may wel presume of a Le Roy le Veult from our sober King, a Les Seigneurs ont Assentus from our prudent Peers, and the like Assentus from our considerate, I dare not say wife-worne Commons! who I believe had much rather passe one such Bill, than pay so many Taylors’ Bills as they are forced to doe.

Most deare and unparallel’d Ladies, be pleased to attempt it; as you have the precellency of the women of the world for beauty and feature; so assume the honour to give, and not take Law from any, in matter of attire; if ye can transact so faire a motion among yourselves unanimously I dare say, they that most renite, will least repent. What greater honour can your Honours desire, than to build a Promontory president to all foraigne Ladies, to deserve so eminently at the hands of all the English Gentry present and to come; and to confute the opinion of all the wise men in the world; who never thought it possible for women to doe so good a work?

If any man think I have spoken rather merrily than seriously, he is much mistaken. I have written what I write with all the indignation I can, and no more than I ought. I confesse I veer’d my tongue to this kinde of Language de industria though unwillingly, supposing those I speak to are uncapable of grave and rationall arguments.

I desire all Ladies and Gentlewomen to understand that all this while I intend not such as through necessary modesty to avoyd morose singularity, follow fashions slowly, a flight shot or two off, showing by their moderation that they rather draw countermont with their hearts, than put on by their examples.

I point my pen only against the light-heel’d beagles that lead the chase so fast, that they run all civility out of breath, against these Ape-headed pullets, which invent Antique foole-fangles, meerly for fashion and novelty sake.

Nathaniel Ward.

---

THE NEWSBOY.

“I WISH YOU, SIR, TO CONTROL YOUR NEWSBOYS.”

“IS this the office of the National Pop-gun and Universal Valve Trumpet?” inquired Sapid in sepulchral tones.

“Hey—what? Oh!—yes,” gruffly replied the clerk, as he scrutinised the applicant.

“It is, is it?” was the response.

“H—umpse;” heaving a porcine affirmative, much in use in the city of brotherly love.

“I am here to see the editor, on business of importance,” slowly and solemnly articulated Sapid. There must have been something professionally alarming in this announcement, if an opinion may be formed from the effect it produced.

“Editor’s not come down yet, is he, Spry?” inquired the clerk, with a cautionary wink at the paste-boy.

“Guess he ain’t more nor up yet,” said Spry; “the mails was late last night.”

“I’ll take a seat till he does come,” observed Sapid, gloomily.

Spry and the clerk laid their heads together in the most distant corner of the little office.

“Has he got a stick?” whispered one.

“No, and he isn’t remarkable big, nuther.”

“Any bit of paper in his hand—does he look like State House and a libel suit? It’s a’most time—not had a new suit for a week.”

“Not much; and, as we didn’t have any scrouger in the Gun yesterday, perhaps he wants to have somebody tickled up himself. Send him in.”

St. Sebastian Sockdolager, Esq., the editor of The National Pop-gun and Universal Valve Trumpet, sat at a green table, elucidating an idea by the aid of a steel pen and whity-brown paper, and therefore St. Sebastian Sockdolager did not look up when Mr. Sapid entered the sanctum. The abstraction may, perhaps, have been a sample of literary stage effect; but it is certain that the pen pursued the idea with the speed and directness of a steeple-chase, straight across the paper, and direful was the scratching thereof. The luckless idea being at last fairly run down and its brush cut off, Mr. Sockdolager threw himself back into his chair with a smile of triumph.

“Tickletoby,” said he, rumpling his hair into heroic expansiveness.

“What?” exclaimed Sapid, rather nervously.

“My dear sir, I didn’t see you—a thousand pardons! Pray what can be done for you in our line?”

“Sir, there is a nuisance——”

“Glad of it, sir; The Gun is death on a nuisance. We circulate ten thousand deaths to any sort of a nuisance every day, besides the weekly and the country edition. We are a regular smash-pipes in that line—surgical, surgical to this community—we are at once the knife and the sarsaparilla to human ills, whether financial, political, or social.”

“Sir, the nuisance I complain of lies in the circulation—in its mode and manner.”

“Bless me,” said Sockdolager, with a look of suspicion, “you are too literal in your interpretations. If your circulation is deranged, you had better try Brandreth, or the Fluid Extract of Quizembob.”

“It is not my circulation, but yours, that makes all the trouble. I never circulate—I can’t without being insulted.”

“Really, mister, I can’t say that this is clearly comprehensible to perception. Not circulate! Are you below par in the money article; or in what particular do you find yourself in the condition of ‘no go’? Excuse my facetiæ and be brief, for thought comes tumbling, bumping, booming——” and Sockdolager dipped his pen in the ink.

Mr. Sappington Sapid unravelled the web of his miseries. “I wish you, sir, to control your newsboys—to dismiss the saucy, and to write an article which shall make ’em ashamed of themselves. I shall call on every editor in the city, sir, and ask the same—a combined expression for the suppression of iniquity. We must be emancipated from this new and growing evil, or our liberties become a farce, and we are squashed and crushed in a way worse than fifty tea-taxes.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Whatcheecallem; it can’t be done—it would be suicidal, with the sharpest kind of a knife. Whatcheecallem, you don’t understand the grand movement of the nineteenth century—you are not up to snuff as to the vital principle of human progression—the propulsive force has not yet been demonstrated to your benighted optics. The sun is up, sir; the hill-tops of intellect glow with its brightness, and even the level plain of the world’s collective mediocrity is gilded by its beams; but you, sir, are yet in the foggy valley of exploded prejudice, poking along with a tuppenny-ha’penny candle—a mere dip. Suppress sauciness! why, my dear bungletonian, sauciness is the discovery of the age—the secret of advancement! We are saucy now, sir, not by the accident of constitution—temperament has nothing to do with it. We are saucy by calculation, by intention, by design. It is cultivated, like our whiskers, as a superadded energy to our other gifts. Without sauciness, what is a newsboy? what is an editor? what are revolutions? what are people? Sauce is power. Sauce is spirit, independence, victory, everything. It is, in fact,—this sauce, or ‘sass,’ as the vulgar have it,—steam to the great locomotive of affairs. Suppress, indeed! No, sir; you should regard it as part of your duty as a philanthropist and as a patriot to encourage this essence of superiority in all your countrymen; and I’ve a great mind to write you an article on that subject instead of the other, for this conversation has warmed up my ideas so completely that justice will not be done to the community till they, like you, are enlightened on this important point.”

St. Sebastian Sockdolager, now having a leading article for The National Pop-gun and Universal Valve Trumpet clearly in his mind, was not a creature to be trifled with. An editor in this paroxysm, however gentle in his less inspired moments, cannot safely be crossed, or even spoken to. It is not wise to call him to dinner, except through the keyhole; and to ask for “more copy,” in general a privileged demand, is a risk too fearful to be encountered. St. Sebastian’s eye became fixed, his brow corrugated, his mouth intellectually ajar.

“But, sir, the nuisance,” said Sappington.

“Don’t bother!” was the impatient reply, and the brow of St. Sebastian Sockdolager grew black as his own ink.

“The boys, sir, the boys!—am I to be worried out of my life and soul?”

The right hand of St. Sebastian Sockdolager fell heavily upon the huge pewter inkstand—the concatenation of his ideas had been broken—he half raised himself from his chair and glanced significantly from his visitor to the door. “Mizzle!” said he, in a hoarse, suppressed whisper.

The language itself was unintelligible—the word might have been Chaldaic, for all that Sapid knew to the contrary; but there are situations in which an interpreter is not needed, and this appeared to be one of them. Sapid never before made a movement so swiftly extemporaneous.

He intends shortly to try whether the Grand Jury is a convert to the new doctrine of sauciness.

Joseph C. Neal.

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THE BOYS AROUND THE HOUSE.

SURELY you must have seen a boy of eight or ten years of age get ready for bed? His shoe-strings are in a hard knot, and after a few vain efforts to unlace them he rushes after a case-knife and saws each string in two. One shoe is thrown under the table, the other behind the stove, his jacket behind the door, and his stockings are distributed over as many chairs as they will reach.

The boy doesn’t slip his pants off; he struggles out of them, holding a leg down with his foot and drawing his limbs out after many stupendous efforts. While doing this his hands are clutched into the bedclothes, and by the time he is ready to get into bed the quilts and sheets are awry and the bed is full of humps and lumps. His brother has gone through the same motions, and both finally crawl into bed. They are good boys, and they love each other, but they are hardly settled on their backs when one cries out—

“Hitch along!”

“I won’t!” bluntly replies the other.

“Ma, Bill’s got more’n half the bed!” cries the first.

“Hain’t either, ma!” replies Bill.

There is a moment of silence, and then the first exclaims—

“Get yer feet off’n me!”

“They hain’t touching you!” is the answer.

“Yes they be, and you’re on my pillar, too!”

“Oh! my stars, what a whopper! You’ll never go to heaven!”

The mother looks into the bedroom and kindly says—

“Come, children, be good, and don’t make your mother any trouble.”

“Well,” replies the youngest, “if Bill ’ll tell me a bear story ’ll go to sleep.”

The mother withdraws, and Bill starts out—

“Well, you know, there was an old bear who lived in a cave. He was a big black bear. He had eyes like coals of fire, you know, and when he looked at a feller he——”

“Ma, Bill’s scaring me!” yells Henry, sitting on end.

“Oh, ma! that’s the awfullest story you ever heard!” replies Bill.

“Hitch along, I say!” exclaims Henry.

“I am along!” replies Bill.

“Get yer knee out’n my back!”

“Hain’t anywhere near ye!”

“Gimme some cloze!”

“You’ve got more’n half now!”

“Come, children, do be good and go to sleep,” says the mother, entering the room and arranging the clothes.

They doze off after a few muttered words, to preserve the peace until morning, and it is popularly supposed that an angel sits on each bed-post to sentinel either curly head during the long, dark hours.

“Ho-hum!” yawns Bill.

“Ho-hum!” yawns Henry.

It is morning, and they crawl out of bed. After four or five efforts they get into their pants, and then reach out for stockings.

“I know I put mine right down here by this bed!” exclaims Bill.

“And I put mine right there by the end of the bureau!” adds Henry.

They wander around, growling and jawing, and the mother finally finds the stockings. Then comes the jackets. They are positive that they hung them on the hooks, and boldly charge that some maliciously wicked person removed them. And so it goes until each one is finally dressed, washed, and ready for breakfast, and the mother feels such a burden off her mind that she can endure what follows their leaving the table—a good half-hour’s hunt after their hats, which they “positively hung up,” but which are at last found under some bed, or stowed away behind the woodbox.

C. B. Lewis (“M Quad”).

---

MR. DOTY MAD.

MR. HENRY K. DOTY, one of the most prominent citizens, and the leading hide and pelt dealer in the North-West, has just returned from a European tour. He has been absent about four months; and in that time he has made a visit to every European country, and has become thoroughly acquainted with the customs, manners, and languages of the different people. He spent about seventy-five thousand dollars on the trip; but this could not be called an extravagant sum when one takes into consideration the superb paintings, statuary, and other works of virtue that he brought back with him. In Paris, upon the Roo de Rivoly alone, he purchased fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of pictures; and in Brussels he bought several thousand dollars’ worth of those elegant carpets from which that city derives its name. Mr. Doty says that he was well treated everywhere except in England. He is specially bitter against Mr. Phelps, our representative at the court of St. James.

“This man Phelps,” says he, “is a little, dried-up, snobbish Vermont lawyer, with a soul no bigger than a huckleberry. I dyed my moustache, and put on my dress-suit and my twenty-thousand-dollar diamond bosom-pin, and called to see him. A fine specimen he is to represent our wealth and culture! I don’t believe his clothes cost more than twenty dollars a suit.

“‘I suppose I ought to call on the queen,’ says I.

“He didn’t say anything; and I continued, ‘Would you mind introducing me?’

“‘Really, Mr. Doty,’ says he, ‘I do not feel like presenting an entire stranger to her Majesty.’

“‘Oh! you needn’t be scared,’ says I, ‘for I carry as big a letter of credit as any American in London; and when it comes to culture, and that sort of thing, I can knock the socks off any of your lords and marqueezies.’

“Well, will you believe it? he had the impudence to shove a printed list of questions at me.

“‘You will have to answer these on oath before I can tell you whether I can present you to her Majesty,’ says he.

“I was as mad as a Texas steer. Here are some of the questions: ‘Did you ever have a grandfather? and if so, what was his vocation?’ ‘Have you contracted the toothbrush habit?’ ‘Are you addicted to the use of the double negative?’ ‘Spell phthisis, strychnine, pneumonia?’ Fine questions these to put to a gentleman worth a cool million! I told him to go to —— with his queen; and I’m going to have my private secretary write a letter to the President, complaining of Phelps, and demanding that he be discharged.”

Eugene Field.

---

OUR TWO OPINIONS.

US two wuz boys when we fell out,—

Nigh to the age uv my youngest now;

Don’t rec’lect what ’t wuz about,

Some small deeff’rence, I’ll allow.

Lived next neighbours twenty years,

A-hatin’ each other, me ’nd Jim,—

He havin’ his opinyin uv me,

’nd I havin’ my opinyin uv him.

Grew up together ’nd wouldn’t speak,

Courted sisters, ’nd marr’d ’em, too;

’tended same meetin’-house oncet a week,

A-hatin’ each other through ’nd through!

But when Abe Linkern asked the West

F’r soldiers, we answered,—me ’nd Jim,—

He havin’ his opinyin uv me,

’nd I havin’ my opinyin uv him.

But down in Tennessee one night

Ther wuz sound uv firin’ fur away,

’nd the sergeant allowed ther’d be a fight

With the Johnnie Rebs some time nex’ day;

’nd as I wuz thinkin’ uv Lizzie ’nd home

Jim stood afore me, long ’nd slim,—

He havin’ his opinyin uv me,

’nd I havin’ my opinyin uv him.

“US TWO SHUCK HANDS.”

Seemed like we knew ther wuz goin’ to be

Serious trouble f’r me ’nd him;

Us two shuck hands, did Jim ’nd me,

But never a word from me or Jim!

He went his way ’nd I went mine,

’nd into the battle’s roar went we,—

I havin’ my opinyin uv Jim,

’nd he havin’ his opinyin uv me.

Jim never come back from the war again,

But I hain’t forgot that last, last night

When, waitin’ f’r orders, us two men

Made up ’nd shuck hands, afore the fight.

’nd after it all, it’s soothin’ to know

That here I be ’nd yonder’s Jim,—

He havin’ his opinyin uv me,

’nd I havin’ my opinyin uv him.

Eugene Field.

---

ONE OF MR. WARD’S BUSINESS LETTERS.

To the Editor of the ——.

SIR—I’m movin along—slowly along—down tords your place. I want you should rite me a letter, sayin how is the show bizniss in your place. My show at present consists of three moral Bares, a Kangaroo (a amoozin little Raskal—’twould make you larf yerself to deth to see the little cuss jump up and squeal) wax figgers of G. Washington Gen. Tayler, John Bunyan Capt. Kidd and Dr. Webster in the act of killin Dr. Parkman, besides several miscellanyus moral wax statoots of celebrated piruts & murderers, &c., ekalled by few & exceld by none. Now Mr. Editor, scratch orf a few lines sayin how is the show bizness down to your place. I shall hav my hanbills dun at your offiss. Depend upon it. I want you should git my hanbills up in flamin stile. Also git up a tremenjus excitemunt in yr. paper ’bowt my onparaleld Show. We must fetch the public sumhow. We must wurk on their feelins. Cum the moral on ’em strong. If its a temprance community tell ’em I sined the pledge fifteen minits arter Ise born, but on the contery ef your peple take their tods, say Mister Ward is as Jenial a feller as we ever met, full of conwiviality, & the life an sole of the Soshul Bored. Take, don’t you? If you say anythin abowt my show say my snaiks is as harmliss as the new-born Babe. What a interestin study it is to see a zewological animal like a snaik under perfeck subjecshun! My kangaroo is the most larfable little cuss I ever saw. All for 15 cents. I am anxyus to skewer your infloounce. I repeet in regard to them hanbills that I shall git ’em struck orf up to your printin offiss. My perlitercal sentiments agree with yourn exackly. I know thay do, becawz I never saw a man whoos didn’t.

Respectively yures,

A. Ward.

P.S.—You scratch my back & Ile scratch your back.

Artemus Ward.

---

THE SHOWMAN’S COURTSHIP.

THARE was many affectin ties which made me hanker arter Betsy Jane. Her father’s farm jined our’n; their cows and our’n squencht their thurst at the same spring; our old mares both had stars in their forrerds; the measles broke out in both famerlies at nearly the same period; our parients (Betsy’s and mine) slept reglarly every Sunday in the same meetin house, and the nabers used to obsarve, “How thick the Wards and Peasleys air!” It was a surblime site, in the Spring of the year, to see our sevral mothers (Betsy’s and mine) with their gowns pin’d up so thay couldn’t sile ’em, affecshunitly Bilin sope together & aboozin the nabers.

Altho I hankerd intensly arter the objeck of my affecshuns, I darsunt tell her of the fires which was rajin in my manly Buzzom. I’d try to do it but my tung would kerwollup up agin the roof of my mowth & stick thar, like deth to a deseast Afrikan, or a country postmaster to his offiss, while my hart whanged agin my ribs like a old-fashioned wheat Flale agin a barn door.

’Twas a carm still nite in Joon. All nater was husht and nary zeffer disturbed the sereen silens. I sot with Betsy Jane on the fense of her farther’s pastur. We’d bin rompin threw the woods, kullin flours & drivin the woodchuck from his Native Lair (so to speak) with long sticks. Wall we sot thar on the fense, a swingin our feet two and fro, blushin as red as the Baldinsville skool house when it was fust painted, and lookin very simple, I make no doubt. My left arm was ockepied in ballunsin myself on the fense, while my rite was woundid luvinly round her waste.

“I CLEARED MY THROAT AND TREMBLINLY SED, ‘BETSY, YOU’RE
A GAZELLE.’”

I cleared my throat and tremblinly sed, “Betsy, you’re a Gazelle.”

I thought that air was putty fine. I waitid to see what effeck it would hav upon her. It evidently didn’t fetch her, for she up and sed—

“You’re a sheep!”

Sez I, “Betsy, I think very muchly of you.”

“I don’t b’leeve a word you say—so there now cum!” with which obsarvashun she hitched away from me.

“I wish thar was winders to my Sole,” said I, “so that you could see some of my feelins. There’s fire enuff in here,” said I, strikin my buzzum with my fist, “to bile all the corn beef and turnips in the naberhood. Versoovius and the Critter ain’t a circumstans!”

She bowd her hed down and commenst chawin the strings to her sun bonnet.

“Ar could you know the sleeplis nites I worry threw with on your account, how vittles has seized to be attractiv to me, & how my lims has shrunk up, you wouldn’t dowt me. Gase on this wastin form and these ’ere sunken cheeks——”

I should have continnered on in this strane probly for sum time, but unfortnitly I lost my ballunse and fell over into the pastur kersmash, tearin my close and seveerly damagin myself ginerally.

Betsy Jane sprung to my assistance in dubble quick time and dragged me 4th. Then drawin herself up to her full hite, she said:

“I won’t listen to your noncents no longer. Jes say rite strate out what you’re drivin at. If you mean gettin hitched, I’m in!”

I considered that air enuff for all practical purpusses, and we proceeded immejitly to the parson’s, and was made 1 that very nite.

(Notiss to the Printer. Put some stars here.)

---

I’ve parst threw many tryin ordeels sins then, but Betsy Jane has bin troo as steel. By attendin strickly to bizniss I’ve amarsed a handsum Pittance. No man on this footstool can rise & git up & say I ever knowinly injered no man or wimmin folks, while all agree that my Show is ekalled by few and exceld by none, embracin as it does a wonderful colleckshun of livin wild Beests of Pray, snaix in grate profushun, a endliss variety of life-size wax figgers, & the only traned kangaroo in Ameriky—the most amoozin little cuss ever introjuced to a discriminatin public.

Artemus Ward.

---

YE PEDAGOGUE.

A BALLAD

“AND STRAP YE URCHINS WELLE.”

I.

RIGHTE learnéd is ye Pedagogue,

Fulle apt to reade and spelle,

And eke to teache ye parts of speeche,

And strap ye urchins welle.

II.

For as ’tis meete to soake ye feete,

Ye ailinge heade to mende;

Ye younker’s pate to stimulate,

He beats ye other ende!

III.

Righte lordlie is ye Pedagogue,

As any turbaned Turke;

For welle to rule ye District Schoole,

It is no idle worke.

IV.

For oft Rebellion lurketh there,

In breaste of secrete foes,

Of malice fulle, in waite to pulle

Ye Pedagogue his nose!

V.

Sometimes he heares with trembling feares

Of ye ungodlie rogue

On mischiefe bent, with felle intent

To licke ye Pedagogue!

VI.

And if ye Pedagogue be smalle,

When to ye battell led,

In such a plighte, God sende him mighte

To break ye rogue his heade!

VII.

Daye after daye, for little paye,

He teacheth what he can,

And bears ye yoke, to please ye folke,

And ye committee-man.

VIII.

Ah! many crosses hath he borne,

And many trials founde,

Ye while he trudged ye district through,

And boarded rounde and rounde!

IX.

Ah! many a steake hath he devoured,

That, by ye taste and sighte,

Was in disdaine, ’twas very plaine,

Of Daye his patent righte!

X.

Fulle solemn is ye Pedagogue,

Amonge ye noisy churls,

Yet other while he hath a smile

To give ye handsome girls;

XI.

And one,—ye fayrest mayde of all,—

To cheere his wayninge life,

Shall be, when Springe ye flowers shall bringe,

Ye Pedagogue his wife!

John Godfrey Saxe.

---

SETTLING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

STRANGERS visiting the beautiful city of Burlington have not failed to notice that one of the handsomest young men they meet is very bald, and they fall into the usual error of attributing this premature baldness to dissipation. But such is not the case. This young man, one of the most exemplary Bible-class scholars in the city, went to a Baptist sociable out in West Hill one night about two years ago. He escorted three charming girls, with angelic countenances and human appetites, out to the refreshment table, let them eat all they wanted, and then found he had left his pocket-book at home, and a deaf man that he had never seen before at the cashier’s desk. The young man with his face aflame, bent down, and said softly—

“I am ashamed to say I have no change with——”

“Hey——?” shouted the cashier.

“I regret to say,” the young man repeated in a little louder key, “that I have unfortunately come away without any change to——”

“Change two?” chirped the old man. “Oh, yes; I can change five if you want it.”

“No,” the young man explained in a terrible penetrating whisper, for half-a-dozen people were crowding up behind him, impatient to pay their bills and get away, “I don’t want any change, because——”

“Oh, don’t want no change?” the deaf man cried gleefully. “’Bleeged to ye, ’bleeged to ye. ’Taint often we get such generous donations. Pass over your bill.”

“No, no,” the young man explained, “I have no funds——”

“Oh, yes, plenty of fun,” the deaf man replied, growing tired of the conversation, and noticing the long line of people waiting with money in their hands; “but I haven’t got time to talk about it now. Settle, and move on.”

“But,” the young man gasped out, “I have no money——”

“Go Monday?” queried the deaf cashier. “I don’t care when you go; you must pay, and let these other people come up.”

“I have no money!” the mortified young man shouted, ready to sink into the earth, while the people all around him, and especially the three girls he had treated, were giggling and chuckling audibly.

“Owe money?” the cashier said; “of course you do; 2.75 dollars.”

“I can’t pay!” the youth screamed, and by turning his pockets inside out, and yelling his poverty to the heavens, he finally made the deaf man understand. And then he had to shriek his full name three times, while his ears fairly rung with the half-stifled laughter that was breaking out all around him; and he had to scream out where he worked, and roar when he would pay, and he couldn’t get the deaf man to understand him until some of the church members came up to see what the uproar was, and, recognising their young friend, made it all right with the cashier. And the young man went out into the night and clubbed himself, and shred his locks away ontil he was as bald as an egg.

Robert J. Burdette.

---

MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S CATASTROPHE.

A YOUNG fellow, a tobacco pedler by trade, was on his way from Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Deacon of the Shaker settlement, to the village of Parker’s Falls, on Salmon River. He had a neat little cart, painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each side-panel, and an Indian chief, holding a pipe and a golden tobacco-stalk, on the rear. The pedler drove a smart little mare, and was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the Yankees; who, as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the Connecticut, whose favour he used to court by presents of the best smoking tobacco in his stock; knowing well that the country lassies of New England are generally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in the course of my story, the pedler was inquisitive, and something of a tattler, always itching to hear the news and anxious to tell it again.

After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco pedler, whose name was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of woods, without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little grey mare. It being nearly seven o’clock, he was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to reach the morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up and perceived a man coming over the brow of a hill, at the foot of which the pedler had stopped his green cart. Dominicus watched him as he descended, and noticed that he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick, and travelled with a weary, yet determined pace. He did not look as if he had started in the freshness of the morning, but had footed it all night, and meant to do the same all day.

“Good morning, mister,” said Dominicus, when within speaking distance. “You go a pretty good jog. What’s the latest news at Parker’s Falls?”

The man pulled the broad brim of a grey hat over his eyes, and answered rather sullenly that he did not come from Parker’s Falls, which, as being the limit of his own day’s journey, the pedler had naturally mentioned in his inquiry.

“Well, then,” rejoined Dominicus Pike, “let’s have the latest news where you did come from. I’m not particular about Parker’s Falls. Any place will answer.”

“AT LAST MOUNTING ON THE STEP OF THE CART, HE WHISPERED IN THE
EAR OF DOMINICUS.”

Being thus importuned, the traveller—who was as ill-looking a fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods—appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news, or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal would have heard him—

“I do remember one little trifle of news,” said he. “Old Mr. Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight o’clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to a branch of a St. Michael’s pear-tree, where nobody would find him till the morning.”

As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated, the stranger betook himself to his journey again with more speed than ever, not even turning his head when Dominicus invited him to smoke a Spanish cigar and relate all the particulars. The pedler whistled to his mare and went up the hill, pondering on the doleful fate of Mr. Higginbotham, whom he had known in the way of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long-nines, and a great deal of pig-tail, ladies’ twist, and fig tobacco. He was rather astonished at the rapidity with which the news had spread. Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in a straight line; the murder had been perpetrated only at eight o’clock the preceding night; and yet Dominicus had heard of it at seven in the morning, when in all probability poor Mr. Higginbotham’s own family had just discovered his corpse hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree. The stranger on foot must have worn seven-league boots to travel at such a rate.

“Ill news flies fast, they say,” thought Dominicus Pike; “but this beats railroads. The fellow ought to be hired to go express with the President’s message.”

The difficulty was solved by supposing that the narrator had made a mistake of one day in the date of the occurrence; so that our friend did not hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern and country store along the road, expending a whole bunch of Spanish wrappers among at least twenty horrified audiences. He found himself invariably the first bearer of the intelligence, and was so pestered with questions that he could not avoid filling up the outline, till it became quite a respectable narrative. He met with one piece of corroborative evidence. Mr. Higginbotham was a trader; and a former clerk of his, to whom Dominicus related the facts, testified that the old gentleman was accustomed to return home through the orchard about nightfall with the money and valuable papers of the store in his pocket. The clerk manifested but little grief at Mr. Higginbotham’s catastrophe, hinting, what the pedler had discovered in his own dealings with him, that he was a crusty old fellow, as close as a vice. His property would descend to a pretty niece, who was now keeping school in Kimballton.

What with telling the news for the public good and driving bargains for his own, Dominicus was so much delayed on the road that he chose to put up at a tavern, about five miles short of Parker’s Falls. After supper, lighting one of his prime cigars, he seated himself in the bar-room, and went through the story of the murder, which had grown so fast that it took him half-an-hour to tell. There were as many as twenty people in the room, nineteen of whom received it all for gospel. But the twentieth was an elderly farmer, who had arrived on horseback a short time before, and was now seated in a corner smoking his pipe. When the story was concluded he rose up very deliberately, brought his chair right in front of Dominicus, and stared him full in the face, puffing out the vilest tobacco-smoke the pedler had ever smelt.

“Will you make affidavit,” demanded he in the tone of a country justice taking an examination, “that old Squire Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard the night before last, and found hanging on his great pear-tree yesterday morning?”

“I tell the story as I heard it,” answered Dominicus, dropping his half-burnt cigar. “I don’t say that I saw the thing done, so I can’t take my oath that he was murdered exactly in that way.”

“But I can take mine,” said the farmer, “that if Squire Higginbotham was murdered the night before last, I drank a bottle of bitters with his ghost this morning. Being a neighbour of mine he called me into his store as I was riding by and treated me, and then asked me to do a little business for him on the road. He didn’t seem to know any more about his own murder than I did.”

“Why, then, it can’t be a fact!” exclaimed Dominicus Pike.

“I guess he’d have mentioned if it was,” said the old farmer, and he removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus quite down in the mouth.

Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedler had no heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himself with a glass of gin and water and went to bed, where, all night long, he dreamt of hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree. To avoid the old farmer (whom he so detested that his suspension would have pleased him better than Mr. Higginbotham’s), Dominicus rose in the grey of the morning, put the little mare into the green cart, and trotted swiftly away towards Parker’s Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy road, and the pleasant summer dawn revived his spirits, and might have encouraged him to repeat the old story had there been anybody awake to hear it. But he met neither ox-team, light waggon, chaise, horseman, nor foot-traveller, till just as he crossed Salmon River a man came trudging down to the bridge with a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick.

“Good morning, mister,” said the pedler, reining in his mare; “if you come from Kimballton or that neighbourhood maybe you can tell me the real facts about the affair of old Mr. Higginbotham. Was the old fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago by an Irishman and a nigger?”

Dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe at first that the stranger himself had a deep tinge of negro blood. On hearing this sudden question the Ethiopian appeared to change his skin, its yellow hue becoming a ghastly white, while shaking and stammering he thus replied—

“No! no! There was no coloured man! It was an Irishman that hanged him last night at eight o’clock. I came away at seven! His folks can’t have looked for him in the orchard yet.”

Scarcely had the yellow man spoken when he interrupted himself, and though he seemed weary enough before, continued his journey at a pace which would have kept the pedler’s mare on a sharp trot. Dominicus stared after him in great perplexity. If the murder had not been committed till Tuesday night, who was the prophet that had foretold it, in all its circumstances, on Tuesday morning? If Mr. Higginbotham’s corpse were not yet discovered by his own family, how came the mulatto, at above thirty miles distance, to know that he was hanging in the orchard, especially as he had left Kimballton before the unfortunate man was hanged at all? These ambiguous circumstances, with the stranger’s surprise and terror, made Dominicus think of raising a hue and cry after him, as an accomplice in the murder, since a murder, it seemed, had really been perpetrated.

“But let the poor devil go,” thought the pedler. “I don’t want his black blood on my head; and hanging the nigger won’t unhang Mr. Higginbotham. Unhang the old gentleman! It’s a sin, I know; but I should hate to have him come to life a second time, and give me the lie!”

With these meditations Dominicus Pike drove into the street of Parker’s Falls, which, as everybody knows, is as thriving a village as three cotton factories and a slitting-mill can make it. The machinery was not in motion, and but a few of the shop doors unbarred, when he alighted in the stable-yard of the tavern, and made it his first business to order the mare four quarts of oats. His second duty, of course, was to impart Mr. Higginbotham’s catastrophe to the ostler. He deemed it advisable, however, not to be too positive as to the date of the direful fact, and also to be uncertain whether it was perpetrated by an Irishman and a mulatto, or by the son of Erin alone. Neither did he profess to relate it on his own authority, or that of any other person; but mentioned it as a report generally diffused.

The story ran through the town like fire among girdled trees, and became so much the universal talk that nobody could tell whence it originated. Mr. Higginbotham was as well known at Parker’s Falls as any citizen of the place, being part-owner of the slitting-mill, and a considerable stockholder in the cotton factories. The inhabitants felt their own prosperity interested in his fate. Such was the excitement that the Parker’s Falls Gazette anticipated its regular day of publication, and came out with half a form of blank paper and a column of double pica emphasised with capitals, and headed Horrid Murder of Mr. Higginbotham! Among other dreadful details, the printed account described the mark of the cord round the dead man’s neck, and stated the number of thousand dollars of which he had been robbed. There was much pathos also about the affliction of his niece, who had gone from one fainting fit to another, ever since her uncle was found hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree with his pockets inside out. The village poet likewise commemorated the young lady’s grief in seventeen stanzas of a ballad. The select-men held a meeting, and in consideration of Mr. Higginbotham’s claims on the town, determined to issue handbills offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the apprehension of his murderers and the recovery of the stolen property.

Meanwhile the whole population of Parker’s Falls, consisting of shopkeepers, mistresses of boarding-houses, factory girls, mill-men and school-boys, rushed into the street, and kept up such a terrible loquacity as more than compensated for the silence of the cotton machines, which refrained from their usual din out of respect to the deceased. Had Mr. Higginbotham cared about posthumous renown, his untimely ghost would have exulted in this tumult. Our friend Dominicus, in his vanity of heart, forgot his intended precautions, and, mounting on the town pump, announced himself as the bearer of the authentic intelligence which had caused so wonderful a sensation. He immediately became the great man of the moment, and had just began a new edition of the narrative with a voice like a field-preacher when the mail stage drove into the village street. It had travelled all night, and must have shifted horses at Kimballton at three in the morning.

“Now we shall hear all the particulars,” shouted the crowd.

The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern, followed by a thousand people; for if any man had been minding his own business till then, he now left it at sixes and sevens to hear the news. The pedler, foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both of whom had been startled from a comfortable nap to find themselves in the centre of a mob. Every man assailed them with separate questions all propounded at once. The couple were struck speechless, though one was a lawyer and the other a young lady.

“Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham! Tell us the particulars about old Mr. Higginbotham!” bawled the mob. “What is the coroner’s verdict? Are the murderers apprehended? Is Mr. Higginbotham’s niece come out of her fainting fits? Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham!”

The coachman said not a word, except to swear awfully at the ostler for not bringing him a fresh team of horses. The lawyer inside had generally his wits about him even when asleep; the first thing he did, after learning the cause of the excitement, was to produce a large red pocket-book. Meanwhile, Dominicus Pike, being an extremely polite young man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer’s, had handed the lady out of the coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a button, and had such a sweet, pretty mouth, that Dominicus would almost as lieves have heard a love-tale from it as a tale of murder.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the mill-men, and the factory girls, “I can assure you that some unaccountable mistake, or more probably, a wilful falsehood, maliciously contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham’s credit, has excited this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at three o’clock this morning, and most certainly should have been informed of the murder, had any been perpetrated. But I have proof nearly as strong as Mr. Higginbotham’s own oral testimony in the negative. Here is a note relating to a suit of his in the Connecticut courts, which was delivered me from that gentleman himself. I find it dated at ten o’clock last evening.”

So saying the lawyer exhibited the date and signature of the note, which irrefragably proved, either that this perverse Mr. Higginbotham was alive when he wrote it, or—as some deemed the more probable case of two doubtful ones—that he was so absorbed in worldly business as to continue to transact it even after his death. But unexpected evidence was forthcoming. The young lady, after listening to the pedler’s explanations, merely seized a moment to smooth her gown and put her curls in order, and then appeared at the tavern door, making a modest signal to be heard.

“Good people,” said she, “I am Mr. Higginbotham’s niece.”

“I AM MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S NIECE.”

A wondering murmur passed through the crowd on beholding her so rosy and bright, the same unhappy niece whom they had supposed, on the authority of the Parker’s Falls Gazette, to be lying at death’s door in a fainting fit. But some shrewd fellow had doubted all along whether a young lady would be quite so desperate at the hanging of a rich old uncle.

“You see,” continued Miss Higginbotham, with a smile, “that this strange story is quite unfounded, as to myself; and I believe I may affirm it to be equally so in regard to my dear uncle Higginbotham. He has the kindness to give me a home in his house, though I contribute to my support by teaching a school. I left Kimballton this morning to spend the vacation of commencement week with a friend, about five miles from Parker’s Falls. My generous uncle, when he heard me on the stairs, called me to his bedside, and gave me two dollars and fifty cents to pay my stage fare, and another dollar for my extra expenses. He then laid his pocket-book under his pillow, shook hands with me, and advised me to take some biscuit in my bag, instead of breakfasting on the road. I feel confident, therefore, that I left my beloved relative alive, and trust that I shall find him so on my return.”

The young lady curtsied at the close of her speech, which was so sensible, and well-worded, and delivered with such grace and propriety, that everybody thought her fit to be Preceptress of the best Academy in the State. But a stranger would have supposed that Mr. Higginbotham was an object of abhorrence at Parker’s Falls, and that a thanksgiving had been proclaimed for his murder, so excessive was the wrath of the inhabitants on learning their mistake. The mill-men resolved to bestow public honours on Dominicus Pike, only hesitating whether to tar and feather him, ride him on a rail, or refresh him with an ablution at the town pump, on the top of which he had declared himself the bearer of the news. The select-men, by the advice of the lawyer, spoke of prosecuting him for a misdemeanour in circulating unfounded reports, to the great disturbance of the peace of the commonwealth. Nothing saved Dominicus either from mob law or a court of justice but an eloquent appeal made by the young lady in his behalf. Addressing a few words of heartfelt gratitude to his benefactress, he mounted the green cart and drove out of town under a discharge of artillery from the school-boys, who found plenty of ammunition in the neighbouring clay-pits and mud-holes. As he turned his head, to exchange a farewell glance with Mr. Higginbotham’s niece, a ball, of the consistence of hasty-pudding, hit him slap in the mouth, giving him a most grim aspect. His whole person was so bespattered with the like filthy missiles that he had almost a mind to ride back and supplicate for the threatened ablution at the town pump, for, though not meant in kindness, it would have been a deed of charity.

However, the sun shone bright on poor Dominicus, and the mud, an emblem of all stains of undeserved opprobrium, was easily brushed off when dry. Being a funny rogue, his heart soon cheered up; nor could he refrain from a hearty laugh at the uproar which his story excited. The handbills of the select-men would cause the commitment of all the vagabonds in the State. The paragraph in the Parker’s Falls Gazette would be reprinted from Maine to Florida, and perhaps form an item in the London newspapers; and many a miser would tremble for his money-bag and life, on learning the catastrophe of Mr. Higginbotham. The pedler meditated with much fervour on the charms of the young school-mistress, and swore that Daniel Webster never spoke nor looked so like an angel as Miss Higginbotham, while defending him from the wrathful populace at Parker’s Falls.

Dominicus was now on the Kimballton turnpike, having all along determined to visit that place, though business had drawn him out of the most direct road from Morristown. As he approached the scene of the supposed murder, he continued to revolve the circumstances in his mind, and was astonished at the aspect which the whole case assumed. Had nothing occurred to corroborate the story of the first traveller it might have been considered as a hoax; but the yellow man was evidently acquainted either with the report or the fact; and there was a mystery in his dismayed and guilty look on being abruptly questioned. When to this singular combination of incidents it was added that the rumour tallied with Mr. Higginbotham’s character and habits of life; and that he had an orchard, and a St. Michael’s pear-tree, near which he always passed at nightfalls, the circumstantial evidence appeared so strong that Dominicus doubted whether the autograph produced by the lawyer, or even the niece’s direct testimony, ought to be equivalent. Making cautious inquiry along the road, the pedler further learned that Mr. Higginbotham had in his service an Irishman of doubtful character, whom he had hired without a recommendation, on the score of economy.

“May I be hanged myself,” exclaimed Dominicus Pike aloud, on reaching the top of a lonely hill, “if I believe old Higginbotham is unhanged, till I see him with my own eyes, and hear it from his own mouth! And as he’s a real shaver, I’ll have the minister or some other responsible man for an endorser.”

It was growing dusk when he reached the toll-house on Kimballton turnpike, about a quarter of a mile from the village of this name. His little mare was fast bringing him up with a man on horseback, who trotted through the gate a few rods in advance of him, nodded to the toll-gatherer, and kept on towards the village. Dominicus was acquainted with the toll-man, and while making change, the usual remarks on the weather passed between them.

“I suppose,” said the pedler, throwing back his whip-lash to bring it down like a feather on the mare’s flank, “you have not seen anything of old Mr. Higginbotham within a day or two?”

“Yes,” answered the toll-gatherer; “he passed the gate just before you drove up, and yonder he rides now, if you can see him through the dusk. He’s been to Woodfield this afternoon, attending a sheriff’s sale there. The old man generally shakes hands and has a little chat with me; but to-night he nodded, as if to say, ‘Charge my toll,’ and jogged on, for wherever he goes, he must always be at home by eight o’clock.”

“So they tell me,” said Dominicus.

“I never saw a man look so yellow and thin as the squire does,” continued the toll-gatherer. “Says I to myself to-night, he’s more like a ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood.”

The pedler strained his eyes through the twilight, and could just discern the horseman now far ahead on the village road. He seemed to recognise the rear of Mr. Higginbotham; and through the evening shadows, and amid the dust from the horse’s feet, the figure appeared dim and unsubstantial, as if the shape of the mysterious old man were faintly moulded of darkness and grey light. Dominicus shivered.

“Mr. Higginbotham has come back from the other world, by way of Kimballton turnpike,” thought he.

He shook the reins and rode forward, keeping about the same distance in the rear of the grey old shadow, till the latter was concealed by a bend of the road. On reaching this point the pedler no longer saw the man on horseback, but found himself at the head of the village street, not far from a number of stores and two taverns, clustered around the meeting-house steeple. On his left was a stone wall and a gate, the boundary of a wood-lot, beyond which lay an orchard; further still, a mowing-field, and, last of all, a house. These were the premises of Mr. Higginbotham, whose dwelling stood beside the old highway, but had been left in the background by the Kimballton turnpike, and Dominicus knew the place; and the little mare stopped short by instinct, for he was not conscious of tightening the reins.

“For the soul of me I cannot get by this gate,” said he, trembling. “I never shall be my own man again till I see whether Mr. Higginbotham is hanging on the St. Michael pear-tree!”

He leaped from the cart, gave the reins a turn round the gate-post, and ran along the green path of the wood-lot as if Old Nick were chasing behind. Just then the village clock tolled eight, and as each deep stroke fell, Dominicus gave a fresh bound and flew faster than before, till, dim in the solitary centre of the orchard, he saw the fated pear-tree. One great branch stretched from the old contorted trunk across the path and threw the darkest shadow on that one spot. But something seemed to struggle beneath the branch!

“HE RUSHED FORWARD, PROSTRATED A STURDY IRISHMAN WITH THE
BUTT END OF HIS WHIP.”

The pedler had never pretended to more courage than befits a man of peaceable occupation, nor could he account for his valour on this awful emergency. Certain it is, however, that he rushed forward, prostrated a sturdy Irishman with the butt end of his whip, and found—not indeed hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree, but trembling beneath it, with a halter round his neck—the old, identical Mr. Higginbotham.

“Mr. Higginbotham,” said Dominicus tremulously, “you’re an honest man, and I’ll take your word for it. Have you been hanged or not?”

If the riddle be not already guessed, a few words will explain the simple machinery by which this coming event was made to cast its shadow before. Three men had plotted the robbery and murder of Mr. Higginbotham; two of them successively lost courage and fled, each delaying the crime one night by their disappearance; the third was in the act of perpetration when a champion, blindly obeying the call of fate, like the heroes of old romance, appeared in the person of Dominicus Pike.

It only remains to say that Mr. Higginbotham took the pedler into high favour, sanctioned his addresses to the pretty school-mistress, and settled his whole property on their children, allowing themselves the interest. In due time the old gentleman capped the climax of his favours by dying a Christian death, in bed, since which melancholy event Dominicus Pike has removed from Kimballton and established a large tobacco factory in my native village.

Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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GOING TO CALIFORNIA.

“DEAR me!” exclaimed Mrs. Partington sorrowfully, “how much a man will bear, and how far he will go, to get the soddered dross, as Parson Martin called it when he refused the beggar a sixpence, for fear it might lead him into extravagance! Everybody is going to California and Chagrin arter gold. Cousin Jones and the three Smiths have gone; and Mr. Chip, the carpenter, has left his wife and seven children, and a blessed old mother-in-law, to seek his fortin, too. This is the strangest yet, and I don’t see how he could have done it; it looks so ongrateful to treat Heaven’s blessings so lightly. But there we are told that the love of money is the root of all evil, and how true it is! for they are now rooting arter it, like pigs arter ground-nuts. Why, it is a perfect money mania among everybody!”

“AS SHE PENSIVELY WATCHED A SMALL MUG OF CIDER.”

And she shook her head doubtingly, as she pensively watched a small mug of cider, with an apple in it, simmering by the winter fire. She was somewhat fond of drink made in this way.

Benjamin Penhallon Shillaber

(“Mrs. Partington”).

---

“ROUGHING IT.”

ANOTHER night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. But morning came by-and-by. It was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses of level greensward, bright sunlight, an impressive solitude utterly without visible human beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of such amazing magnifying properties that trees that seemed close at hand were more than three miles away. We resumed undress uniform, climbed a-top of the flying coach, dangled our legs over the side, shouted occasionally at our frantic mules, merely to see them lay their ears back and scamper faster, tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing away, and levelled an outlook over the world-wide carpet about us for things new and strange to gaze at. Even at this day it thrills me through and through to think of the life, the gladness and the wild sense of freedom, that used to make the blood dance in my veins on those fine overland mornings!

Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prairie-dog villages, the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I remember rightly, this latter was the regular cayote (pronounced ky-o-te) of the farther deserts. And if it was, he was not a pretty creature or respectable either, for I got well acquainted with his race afterward, and can speak with confidence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick- and sorry-looking skeleton, with a grey wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that for ever sags down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of want. He is always hungry. He is always poor, out of luck, and friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is so spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologising for it. And he is so homely!—so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful. When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and then turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, depresses his head a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush, glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is about out of easy pistol range, and then he stops and takes a deliberate survey of you; he will trot fifty yards and stop again—another fifty and stop again; and finally the grey of his gliding body blends with the grey of the sagebrush, and he disappears. All this is when you make no demonstration against him; but if you do, he develops a livelier interest in his journey, and instantly electrifies his heels, and puts such a deal of real estate between himself and your weapon that by the time you have raised the hammer you see that you need a minié rifle, and by the time you have got him in line you need a rifled cannon, and by the time you have “drawn a bead” on him you see well enough that nothing but an unusually long-winded streak of lightning could reach him where he is now. But if you start a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy it ever so much—especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of himself, and has been brought up to think he knows something about speed. The cayote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot of his, and every little while he will smile a fraudful smile over his shoulder that will fill that dog entirely full of encouragement and worldly ambition, and make him lay his head still lower to the ground, and stretch his neck further to the front, and pant more fiercely, and stick his tail out straighter behind, and move his furious legs with a yet wilder frenzy, and leave a broader and broader, and higher and denser cloud of desert sand smoking behind, and marking his long wake across the level plain! And all this time the dog is only a short twenty feet behind the cayote, and to save the soul of him he cannot understand why it is that he cannot get perceptibly closer; and he begins to get aggravated, and it makes him madder and madder to see how gently the cayote glides along and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile; and he grows still more and more incensed to see how shamefully he has been taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that long, calm, soft-footed trot is; and next he notices that he is getting fagged, and that the cayote actually has to slacken speed a little to keep from running away from him—and then that town-dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain and weep and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach for the cayote with concentrated and desperate energy. This “spurt” finds him six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in the instant that a wild new hope is lighting up his face, the cayote turns and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to say: “Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, bub—business is business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this way all day”—and forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold that dog is solitary and alone in the midst of a vast solitude!

It makes his head swim. He stops and looks all around; climbs the nearest sand-mound, and gazes into the distance; shakes his head reflectively, and then, without a word, he turns and jogs along back to his train, and takes up a humble position under the hindmost waggon, and feels unspeakably mean, and looks ashamed, and hangs his tail at half-mast for a week. And forasmuch as a year after that, whenever there is a great hue and cry after a cayote, that dog will merely glance in that direction without emotion, and apparently observe to himself, “I believe I do not wish any of the pie.”

The cayote lives chiefly in the most desolate and forbidding deserts, along with the lizard, the jackass-rabbit, and the raven, and gets an uncertain and precarious living, and earns it. He seems to subsist almost wholly on the carcasses of oxen, mules, and horses that have dropped out of emigrant trains and died, and upon windfalls of carrion, and occasional legacies of offal bequeathed to him by white men who have been opulent enough to have something better to butcher than condemned army bacon. He will eat anything in the world that his first cousins, the desert-frequenting tribes of Indians, will, and they will eat anything they can bite. It is a curious fact that these latter are the only creatures known to history who will eat nitroglycerine and ask for more if they survive.

The cayote of the deserts beyond the Rocky Mountains has a peculiarly hard time of it, owing to the fact that his relations, the Indians, are just as apt to be the first to detect a seductive scent on the desert breeze, and follow the fragrance to the late ox it emanated from, as he is himself; and when this occurs he has to content himself with sitting off at a little distance watching those people strip off and dig out everything edible, and walk off with it. Then he and the waiting ravens explore the skeleton and polish the bones. It is considered that the cayote, and the obscene bird, and the Indian of the desert, testify their blood kinship with each other in that they live together in the waste places of the earth on terms of perfect confidence and friendship, while hating all other creatures and yearning to assist at their funerals. He does not mind going a hundred miles to breakfast, and a hundred and fifty to dinner, because he is sure to have three or four days between meals, and he can just as well be travelling and looking at the scenery as lying around doing nothing and adding to the burdens of his parents.

We soon learned to recognise the sharp, vicious bark of the cayote as it came across the murky plain at night to disturb our dreams among the mail-sacks; and remembering his forlorn aspect and his hard fortune, made shift to wish him the blessed novelty of a long day’s good luck and a limitless larder the morrow.

Samuel L. Clemens (“Mark Twain”).

---

THE HEAD-WRITER.

“‘AND YOU NOTICE MY CORPULENT BUILD?’”

IT was early in the morning when I heard a great puffing and blowing on the stairs, and pretty soon footsteps sounded in the hall, and a woman’s voice said—

“Now, John Quincy, you want to look as smart as you can!”

The next moment the door opened, and a big fat woman and a small thin boy came into the room. She gave her dress a shake, snatched the boy’s hat off, and then, looking at me, she inquired—

“Is the head-writer in?”

“He is, madam,” I replied.

“Be you him?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, as she sat down on a chair and fanned herself with her handkerchief; “I like to have never got upstairs.”

I smiled and nodded.

“You see that boy thar?” she inquired after a while.

“Your son, I suppose?” I answered; “nice-looking lad.”

“Yes, he’s smart as a fox. There isn’t a thing he don’t know. Why, he isn’t but eight, and he composes poetry, writes letters, and plays tunes on the fiddle!”

“You ought to be proud of him,” I said.

“Wall, we kinder hope he’ll turn out well,” she answered. “Come up here, John Quincy, and speak that piece about that boy who stood on the busted deck.”

“I won’t!” replied the boy in a positive tone.

“He’s a little bashful, you see,” giving me an apologetical smile. “He’s rid fourteen miles this morning, and he doesn’t feel well, anyhow; I shouldn’t wonder if he was troubled with worums.”

“Worms be blowed!” replied John Quincy, chewing away at his hat.

“He’s awful skeard when he’s among strangers,” she went on; “but he’ll git over it in a short time. What I cum in for was to see if you wouldn’t take him and make a head-writer of him.”

“I don’t want to be a durned old bald-headed head-writer!” said John Quincy, picking his teeth with my scissors.

“The young never knows what’s good for ’em,” she went on. “He wants to be a preacher, or a great lawyer, or a big doctor; but he seems to take to writing, and we thought we’d make a head-writer of him. I don’t sopose he’d earn over five or six dollars and board a week for the first year, but I’ve bin told that Gen’ral Jackson didn’t get half that when he begun.”

“Madam,” I commenced, as she stopped for breath, “I’d like to take the boy. He looks as smart as a steel trap, and no doubt he’ll turn out a great man.”

“Then you’ll take him?”

“If you agree as to terms.”

“What is them ter-ums?”

“You see my left eye is out?”

“Yes.”

“Well, your son can never become a great writer unless you put his left eye out. If you will think back you will remember that you never saw a great writer whose left eye was not out. This is a matter of economy. A one-eyed writer only needs half as much light as a man with two eyes, and he isn’t half so apt to discover hair-pins in his butter, and buttons in his oyster soup. The best way to put his eye out is to jab a red-hot needle into it.”

“Good grashus!” she exclaimed.

“And you observe that I am bald-headed? You may think that my baldness results from scalp disease, but such is not the case. When a head-writer is bothered to get an idea he scratches his head. Scratching the hair wouldn’t do any good; it’s the scalp he must agitate. The hair is therefore pulled out with a pair of pincers, in order that a man can get right down to the scalp at once, and save time.”

“Can that be possible?”

“All this is strictly true, madam. You also observe that one of my legs is shorter than the other. Without an explanation on my part you would attribute this to some accident. Such is not the case. Every head-writer is located in the fourth storey of the office, and his left leg is shortened three inches to enable him to run up and down stairs. You will have to have a doctor unjoint your son’s leg at the hip, saw it off to the proper length, and then hook it back in its place.”

“Did I ever hear the likes!” she exclaimed.

“And you also observe, madam, that two of my front teeth are gone. You might think they decayed, but such was not the case. They were knocked out with a crowbar in order to enable me to spit ten feet. According to a law enacted at the last Session of Congress, any head-writer who can’t spit ten feet is not entitled to receive Congressional reports free of postage.”

“Can it be so?” she said, her eyes growing larger every moment.

“And you notice my corpulent build?” I went on; “you might think this the result of high-living, but it is not. Every head-writer of any prominence has one of these big stomachs on him. They are all members of a secret society, and they tell each other outside of the lodge-room in this way: I am naturally very tall and thin, but I had to conform to the rules. They cut a hole in my chest and filled me out by stuffing in dry Indian meal. It took two bushels and a peck, and then it lacked a little, and they had to fill up with oatmeal. Now then, madam, you see what your son must go through with, and I leave you to judge whether you will have him learn the head-writer’s trade or not. I like the looks of the boy very much, and if you desire to——”

“I guess we’ll go hum!” she exclaimed, lifting herself off the chair. “I kinder want him to be a head-writer, and yit I think I ought to have a little more talk with his father, who wants him to git to be boss in a saw-mill. I’m ’bleged to you, and if we conclude to have him——”

“Yes, bring him right in, day or night. The first thing will be to unhinge his left leg and——!”

But they were out in the hall, and I heard John Quincy remark: “Head-writer be blowed!”

C. B. Lewis (“M Quad”).

---

PELEG W. PONDER; OR, THE POLITICIAN WITHOUT A SIDE.

“HE DON’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK.”

IT is a curious thing—an unpleasant thing—a very embarrassing sort of thing—but the truth must be told—if not at all times, at least sometimes; and truth now compels the declaration that Peleg W. Ponder, whose character is here portrayed, let him travel in any way, cannot arrive at a conclusion. He never had one of his own. He scarcely knows a conclusion, even if he should chance to see one belonging to other people, and, as for reaching a result, he would never be able to do it, if he could stretch like a giraffe. Results are beyond his compass. And his misfortune is, perhaps, hereditary, his mother’s name having been Mrs. Perplexity Ponder, whose earthly career came to an end while she was in dubitation as to which of the various physicians of the place should be called in. If there had been only one doctor in the town, Perplexity Ponder might have been saved. But there was many—and what could Perplexity do in such a case?

Ponder’s father was run over by a waggon, as he stood debating with himself, in the middle of the road, whether he should escape forward or retreat backward. There were two methods of extrication, and between them both old Ponder became a victim. How then could their worthy son, Peleg, be expected to arrive at a conclusion? He never does.

Yet, for one’s general comfort and particular happiness, there does not appear to be any faculty more desirable than the power of “making up the mind.” Right or wrong, it saves a deal of wear and tear; and it prevents an infinite variety of trouble. Commend us to the individual who chooses upon propositions like a nutcracker—whose promptness of will has a sledge-hammer way with it, and hits nails continually on the head. Genius may be brilliant—talent commanding! but what is genius, or what is talent, if it lack that which we may call the clinching faculty—if it hesitates, veers, and flutters—suffers opportunities to pass, and stumbles at occasion? To reason well is much, no doubt, but reason loses the race if it sits in meditation on the fence when competition rushes by.

Under the best of circumstances, something must be left to hazard. There is a chance in all things. No man can so calculate odds in the affairs of life as to ensure a certainty. The screws and linchpins necessary to our purpose have not the inflexibility of fate; yet they must be trusted at some degree of risk. Our candle may be put out by a puff of wind on the stair, let it be sheltered ever so carefully. Betsy is a good cook, yet beefsteaks have been productive of strangulation. Does it then follow from this that we are never to go to bed, except in the dark, and to abstain from breaking our fast until dinner is announced?

One may pause and reflect too much. There must be action, conclusion, result, or we are a failure, to all intents and purposes—a self-confessed failure—defunct from the beginning. And such was the case with Peleg W. Ponder, who never arrived at a conclusion, or contrived to reach a result. Peleg is always “stumped”—he “don’t know what to think”—he “can’t tell what to say”—an unfinished gentleman, with a mind like a dusty garret, full, as it were, of rickety furniture, yet nothing serviceable—broken-backed chairs—three-legged tables—pitchers without handles—cracked decanters and fractured looking-glasses—that museum of mutilations in which housewifery rejoices, under the vague but never realised hope that these things may eventually “come in play.” Peleg’s opinions lie about the workshop of his brains, in every stage of progress but the last—chips, sticks, and sawdust enough, but no article ready to send home.

Should you meet Peleg in the street with “Good morning, Peleg—how do you find yourself to-day?”

“Well—I don’t know exactly—I’m pretty—no, not very—pray, how do you do yourself?”

Now if a man does not know exactly, or nearly, how he is after being up for several hours, and having had abundant time to investigate the circumstances of his case, it is useless to propound questions of opinion to such an individual. It is useless to attempt it with Peleg. “How do you do?” puzzles him—he is fearful of being too rash, and of making a reply which might not be fully justified by after-reflection. His head may be about to ache, and he has other suspicious feelings.

“People are always asking me how I do, and more than half the time I can’t tell. There’s a good many different sorts of ways of feeling betwixt and between ‘Very sick, I thank you,’ and ‘Half-dead, I’m obliged to you;’ and people won’t stop to hear you explain the matter. They want to know right smack, when you don’t know right smack yourself. Sometimes you feel things a-coming, and just after you feel things a-going. And nobody’s exactly prime all the while. I ain’t, anyhow—I’m kinder so just now, and I’m sorter t’other way just after. Then, some people tell you that you look very well, when you don’t feel very well—how then?”

At table Peleg is not exactly sure what he will take; and sits looking slowly up and down the board, deliberating what he would like, until the rest of the company have finished their repast, there being often nothing left which suits Peleg’s hesitating appetite.

Peleg has never married—not that he is averse to the connubial state—on the contrary, he has a large share of the susceptibilities, and is always partially in love. But female beauty is so various. At one time Peleg is inclined to believe that perfection lies in queenly dignity—the majesty of an empress fills his dreams; and he looks down with disdain on little people. He calls them “squabs” in derogation. But anon, in a more domestic mood, he thinks of fireside happiness and quiet bliss, declining from the epic poetry of loveliness to the household wife, who might be disposed to bring him his slippers, and to darn the hole in his elbow. When in the tragic vein he fancies a brunette; and when the sunshine is on his soul, blue eyes are at a premium. Should woman possess the slightness of a sylph, or should her charms be of the more solid architecture? Ought her countenance to beam in smiles, or will habitual pensiveness be the more interesting? Is sparkling brilliancy to be preferred to gentle sweetness?

“If there wasn’t so many of them, I shouldn’t be so bothered,” said Peleg; “or if they all looked alike, a man couldn’t help himself. But yesterday I wanted this one; to-day, I want that one; and to-morrow I’ll want t’other one; and how can I tell, if I should get this, or that, or t’other, that it wouldn’t soon be somebody else that I really wanted? That’s the difficulty. It always happens so with me. When the lady’s most courted, and thinks I ought to speak out, then I begin to be skeered, for fear I’ve made a mistake, and have been thinking I loved her, when I didn’t. Maybe it’s not the right one—maybe she won’t suit—maybe I might do better—maybe I had better not venture at all. I wish there wasn’t so many ‘maybe’s’ about everything, especially in such affairs. I’ve got at least a dozen unfinished courtships on hand already.”

But all this happened a long time ago; and Peleg has gradually lost sight of his fancy for making an addition to his household. Not that he has concluded, even yet, to remain a bachelor. He would be alarmed at the bare mention of such an idea. He could not consent to be shelved in that decisive manner. But he has subsided from active “looking around” in pursuit of his object, into that calm, irresponsible submissiveness, characteristic of the somewhat elderly bachelor, which waits until she may chance to present herself spontaneously, and “come along” of her own accord. “Some day—some day,” says Peleg; “it will happen some day or other. What’s the use of being in a hurry?”

Peleg W. Ponder’s great object is now ambition. His personal affairs are somewhat embarrassed by his lack of enterprise, and he hankers greatly for an office. But which side to join? Ay, there’s the rub! Who will purvey the loaf and fish? for whom shall Peleg shout?

Behold him as he puzzles over the returns of the State elections, labouring in vain to satisfy his mind as to the result of the presidential contest. Stupefied by figures—perplexed by contradictory statements—bothered by the general hurrah; what can Peleg do?

“Who’s going to win? That’s all I want to know,” exclaims the vexed Peleg. “I don’t want to waste my time a-blowing out for the wrong person, and never get a thank’e. What’s the use of that? There’s Simpkins—says I, Simpkins, says I, which is the party that can’t be beat? And Simpkins turns up his nose and tells me every fool knows that—it’s his side—so I hurrah for Simpkins’ side as hard as I can. But then comes Timpkins—Timpkins’ side is t’other side from Simpkins’ side—and Timpkins offers to bet me three levies that his side is the side that can’t be beat. Hurrah! says I, for Timpkins’ side!—and then I can’t tell which side.”

“As for the newspapers, that’s worse still. They not only crow all round, but they cipher it out so clear that both sides must win, if there’s any truth in the ciphering-book; which there isn’t about election time. What’s to be done? I’ve tried going to all the meetings—I’ve hurrahed for everybody—I’ve been in all the processions, and I sit a little while every evening in all sorts of headquarters. I’ve got one kind of documents in one pocket, and t’other kind of documents in t’other pocket; and as I go home at night I sing one sort of song as loud as I can bawl half of the way, and try another sort of song the rest of the way, just to split the difference and show my impartiality. If I only had two notes—a couple of ’em—how nice it would be!

“But the best thing that can be done now, I guess, as my character is established both ways, is to turn in quietly till the row is all over. Nobody will miss me when they are all so busy; and afterwards, when we know all about it, just look for Peleg W. Ponder as he comes down the street, shaking people by the hand, and saying how we have used them up. I can’t say so now, or I would, for I am not perfectly sure yet which is ‘we’ or which is ‘them.’ Time enough when the election is over.”

It will thus be seen that Ponder is a remarkable person. Peter Schlemihl lost his shadow and became memorably unhappy in consequence; but what was his misfortune when compared with that of the man who has no side? What are shadows if weighed against sides? And Peleg is almost afraid that he never will be able to get a side, so unlucky has he been heretofore. He begins to dread that both sides may be defeated; and then, let us ask, what is to become of him? Must he stand aside?

Joseph C. Neal.

---

THE SHAKERS.

THE Shakers is the strangest religious sex I ever met.

I’D hearn tell of ’em and I’d seen ’em, with their broad brim’d hats and long wastid coats; but I’d never cum into immejit contack with ’em and I’d sot ’em down as lackin intelleck, as I’d never seen ’em to my Show—leastways, if they cum they was disgised in white peple’s close, so I didn’t know ’em.

But in the Spring of 18— I got swampt in the exterior of New York State, one dark and stormy night, when the winds Blue pityusly, and I was forced to tie up with the Shakers.

I was toilin threw the mud, when in the dim vister of the futer I obsarved the gleams of a taller candle. Tiein a hornet’s nest to my off hoss’s tail to kinder encourage him, I soon reached the place. I knockt at the door, which it was opened unto me by a tall, slick-faced, solum lookin individooal, who turn’d out to be a Elder.

“Mr. Shaker,” sed I, “you see before you a Babe in the Woods, so to speak, and he axes shelter of you.”

“Yay,” sed the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another Shaker bein sent to put my hosses and waggin under kiver.

A solum female, lookin sumwhat like a last year’s beanpole stuck into a long meal bag, cum in and axed me was I athurst and did I hunger? to which I urbanely anserd “a few.” She went orf and I endeverd to open a conversashun with the old man.

“Elder, I spect?” sed I.

“Yay,” he sed.

“Helth’s good, I reckon?”

“Yay.”

“What’s the wages of a Elder, when he understans his bizness—or do you devote your sarvices gratooitus?”

“Yay.”

“Stormy night, sir.”

“Yay.”

“If the storm continners there’ll be a mess underfoot, hay?”

“Yay.”

“It’s onpleasant when there’s a mess underfoot?”

“Yay.”

“If I may be so bold, kind sir, what’s the price of that pecooler kind of weskit you wear, incloodin trimmins?”

“Yay!”

I pawsd a minit, and then, thinkin I’d be faseshus with him and see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, bust into a harty larf, and told him that as a yayer he had no livin ekal.

He jumpt up as if Bilin water had bin squirted into his ears, groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin and sed: “You’re a man of sin!” He then walkt out of the room.

Jest then the female in the meal bag stuck her hed into the room and statid that refreshments awaited the weary travler, and I sed if it was vittles she ment the weary travler was agreeable, and I follered her into the next room.

I sot down to the table and the female in the meal bag pored out sum tea. She sed nothin, and for five minutes the only live thing in that room was a old wooden clock, which tickt in a subdood and bashful manner in the corner. This dethly stillness made me oneasy, and I determined to talk to the female or bust. So sez I, “Marrige is agin your rules, I bleeve, marm?”

“Yay.”

“The sexes liv strickly apart, I spect?”

“Yay.”

“It’s kinder singler,” sez I, puttin on my most sweetest look and speakin in a winnin voice, “that so fair a made as thou never got hitched to some likely feller.” [N.B.—She was upards of 40 and homely as a stump fence, but I thawt I’d tickil her.]

“I don’t like men!” she sed, very short.

“Wall, I dunno,” sez I, “they’re a rayther important part of the populashun. I don’t scarcely see how we could git along without ’em.”

“Us poor wimin folks would git along a grate deal better if there was no men!”

“You’ll excoos me, marm, but I don’t think that air would work. It wouldn’t be regler.”

“I’m afraid of men!” she sed.

“That’s onnecessary, marm. You ain’t in no danger. Don’t fret yourself on that pint.”

“Here, we’re shot out from the sinful world. Here, all is peas. Here, we air brothers and sisters. We don’t marry and consekently we hav no domestic difficulties. Husbans don’t abooze their wives—wives don’t worrit their husbans. There’s no children here to worrit us. Nothin to worrit us here. No wicked matrimony here. Would thow like to be a Shaker?”

“No,” sez I, “it ain’t my stile.”

I had now histed in as big a load of pervishuns as I could carry comfortable, and, leanin back in my cheer, commenst pickin my teeth with a fork. The female went out, leavin me all alone with the clock. I hadn’t sot thar long before the Elder poked his hed in at the door. “You’re a man of sin!” he sed, and groaned and went away.

Direckly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick lookin gals as I ever met. It is troo they was dressed in meal bags like the old one I’d met previsly, and their shiny, silky har was hid from sight by long white caps, sich as I spose female Josts wear; but their eyes sparkled like diminds, their cheeks was like roses, and they was charmin enuff to make a man throw stuns at his granmother, if they axed him to. They commenst clearin away the dishes, castin shy glances at me all the time. I got excited. I forgot Betsy Jane in my rapter, and sez I, “My pretty dears, how air you?”

“We air well,” they solumly sed.

“Whar’s the old man?” sed I, in a soft voice.

“Of whom dost thow speak—Brother Uriah?”

“I mean the gay and festiv cuss who calls me a man of sin. Shouldn’t wonder if his name was Uriah.”

“He has retired.”

“Wall, my pretty dears,” sez I, “let’s have sum fun. Let’s play puss in the corner. What say?”

“Air you a Shaker, sir?” they axed.

“Wall, my pretty dears, I havn’t arrayed my proud form in a long weskit yit, but if they was all like you perhaps I’d jine ’em. As it is, I’m a Shaker pro-temporary.”

They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a leetle skeery. I tawt ’em Puss in the corner and sich like plase, and we had a nice time, keepin quiet of course so the old man shouldn’t hear. When we broke up, sez I, “My pretty dears, ear I go you hav no objections, hav you, to a innersent kiss at partin?”

“‘YAY,’ THEY SED, AND I YAY’D.”

“Yay,” they sed, and I yay’d.

I went up stairs to bed. I spose I’d been snoozin half a hour when I was woke up by a noise at the door. I sot up in bed, leanin on my elbers and rubbin my eyes, and I saw the follerin picter: The Elder stood in the doorway, with a taller candle in his hand. He hadn’t no wearin appeerel on except his night close, which fluttered in the breeze like a Seseshun flag. He sed, “You’re a man of sin!” then groaned and went away.

I went to sleep agin, and drempt of runnin orf with the pretty little Shakeresses, mounted on my Californy Bar. I thawt the Bar insisted on steerin strate for my dooryard in Baldinsville, and that Betsy Jane cum out and giv us a warm recepshun with a panfull of bilin water. I was woke up arly by the Elder. He sed refreshments was reddy for me down stairs. Then sayin I was a man of sin, he went groanin away.

As I was goin threw the entry to the room where the vittles was, I cum across the Elder and the old female I’d met the night before, and what d’ye spose they was up to? Huggin and kissin like young lovers in their gushingist state. Sez I, “My Shaker frends, I reckon you’d better suspend the rules, and git marrid!”

“You must excoos Brother Uriah,” sed the female; “he’s subjeck to fits, and hain’t got no command over hisself when he’s into ’em.”

“Sartinly,” sez I, “I’ve bin took that way myself frequent.”

“You’re a man of sin!” sed the Elder.

Arter breakfust my little Shaker frends cum in agin to clear away the dishes.

“My pretty dears,” sez I, “shall we yay agin?”

“Nay,” they sed, and I nay’d.

The Shakers axed me to go to their meetin, as they was to hav sarvices that mornin, so I put on a clean biled rag and went. The meetin house was as neat as a pin. The floor was white as chalk and smooth as glass. The Shakers was all on hand, in clean weskits and meal bags, ranged on the floor like milingtery companies, the mails on one side of the room, and the females on tother. They commenst clappin their hands and singin and dancin. They danced kinder slow at fust, but as they got warmed up they shaved it down very brisk, I tell you. Elder Uriah, in particler, exhiberted a right smart chance of spryness in his legs, considerin his time of life, and as he cum a double shuffle near where I sot, I rewarded him with a approvin smile and said, “Hunky boy! Go it, my gay and festiv cuss.”

“You’re a man of sin!” he said, continnering his shuffle.

The Sperret, as they called it, then moved a short fat Shaker to say a few remarks. He sed they was Shakers, and all was ekal. They was the purest and seleckest peple on the yearth. Other peple was sinful as they could be, but Shakers was all right. Shakers was all goin kerslap to the Promist Land, and nobody want goin to stand at the gate to bar ’em out, if they did they’d git run over.

The Shakers then danced and sung agin, and arter they was threw, one of ’em axed me what I thawt of it.

Sez I, “What does it siggerfy?”

“What?” sez he.

“Why this jumpin up and singin? This long weskit bizniss, and this anty-matrimony idee? My frends, you air neat and tidy. Your lands is flowin with milk and honey. Your brooms is fine, and your apple sass is honest. Wehn a man buys a kag of apple sass of you he don’t find a grate many shavins under a few layers of sass—a little Game I’m sorry to say sum of my New Englan ancesters used to practiss. Your garding seeds is fine, and if I should sow ’em on the rock of Gibralter probly I should raise a good mess of garding sass. You air honest in your dealins. You air quiet and don’t distarb nobody. For all this I givs you credit. But your religion is small pertaters, I must say. You mope away your lives here in single retchidness, and as you air all by yourselves nothing ever conflicts with your pecooler idees, except when Human Nater busts out among you, as I understan she sumtimes do. [I give Uriah a sly wink here, which made the old feller squirm like a speared Eel.] You wear long weskits and long faces, and lead a gloomy life indeed. No children’s prattle is ever hearn around your harthstuns—you air in a dreary fog all the time, and you treat the jolly sunshine of life as tho’ it was a thief, drivin it from your doors by them weskits, and meal bags, and pecooler noshuns of yourn. The gals among you, sum of which air as slick pieces of caliker as I ever sot eyes on, air syin to place their heds agin weskits which kiver honest, manly harts, while you old heds fool yerselves with the idee that they air fulfillin their mishun here, and air contented. Here you air, all pend up by yerselves, talkin about the sins of a world you don’t know nothin of. Meanwhile said world continners to resolve round on her own axeltree onct in every 24 hours, subjeck to the Constitution of the United States, and is a very plesant place of residence. It’s a unnatral, onreasonable, and dismal life you’re leadin here. So it strikes me. My Shaker friends, I now bid you a welcome adoo. You hav treated me exceedin well. Thank you kindly, one and all.”

“A base exhibiter of depraved monkeys and onprincipled wax works!” sed Uriah.

“Hello, Uriah,” sez I, “I’d most forgot you. Wall, look out for them fits of yourn, and don’t catch cold and die in the flour of your youth and beauty.”

And I resoomed my jerney.

Artemus Ward.

---

“EARLY RISING.”

“GOD bless the man who first invented sleep!”

So Sancho Panza said, and so say I:

And bless him also that he didn’t keep

His great discovery to himself; nor try

To make it—as the lucky fellow might—

A close monopoly by patent right.

Yes—bless the man who first invented sleep

(I really can’t avoid the iteration);

But blast the man with curses loud and deep,

Whate’er the rascal’s name, or age, or station,

Who first invented, and went round advising,

That artificial cut-off—Early Rising!

“Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed,”

Observes some solemn sentimental owl.

Maxims like these are very cheaply said;

But, ere you make yourself a fool or fowl,

Pray, just inquire about his rise and fall,

And whether larks have any beds at all!

“The time for honest folks to be abed”

Is in the morning, if I reason right;

And he who cannot keep his precious head

Upon his pillow till it’s fairly light,

And so enjoy his forty morning winks,

Is up to knavery; or else—he drinks.

Thomson, who sung about the “Seasons,” said

It was a glorious thing to rise in season;

But then he said it—lying—in his bed,

At ten o’clock A.M.—the very reason

He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is,

His preaching wasn’t sanctioned by his practice.

’Tis, doubtless, well to be sometimes awake,—

Awake to duty, and awake to truth,—

But when, alas! a nice review we take

Of our best deeds and days, we find in sooth,

The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep

Are those we passed in childhood or asleep!

’Tis beautiful to leave the world awhile

For the soft visions of the gentle night;

And free, at last, from mortal care or guile,

To live as only in the angels’ sight,

In sleep’s sweet realm so cosily shut in,

Where, at the worst, we only dream of sin.

So, let us sleep, and give the Maker praise,—

I like the lad who, when his father thought

To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase

Of vagrant worm by early songster caught,

Cried, “Served him right! it’s not at all surprising;

The worm was punished, sir, for early rising.”

John G. Saxe.

---

HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON’S BAR.

IT had been raining in the valley of Sacramento. The North Fork had overflowed its banks and Rattlesnake Creek was impassable.

The few boulders that had marked the summer ford at Simpson’s Crossing were obliterated by a vast sheet of water stretching to the foothills. The up stage was stopped at Granger’s; the last mail had been abandoned in the tules, the rider swimming for his life.

“An area,” remarked the Sierra Avalanche with pensive local pride, “as large as the State of Massachusetts is now under water.”

Nor was the weather any better in the foothills.

The mud lay deep on the mountain road; waggons that neither physical force nor moral objurgation could move from the evil ways into which they had fallen, encumbered the track, and the way to Simpson’s Bar was indicated by broken-down teams and hard swearing.

And farther on, cut-off and inaccessible, rained upon and bedraggled, smitten by high winds and threatened by high water, Simpson’s Bar, on the eve of Christmas Day, 1862, clung like a swallow’s nest to the rocky entablature and splintered capitals of Table Mountain, and shook in the blast.

As night shut down on the settlement, a few lights gleamed through the mist from the windows of cabins on either side of the highway now crossed and gullied by lawless streams and swept by marauding winds.

Happily most of the population were gathered at Thompson’s store, clustered around a red-hot stove, at which they silently spat in some accepted sense of social communion that perhaps rendered conversation unnecessary.

Indeed most methods of diversion had long since been exhausted on Simpson’s Bar; high water had suspended the regular occupations on gulch and on river, and a consequent lack of money and whisky had taken the zest from most illegitimate recreation.

Even Mr. Hamlin was fain to leave the Bar with fifty dollars in his pocket—the only amount actually realised of the large sums won by him in the successful exercise of his arduous profession.

“Ef I was asked,” he remarked somewhat later—“ef I was asked to pint out a purty little village where a retired sport as didn’t care for money could exercise hisself frequent and lively, I’d say Simpson’s Bar; but for a young man with a large family depending on his exertions, it don’t pay.”

As Mr. Hamlin’s family consisted mainly of female adults, this remark is quoted rather to show the breadth of his humour than the exact extent of his responsibilities.

Howbeit, the unconscious objects of this satire sat that evening in the listless apathy begotten of idleness and lack of excitement.

Even the sudden splashing of hoofs before the door did not arouse them.

Dick Bullen alone paused in the act of scraping out his pipe, and lifted his head; but no other one of the group indicated any interest in, or recognition of, the man who entered.

It was a figure familiar enough to the company, and known in Simpson’s Bar as “The Old Man.”

A man of perhaps fifty years, grizzled and scant of hair, but still fresh and youthful of complexion. A face full of ready, but not very powerful sympathy, with a chameleon-like aptitude for taking on the shade and colour of contiguous moods and feelings.

He had evidently just left some hilarious companions, and did not at first notice the gravity of the group, but clapped the shoulder of the nearest man jocularly, and threw himself into a vacant chair.

“Jest heard the best thing out, boys! Ye know Smiley, over yar—Jim Smiley—funniest man in the Bar? Well, Jim was jest telling the richest yarn about——”

“Smiley’s a —— fool,” interrupted a gloomy voice.

“A particular —— skunk,” added another, in sepulchral accents.

A silence followed these positive statements.

The Old Man glanced quickly around the group. Then his face slowly changed.

“That’s so,” he said reflectively, after a pause; “certainly a sort of a skunk and suthin’ of a fool. In course.”

He was silent for a moment, as in painful contemplation of the unsavouriness and folly of the unpopular Smiley.

“Dismal weather, ain’t it?” he added, now fully embarked on the current of prevailing sentiment. “Mighty rough papers on the boys, and no show for money this season. And to-morrow’s Christmas.”

There was a movement among the men at this announcement, but whether of satisfaction or disgust was not plain.

“Yes,” continued the Old Man in the lugubrious tone he had within the last few moments unconsciously adopted—“yes, Christmas, and to-night’s Christmas-eve. Ye see, boys, I kinder thought—that is, I sorter had an idee, jest passin like you know—that may be ye’d all like to come over to my house to-night and have a sort of tear round. But I suppose, now, you wouldn’t? Don’t feel like it, may be?” he added, with anxious sympathy, peering into the faces of his companions.

“Well, I don’t know,” responded Tom Flynn, with some cheerfulness. “P’r’aps we may. But how about your wife, Old Man? What does she say to it?”

The Old Man hesitated.

His conjugal experience had not been a happy one, and the fact was known to Simpson’s Bar.

His first wife, a delicate, pretty little woman, had suffered keenly and secretly from the jealous suspicions of her husband, until one day he invited the whole Bar to his house to expose her infidelity.

On arriving, the party found the shy, petite creature quietly engaged in her household duties, and retired abashed and discomfited.

But the sensitive woman did not easily recover from the shock of this extraordinary outrage.

It was with difficulty she regained her equanimity sufficiently to release her lover from the closet in which he was concealed, and escape with him.

She left a boy of three years to comfort her bereaved husband.

The Old Man’s present wife had been his cook. She was large, loyal, and aggressive.

Before he could reply, Joe Dimmick suggested with great directness that it was the “Old Man’s house,” and that, invoking the Divine Power, if the case were his own, he would invite who he pleased, even if in so doing he imperilled his salvation. The Powers of Evil, he further remarked, should contend against him vainly.

All this delivered with a terseness and vigour lost in this necessary translation.

“In course. Certainly. Thet’s it,” said the Old Man with a sympathetic frown. “Thar’s no trouble about thet. It’s my own house, built every stick on it myself. Don’t you be afeared o’ her, boys. She may cut up a trifle rough—ez wimmin do—but she’ll come round.”

Secretly the Old Man trusted to the exultation of liquor and the power of a courageous example to sustain him in such an emergency.

As yet, Dick Bullen, the oracle and leader of Simpson’s Bar, had not spoken. He now took his pipe from his lips.

“Old Man, how’s that yer Johnny gettin’ on? Seems to me he didn’t look so peart the last time I seed him on the bluff heavin’ rocks at Chinamen. Didn’t seem to take much interest in it. Thar was a gang of ’em by yar yesterday—drownded out up the river—and I kinder thought o’ Johnny, and how he’d miss ’em! May be now, we’d be in the way ef he was sick?”

The father, evidently touched not only by this pathetic picture of Johnny’s deprivation, but by the considerate delicacy of the speaker, hastened to assure him that Johnny was better, and that a “little fun might ’liven him up.”

Whereupon Dick arose, shook himself, and saying, “I’m ready. Lead the way, Old Man: here goes,” himself led the way with a leap, a characteristic howl, and darted out into the night.

As he passed through the outer room he caught up a blazing brand from the hearth.

The action was repeated by the rest of the party, closely following and elbowing each other, and before the astonished proprietor of Thompson’s grocery was aware of the intention of his guests, the room was deserted.

The night was pitchy dark. In the first gust of wind their temporary torches were extinguished, and only the red brands dancing and flitting in the gloom like drunken will-o’-the-wisps indicated their whereabouts.

Their way led up Pine Tree Cañon, at the head of which a broad, low bark-thatched cabin burrowed in the mountainside.

It was the home of the Old Man, and the entrance to the tunnel in which he worked, when he worked at all.

Here the crowd paused for a moment, out of delicate deference to their host, who came up panting in the rear.

“P’r’aps ye’d better hold on a second out yer, whilst I go in and see thet things is all right,” said the Old Man, with an indifference he was far from feeling.

The suggestion was graciously accepted, the door opened and closed on the host, and the crowd, leaning their backs against the wall, and cowering under the eaves, waited and listened.

For a few moments there was no sound but the dripping of water from the eaves, and the stir and rustle of wrestling boughs above them.

Then the men became uneasy, and whispered suggestion and suspicion passed from the one to the other.

“Reckon she’s caved in his head the first lick!”

“Decoyed him inter the tunnel, and barred him up, likely.”

“Got him down, and sittin’ on him.”

“Prob’ly biling suthing to heave on us; stand clear the door, boys!”

For just then the latch clicked, the door slowly opened, and a voice said—

“Come in out o’ the wet.”

The voice was neither that of the Old Man nor of his wife. It was the voice of a small boy, its weak treble broken by that preternatural hoarseness which only vagabondage and the habit of premature self-assertion can give.

It was the face of a small boy that looked up at theirs—a face that might have been pretty and even refined, but that it was darkened by evil knowledge from within, and dirt and hard experience from without.

He had a blanket around his shoulders, and had evidently just risen from his bed.

“Come in,” he repeated, “and don’t make no noise. The Old Man’s in there talking to mar,” he continued, pointing to an adjacent room which seemed to be a kitchen, from which the Old Man’s voice came in deprecating accents.

“Let me be,” he added, querulously to Dick Bullen, who had caught him up, blanket and all, and was affecting to toss him into the fire; “let go o’ me, you d—d old fool, d’ye hear?”

Thus adjured, Dick Bullen lowered Johnny to the ground with a smothered laugh, while the men, entering quietly, ranged themselves around a long table of rough boards which occupied the centre of the room.

Johnny then gravely proceeded to a cupboard, and brought out several articles which he deposited on the table.

“‘NOW WADE IN, AND DON’T BE AFEARED.’”

“Thar’s whisky and crackers, and red herons and cheese.” He took a bite of the latter on his way to the table. “And sugar.” He scooped up a mouthful en route with a small and very dirty hand. “And terbacker. Thar’s dried appils too on the shelf, but I don’t admire ’em. Appils is swellin’. Thar,” he continued; “now wade in, and don’t be afeared. I don’t mind the old woman. She don’t b’long to me. S’long.”

He had stepped to the threshold of a small room, scarcely larger than a closet, partitioned off from the main apartment, and holding in its dim recess a small bed.

He stood there a moment looking at the company, his bare feet peeping from the blanket, and nodded.

“Hello, Johnny! You ain’t goin’ to turn in agin, are ye?” said Dick.

“Yes, I are,” responded Johnny, decidedly.

“Why, wot’s up, old fellow?”

“I’m sick.”

“How sick?”

“I’ve got a fevier. And childblains. And roomatiz,” returned Johnny, and vanished within. After a moment’s pause, he added in the dark, apparently from under the bedclothes—“And biles!”

There was an embarrassing silence. The men looked at each other and at the fire.

Even with the appetising banquet before them, it seemed as if they might again fall into the despondency of Thompson’s grocery, when the voice of the Old Man, incautiously lifted, came deprecatingly from the kitchen.

“Certainly! Thet’s so. In course they is. A gang o’ lazy drunken loafers, and that ar Dick Bullen’s the ornariest of all. Didn’t hev no more sabe than to come round yar with sickness in the house and no provision. Thet’s what I said: ‘Bullen,’ sez I, ‘it’s crazy drunk you are, or a fool,’ sez I, ‘to think o’ such a thing.’ ‘Staples,’ I sez, ‘be you a man, Staples, and ’spect to raise h—ll under my roof and invalids lyin’ round?’ But they would come—they would. Thet’s wot you must ’spect o’ such trash as lays round the Bar.”

A burst of laughter from the men followed this unfortunate exposure.

Whether it was overheard in the kitchen, or whether the Old Man’s irate companion had just then exhausted all other modes of expressing her contemptuous indignation, I cannot say, but a back door was suddenly slammed with great violence.

A moment later and the Old Man reappeared, haply unconscious of the cause of the late hilarious outburst, and smiled blandly.

“The old woman thought she’d jest run over to Mrs. McFadden’s for a sociable call,” he explained, with jaunty indifference, as he took a seat at the board.

Oddly enough, it needed this untoward incident to relieve the embarrassment that was beginning to be felt by the party, and their natural audacity returned with their host.

I do not propose to record the convivialities of that evening. The inquisitive reader will accept the statement that the conversation was characterised by the same intellectual exaltation, the same cautious reverence, the same fastidious delicacy, the same rhetorical precision, and the same logical and coherent discourse somewhat later in the evening, which distinguish similar gatherings of the masculine sex in more civilised localities, and under more favourable auspices.

No glasses were broken in the absence of any; no liquor was uselessly spilt on floor or table in the scarcity of that article.

It was nearly midnight when the festivities were interrupted.

“Hush,” said Dick Bullen, holding up his hand.

It was the querulous voice of Johnny from his adjacent closet.

“Oh, dad.”

The Old Man arose hurriedly and disappeared in the closet. Presently he reappeared.

“His rheumatiz is coming on agin bad,” he explained, “and he wants rubbin’.”

He lifted the demijohn of whisky from the table and shook it. It was empty.

Dick Bullen put down his tin cup with an embarrassed laugh. So did the others.

The Old Man examined their contents, and said, hopefully—

“I reckon that’s enough; he don’t need much. You hold on all o’ you for a spell, and I’ll be back;” and vanished in the closet with an old flannel shirt and the whisky.

The door closed but imperfectly, and the following dialogue was distinctly audible:—

“Now, sonny, whar does she ache worst?”

“Sometimes over yar and sometimes under yer; but it’s most powerful from yer to yer. Rub yer, dad.”

A silence seemed to indicate a brisk rubbing. Then Johnny—

“Hevin’ a good time out yer, dad?”

“Yes, sonny.”

“To-morrer’s Chrismiss, ain’t it?”

“Yes, sonny. How does she feel now?”

“Better. Rub a little furder down. Wot’s Chrismiss, anyway? Wot’s it all about?”

“Oh, it’s a day.”

This exhaustive definition was apparently satisfactory, for there was a silent interval of rubbing. Presently Johnny again—

“Mar sez that everywhere else but yer everybody gives things to everybody Chrismiss, and then she just waded inter you. She sez thar’s a man they call Sandy Claws, not a white man, you know, but a kind o’ Chinemin, comes down the chimbley night afore Chrismiss and gives things to chillern—boys likes me. Puts ’em in their butes! Thet’s what she tried to play upon me. Easy now, pop; whar are you rubbin’ to—thet’s a mile from the place. She jest made that up, didn’t she, jest to aggrewate me and you? Don’t rub thar——Why, dad!”

In the great quiet that seemed to have fallen upon the house the sigh of the near pines and the drip of leaves without was very distinct.

Johnny’s voice, too, was lowered as he went on—

“Don’t you take on now, fur I’m gettin’ all right fast. Wot’s the boys doin’ out thar?”

The Old Man partly opened the door and peered through.

His guests were sitting there sociably enough, and there were a few silver coins in a lean buckskin purse on the table.

“Bettin’ on suthin’,—some little game or ’nother. They’re all right,” he replied to Johnny, and recommenced his rubbing.

“I’d like to take a hand and win some money,” said Johnny, reflectively, after a pause.

The Old Man glibly repeated what was evidently a familiar formula, that if Johnny would wait until he struck it rich in the tunnel he’d have lots of money, etc., etc.

“Yes,” said Johnny, “but you don’t. And whether you strike it or I win it, it’s about the same. It’s all luck. But it’s mighty cur’o’s about Chrismiss—ain’t it? Why do they call it Chrismiss?”

Perhaps from some instinctive deference to the overhearing of his guests, or from some vague sense of incongruity, the Old Man’s reply was so low as to be inaudible beyond the room.

“Yes,” said Johnny, with some slight abatement of interest, “I’ve heard o’ him before. Thar, that’ll do, dad. I don’t ache near so bad as I did. Now wrap me tight in this yer blanket. So. Now,” he added in a muffled whisper, “sit down yer by me till I go asleep.”

To assure himself of obedience, he disengaged one hand from the blanket, and grasping his father’s sleeve, again composed himself to rest.

For some moments the Old Man waited patiently.

Then the unwonted stillness of the house excited his curiosity, and without moving from the bed, he cautiously opened the door with his disengaged hand, and looked into the main room.

To his infinite surprise it was dark and deserted.

But even then a smouldering log on the hearth broke, and by the upspringing blaze he saw the figure of Dick Bullen sitting by the dying embers.

“Hello!”

Dick started, rose, and came somewhat unsteadily towards him.

“Whar’s the boys?” said the Old Man.

“Gone up the cañon on a little pasear. They’re coming back for me in a minit. I’m waitin’ round for ’em. What are you starin’ at, Old Man?” he added with a forced laugh; “do you think I’m drunk?”

The old man might have been pardoned the supposition, for Dick’s eyes were humid and his face flushed.

He loitered and lounged back to the chimney, yawned, shook himself, buttoned up his coat and laughed.

“Liquor ain’t so plenty as that, Old Man. Now don’t you git up,” he continued, as the Old Man made a movement to release his sleeve from Johnny’s hand. “Don’ you mind manners. Sit jist whar you be; I’m goin’ in a jiffy. Thar, that’s them now.”

There was a low tap at the door.

Dick Bullen opened it quickly, nodded “good night” to his host, and disappeared.

The Old Man would have followed him but for the hand that still unconsciously grasped his sleeve. He could have easily disengaged it; it was small, weak, and emaciated. But perhaps because it was small, weak, and emaciated, he changed his mind, and drawing his chair closer to the bed, rested his head upon it. In this defenceless attitude the potency of his earlier potations surprised him. The room flickered and faded before his eyes, reappeared, faded again, went out, and left him—asleep.

Meantime, Dick Bullen, closing the door, confronted his companions.

“Are you ready?” said Staples.

“Ready!” said Dick; “what’s the time?”

“Past twelve,” was the reply; “can you make it?—it’s nigh on fifty miles, the round trip hither and yon.”

“I reckon,” returned Dick, shortly. “Whar’s the mare?”

“Bill and Jack’s holdin’ her at the crossin’.”

“Let ’em hold on a minit longer,” said Dick.

He turned and re-entered the house softly.

By the light of the guttering candle and dying fire he saw that the door of the little room was open.

He stepped toward it on tiptoe and looked in.

The Old Man had fallen back in his chair, snoring, his helpless feet thrust out in a line with his collapsed shoulders, and his hat pulled over his eyes.

Beside him, on a narrow wooden bedstead, lay Johnny, muffled tightly in a blanket that hid all save a strip of forehead and a few curls damp with perspiration.

Dick Bullen made a step forward, hesitated, and glanced over his shoulder into the deserted room.

Everything was quiet.

With a sudden resolution he parted his huge moustaches with both hands, and stooped over the sleeping boy.

But even as he did so a mischievous blast, lying in wait, swooped down the chimney, rekindling the hearth, and lit up the room with a shameless glow, from which Dick fled in bashful terror.

His companions were already waiting for him at the crossing.

Two of them were struggling in the darkness with some strange misshapen bulk, which, as Dick came nearer, took the semblance of a great yellow horse.

It was the mare.

She was not a pretty picture.

From her Roman nose to her rising haunches, from her arched spine, hidden by the stiff machillas of a Mexican saddle, to her thick, straight, bony legs, there was not a line of equine grace.

In her half-blind but wholly vicious white eyes, in her protruding under lip, in her monstrous colour, there was nothing but ugliness and vice.

“Now then,” said Staples, “stand cl’ar of her heels, boys, and up with you. Don’t miss your first holt of her mane, and mind ye get your off stirrup quick. Ready!”

There was a leap, a scrambling struggle, a bound, a wild retreat of the crowd, a circle of flying hoofs, two springless leaps that jarred the earth, a rapid play and jingle of spurs, a plunge, and then the voice of Dick somewhere in the darkness.

“All right!”

“Don’t take the lower road back onless you’re hard pushed for time! Don’t hold her in down hill! We’ll be at the ford at five. G’lang! Hoopa! Mula! Go!”

A splash, a spark struck from the ledge in the road, a clatter in the rocky cut beyond, and Dick was gone.

---

Sing, O Muse, the ride of Richard Bullen! Sing, O Muse, of chivalrous men! the sacred quest, the doughty deeds, the battery of low churls, the fearsome ride and gruesome perils of the flower of Simpson’s Bar! Alack! she is dainty, this Muse! She will have none of this bucking brute and swaggering, ragged rider, and I must fain follow him, in prose, afoot!

It was one o’clock; and yet he had only gained Rattlesnake Hill. For in that time Jovita had rehearsed to him all her imperfections and practised all her vices.

Thrice had she stumbled.

Twice had she thrown up her Roman nose in a straight line with the reins, and resisting bit and spur, struck out madly across country.

Twice had she reared, and, rearing, fallen backward; and twice had the agile Dick, unharmed, regained his seat before she found her vicious legs again.

And a mile beyond them, at the foot of a long hill, was Rattlesnake Creek.

Dick knew that here was the crucial test of his ability to perform his enterprise, set his teeth grimly, put his knees well into her flanks, and changed his defensive tactics to brisk aggression.

Bullied and maddened, Jovita began the descent of the hill.

Here the artful Richard pretended to hold her in with ostentatious objurgation and well-feigned cries of alarm.

It is unnecessary to add that Jovita instantly ran away.

Nor need I state the time made in the descent; it is written in the chronicles of Simpson’s Bar.

Enough that in another moment, as it seemed to Dick, she was splashing on the overflowed banks of Rattlesnake Creek.

As Dick expected, the momentum she had acquired carried her beyond the point of balking; and holding her well together for a mighty leap, they dashed into the middle of the swiftly-flowing current.

A few moments of kicking, wading, and swimming, and Dick drew a long breath on the opposite bank.

The road from Rattlesnake Creek to Red Mountain was tolerably level.

Either the plunge in Rattlesnake Creek had dampened her baleful fire, or the art which led to it had shown her the superior wickedness of her rider, for Jovita no longer wasted her surplus energy in wanton conceits.

Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit; once she shied, but it was from a new freshly-painted meeting-house at the crossing of the county road.

Hollows, ditches, gravelly deposits, patches of freshly-springing grasses flew from beneath her rattling hoofs.

She began to smell unpleasantly, once or twice she coughed slightly, but there was no abatement of her strength or speed.

By two o’clock he had passed Red Mountain and begun the descent to the plain.

Ten minutes later the driver of the fast Pioneer coach was overtaken and passed by a “man on a Pinto hoss”—an event sufficiently notable for remark.

At half-past two Dick rose in his stirrups with a great shout.

Stars were glittering through the rifted clouds, and beyond him, out of the plain, rose two spires, a flag-staff, and a straggling line of black objects.

Dick jingled his spurs and swung his riata, Jovita bounded forward, and in another moment they swept into Tuttleville, and drew up before the wooden piazza of “The Hotel of All Nations.”

What transpired that night at Tuttleville is not strictly a part of this record.

Briefly I may state, however, that after Jovita had been handed over to a sleepy hostler, whom she at once kicked into unpleasant consciousness, Dick sallied out with the bar-keeper for a tour of the sleeping town.

Lights still gleamed from a few saloons and gambling-houses; but, avoiding these, they stopped before several closed shops, and by persistent tapping and judicious outcry roused the proprietors from their beds, and made them unbar the doors of their magazines and expose their wares.

Sometimes they were met by curses, but oftener by interest and some concern in their needs, and the interview was invariably concluded by a drink.

It was three o’clock before this pleasantry was given over, and with a small water-proof bag of india-rubber strapped on his shoulders, Dick returned to the hotel.

But here he was waylaid by Beauty—Beauty opulent in charms, affluent in dress, persuasive in speech, and Spanish in accent!

In vain she repeated the invitation in “Excelsior,” happily scorned by all Alpine-climbing youth, and rejected by this child of the Sierras—a rejection softened in this instance by a laugh and his last gold coin.

And then he sprang to the saddle and dashed down the lonely street and out into the lonelier plain, where presently the lights, the black line of houses, the spires and the flag-staff sank into the earth behind him again and were lost in the distance.

The storm had cleared away, the air was brisk and cold, the outlines of adjacent landmarks were distinct, but it was half-past four before Dick reached the meeting-house and the crossing of the country road.

To avoid the rising grade he had taken a longer and more circuitous road, in whose viscid mud Jovita sank fetlock deep at every bound.

It was a poor preparation for a steady ascent of five miles more; but Jovita, gathering her legs under her, took it with her usual blind, unreasoning fury, and a half-hour later reached the long level that led to Rattlesnake Creek.

Another half-hour would bring him to the creek.

He threw the reins lightly upon the neck of the mare, chirruped to her and began to sing.

Suddenly Jovita shied with a bound that would have unseated a less practised rider.

Hanging to her rein was a figure that had leaped from the bank, and at the same time from the road before her arose a shadowy horse and rider.

“Throw up your hands,” commanded this second apparition with an oath.

Dick felt the mare tremble, quiver, and apparently sink under him.

He knew what it meant, and was prepared.

“Stand aside, Jack Simpson, I know you, you d—d thief. Let me pass, or——”

He did not finish the sentence.

Jovita rose straight in the air with a terrific bound, throwing the figure from her bit with a single shake of her vicious head, and charged her deadly malevolence down on the impediment before her.

An oath, a pistol-shot, horse and highwayman rolled over in the road, and the next moment Jovita was a hundred yards away.

But the good right arm of her rider, shattered by a bullet, dropped helplessly at his side.

Without slackening his speed he shifted the reins to his left hand.

But a few moments later he was obliged to halt and tighten the saddle-girths that had slipped in the onset.

This in his crippled condition took some time.

He had no fear of pursuit, but looking up he saw that the eastern stars were already paling, and that the distant peaks had lost their ghostly whiteness, and now stood out blackly against a lighter sky.

Day was upon him.

Then completely absorbed in a single idea, he forgot the pain of his wound, and mounting again dashed on towards Rattlesnake Creek.

But now Jovita’s breath came broken by gasps, Dick reeled in his saddle, and brighter and brighter grew the sky.

Ride, Richard; run, Jovita; linger, O day!

For the last few rods there was a roaring in his ears.

Was it exhaustion from loss of blood, or what?

He was dazed and giddy as he swept down the hill, and did not recognise his surroundings.

Had he taken the wrong road, or was this Rattlesnake Creek?

“WAS THIS RATTLESNAKE CREEK?”

It was.

But the brawling creek he had swum a few hours before had risen, more than doubled its volume, and now rolled a swift and resistless river between him and Rattlesnake Hill.

For the first time that night Richard’s heart sank within him.

The river, the mountain, the quickening east swam before his eyes.

He shut them to recover his self-control.

In that brief interval, by some fantastic mental process, the little room at Simpson’s Bar, and the figures of the sleeping father and son, rose upon him.

He opened his eyes widely, cast off his coat, pistol, boots, and saddle, bound his precious pack tightly to his shoulders, grasped the bare flanks of Jovita with his bared knees, and, with a shout, dashed into the yellow water.

A cry rose from the opposite bank as the head of a man and horse struggled for a few moments against the battling current, and then were swept away, amid uprooted trees and whirling driftwood.

---

The Old Man started and awoke.

The fire on the hearth was dead, the candle in the outer room flickering in its socket, and somebody was rapping at the door.

He opened it, but fell back with a cry before the dripping half-naked figure that reeled against the door-post.

“Dick?”

“Hush! Is he awake yet?”

“No,—but Dick——?”

“Dry up, you old fool! Get me some whisky quick!”

The Old Man flew and returned with—an empty bottle!

Dick would have sworn, but his strength was not equal to the occasion.

He staggered, caught at the handle of the door, and motioned to the Old Man.

“Thar’s suthin’ in my pack yer for Johnny. Take it off. I can’t.”

The Old Man unstrapped the pack and laid it before the exhausted man.

“Open it, quick!”

He did so with trembling fingers.

It contained only a few poor toys—cheap and barbaric enough, goodness knows, but bright with paint and tinsel.

One of them was broken; another, I fear, was irretrievably ruined by water; and on the other, ah me! there was a cruel spot.

“It don’t look like much, that’s a fact,” said Dick ruefully.... “But it’s the best we could do.... Take ’em, Old Man, and put ’em in his stocking, and tell him—tell him, you know—hold me, Old Man.”

The Old Man caught at his sinking figure.

“Tell him,” said Dick, with a weak little laugh—“tell him Sandy Claus has come.”

And even so, bedraggled, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, with one arm hanging helplessly at his side, Santa Claus came to Simpson’s Bar and fell fainting on the first threshold.

The Christmas dawn came slowly after, touching the remoter peaks with the rosy warmth of ineffable love.

And it looked so tenderly on Simpson’s Bar that the whole mountain, as it caught in a generous action, blushed to the skies.

Bret Harte.

---

THE BREACH OF PROMISE CASE.

AMOS DIXON had not been long gone from the elegant house when Miss Sophia Garr, caparisoned in a jaunty hat and a ready-made cloak, sallied forth on a little business of her own.

She took the nearest way to Montgomery Street, and proceeded almost to the head of that thoroughfare. Ascending a very wide flight of steps, she turned to the right, and went up a narrower flight; turning again to the left, she went up a narrower flight still. Without pausing to take breath, Miss Sophia proceeded, by the help of the skylight, to read the names on a whole army of doors. Making nearly the whole circuit of the long hall, she arrived finally at a door which seemed to meet with her approval, for she nodded her head, knocked, and walked briskly in.

“What a horrid-looking man!” she said, as she threw herself upon a well-worn lounge, and breathed heavily.

“What an ugly old vixen!” replied the gentleman thus apostrophised, looking up from the desk at which he sat writing.

“Hem!” rejoined Miss Sophia, eyeing him wickedly, and still labouring for her breath, after her unwonted exertion.

“Well, madam?”

“How dare you, sir—but this is Mr. Beanson, no doubt?”

“Yes, madam.”

“I called, sir,” pronounced Miss Garr, in an angry tone, “to have you explain to me explicitly, and without reservation, what constitutes a breach of promise.”

Now two different persons had been harassing Mr. Beanson that very morning with unpaid bills. Yet it was a characteristic of this remarkable man that all his greatest troubles were in the future—that undiscovered country of his first brief, and the presidency. He was possessed of a wonderful talent at apprehending evil; and he had not heard Miss Sophia this long without exerting it. He thought instantly of the snares laid for unsuspecting young men by designing females, and did not grow calmer as his visitor repeated—

“Come, sir; you profess to be a lawyer, if you are not. Can you tell me, sir?”

“M—madam, I don’t know you!” exclaimed Mr. Beanson, feeling very much confused, but looking, as he always did, very aggressive.

“I found your card in my card-case, and I want to know, sir, what constitutes a breach of promise.”

“Madam, I tell you I don’t know you at all!”

“But did you not leave your card in my card-case at Mrs. Clayton’s?”

“I did, madam, but that does not constitute a breach of promise; and I warn you now,” said Mr. Beanson, raising his voice and his forefinger, and shaking both at her simultaneously, “I warn you now, madam, that you cannot ground an action for breach of promise on a little skilful advertising!”

“What do you mean, sir?”

Mr. Beanson observed a sudden and marked change coming over the features of his visitor, and took it for the herald of her discomfiture and his own triumph.

“What do I mean?” iterated Mr. Beanson. “I mean, madam, that in this latter stage of juridical enlightenment a man cannot be held for breach of promise, or prosecuted for breach of promise, by a woman whom he never saw before in his life—and, for that matter, never wishes to see again—just because he put his business card in her card-case.” Here the speaker, seeing the remarkable effect of his philippic, launched himself upon his feet, the better to enjoy the ovation he was preparing for himself. As he undoubled his exceeding length before Sophia, he had the satisfaction of seeing the additional effect he was producing, even apart from his oratory. It was the very yellow jaundice of tones in which Mr. Beanson concluded—

“No, madam, you would not get any intelligent court in the land, in these premises, to find cause of action. It was nothing but a skilful advertisement—in short, an act of commercial and legal genius. You, I suppose, would make it a crime punishable by marriage with such as you. The thing is simply ridiculous! Madam, I have done. Have you?”

Mr. Beanson resumed his seat triumphantly, and eyed the astonished Garr with an expression that made his head look older than common.

Miss Sophia could not have interrupted the foregoing forensic display if she had tried. In her bewilderment she was mutely deciding whether she, Sophia Garr, or all the men were going stark mad. George Lang had offered himself to Amelia, after being accepted by herself. Then this impudent red-headed wretch—whom she had never attempted to marry—either he or she was certainly crazy. The question was too complicated for a prompt decision.

The two had sat for some moments, glaring at each other, in profound silence, when Miss Garr suddenly exclaimed, “You long-waisted vagabond, shut up!”

This might have been effectual in a contest with a person of her own sex; since it might have shocked into silence or proved an Ultima Thule of feminine virulence. When, however, Mr. Beanson, having taken some time to consider, remembered that he was not talking at all when he was requested to “shut up,” the thing struck him as laughable. Accordingly Mr. Beanson laughed—laughed loud and long, till Mr. Beanson had laughed out all the fun there was in the occurrence, and some of his own anger to boot.

“Now, madam,” said he facetiously, “I am prepared to part with you.”

Miss Garr was more angry than ever.

“I say, madam, I am prepared to part with you. I will not detain you further.”

“You ugly, hateful, impudent wretch!” remarked Sophia, finding speech at last. “You may insult me here as much as you please, since I am without a protector; but you shall not drive me away till you have answered my question. I would as soon marry a keg of nails as you, sir; so you may set your mind at rest! It is somebody else that my outraged feelings are interested in—somebody else of more consequence than you, though I verily believe he is as big a villain——”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Beanson, as any other drowning man might have done before he was swallowed up by any other flood.

“Do you suppose, sir, I would walk all the way here from Folsome Street, and up these interminable stairs, and then go away, without knowing what constitutes a breach of promise? I would have you know, sir, that my case is urgent.”

“Then you did not intend to prosecute me at all?” asked Mr. Beanson, opening his eyes very wide.

“Have I not told you once? Would I prosecute a keg of nails, you ninny?”

As strange as it may seem, a bland smile, which spread over the entire face of Mr. Beanson, was the result of this last poisoned arrow of Miss Garr. The ignis fatuus of his first brief was again rising over the marshes of his present embarrassments. “Well, well, madam,” rejoined Mr. Beanson, “I will do anything in the world to serve you. Who is it, by the way, that you wish to prosecute?”

“I don’t know as that is any of your business at present, sir; I first want an answer to the question I have asked about forty times: What constitutes a breach of promise?”

“To tell the truth, madam, there are so many conditions to a breach of promise that an abstract definition of it would not do the least good in the world; and I could not give one without consulting my books—but do you absolutely insist on mentioning no names?”

“I do, sir.”

“Will you state the case, then, without names?”

“You must see, sir, that my natural delicacy revolts against any revelations to strangers.”

“Why, madam, counsellor and client should never be strangers. Besides, you must be aware that a breach of promise depends on so many things. As I have said before, there are so many conditions that we cannot proceed at all unless you answer certain questions; such as, for instance, whether you—I mean the lady, the plaintiff, in fact—has any proof of a promise, express or implied.”

Miss Garr looked about the room in silent uncertainty.

“Have you—I mean, has the lady—for example, any witnesses—any one who has heard the defendant that is to be,” pursued Mr. Beanson, in the language of the future, “express or imply a promise?”

She could not say that the lady had.

“Had she any letters to show which contained a promise either expressed or implied?”

“The lady,” responded Miss Garr mysteriously; “the lady has not.”

“Has the plaintiff been injured in any way by the defendant?”

“Yes, grossly.”

“Ah, then, I begin to see a case. Set the damages heavy—set the damages heavy. By-the-bye, is the defendant rich?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said Mr. Beanson, rubbing his hands. “We will make the villain suffer.”

“Thank you, Mr. Beanson. Fifty thousand dollars will be little enough. Thank you, Mr. Beanson.” And Miss Garr actually shook hands with Mr. Beanson on the spot.

“Hem, ah! what was—the—nature of—these injuries—that you say the defendant had inflicted upon you—the lady, I should say, the plaintiff?”

Miss Garr feigned an uneasy look.

“Must I tell?” she demanded, dropping her eyes.

“I am sorry, madam, it is absolutely necessary, since the whole case seems to hang upon that injury, or those injuries alone.”

“Well, then,” said Sophia, riveting her maidenly orbs meekly upon a broken coal-scuttle; “well, then, sir, he kissed her in the dark!”

“Is that all?”

“Is it not enough, sir?”

“It might have been enough,” replied Mr. Beanson, in the stumbling innocence which had been the bane of his life; “it might have been enough, madam, for the defendant, or for the plaintiff even, but it is hardly enough to ground an action of breach of promise upon.”

Miss Garr was angry; Mr. Beanson puzzled; and both were silent. If he had seen a possible chance of securing his first brief in any other way, Mr. Archibald Beanson would most certainly have dismissed Sophia instanter.

Running his long fingers inanely through his red hair, “Madam!” he said at last, “I think I shall be obliged to consult Bishop on Marriage.”

“Now look here, sir,” observed Miss Sophia, wrapping her ready-made cloak tighter around her, “if you keep on, I shall lose my patience and my good manners. Who in the world wants to consult the bishop on marriage? An ordinary minister, or even a justice of the peace, will do me. I am not proud, sir.”

Mr. Beanson, trying to look learned, succeeded in looking confused. Undoubling himself again—this time with abstruse deliberation—he went to a meagre bookcase, and returned to his desk. “It was this book,” said he, “that I had reference to—‘Bishop on Marriage and Divorce!’”

“Well, now you begin to get sensible,” remarked Miss Garr, in a tone and manner which, expressed in words, would have read, “I grant your pardon, sir, for your trivial mistake about ministers and bishops.”

Mr. Beanson opened the book, and, glancing over the table of contents, his eye rested on the heading of a chapter, which read thus—“Want of age.”

In his utter helplessness, Archibald looked up again at Sophia and asked, “Is there any want of age in the parties?”

“Now look here, sir; I did not come here to be insulted. You think I do not understand your irony. I would have you to know that I do.”

“I asked that question,” said Mr. Beanson, soothingly, “with all due reverence for your age. This is the first time you have openly acknowledged that you are the plaintiff in the contemplated suit. I have known it all along, however; and I therefore assure you that the question about age was suggested wholly by my ignorance as to the other party—the defendant.”

Mr. Beanson, without perusing the commentary on this speech written in the face of his client, now glanced his eye back to the table of contents again. The question suggested this time seemed to that astute pundit an honest one, and based on sufficient grounds. “Want of mental capacity,” he read. “That’s it,” he exclaimed.

“There may be a want of mental capacity in one of the parties. Do you think the defence would make that out?” inquired Mr. Beanson.

“It might be,” replied Miss Garr, still pursuing the thought into which she had been drifted, and in which she had gradually drowned some of her indignation at the unsuspecting Archibald. Lang’s late conduct may have been dictated by insanity—proposing to Amelia after engaging himself to her, Sophia Garr! “Really, Mr. Beanson, it might be.”

“Indeed, madam? Then we must guard against that!”

The client looked inquiringly at the lawyer, who was for a moment wrapped in a mute study. “Can the defence, madam,” demanded Mr. Beanson at last, “can—can they prove that you have ever been in Stockton, or any private insane asylum?”

Here the reader who has visited the Sandwich Islands may pause to congratulate himself. Remembering the crater of Mauna Loa, he will have a more vivid idea of Miss Garr’s feelings than anything but that molten sea of lava could possibly suggest. Sophia jumped indignantly to her feet, and poured a tide of epithets, so seething-hot, over the head of the astonished Archibald, that for a moment he succumbed before it, blank and still as some patriarchal porpoise, lava-cooked and cast upon the beach of Hawaii.

“‘YOU WRETCH!’”

“You wretch!” was the comparatively calm peroration of Miss Garr, “you—you horrid wretch! I have a mind to sue you for slander. How dare you put such a stigma on my character when you know, or ought to know, that George Lang is the one that is insane!”

“Oh, ah! George Lang, my employer?” exclaimed Mr. Beanson, coming to life. “That’s the gentleman you would prosecute. Well, now!”

To the intense astonishment of Archibald an increasing bitterness of manner succeeded, and he said, “If you are not insane, madam, you are certainly in your dotage. Why, look at this desk, here! Every one of these papers is a deed made out by order of the gentleman you would rob. Go along with your breach of promise! The court would send you to an asylum as sure as guns!”

Mr. Beanson’s face grew brighter as his indignation grew, and his entire head was girt about with an unwonted appearance of youth. Sophia’s rough handling, like sandpaper upon an antique bust, had rubbed some of the yellow mould away—had lifted that mysterious veil woven by the semblance of years, and had opened up to her eyes and ours, the perfect glories of Mr. Beanson’s Golden Age.

“You came here, no doubt, madam,” continued Archibald, with no such interruption as the foregoing paragraph; “in fact, I feel sure, madam, you came here to prevail on me to enter into a plot against my only present employer, and may be (here Mr. Beanson was very bitter in the curl of his lip and his general tone), may be?—no, I am sure, too, that you would attempt to marry me at last, as a meet punishment for being your accomplice. Oh! I see it in your eye, madam; you need not deny it!”

Miss Garr, at one time or another, since she had read Mr. Beanson’s name on his card, might have thought vaguely of “prospecting” him for a husband, in case of the failure of all other claims; but to do her justice, it was only ineffable rage that Archibald saw in her eye, as he repeated—though Sophia had not attempted to speak—“You need not deny it, for I tell you I see it in your eye! and as for Mr. Lang, I am doing his notary business, and a great deal of it, too, especially of late. He is selling hosts of property—hosts of property, madam, in the name and with the written consent of the Claytons. Why, the very heaviest sale is to be made to-day. Now what does this mutual confidence presuppose? Madam,” said Mr. Beanson, rising and assuming an air of mock politeness, “if you were as sure that you are sane, as I am that he is going to marry the daughter of Mrs. Clayton, you would not have taken up so much of my valuable time from Mr. Lang’s business. But, madam, this is the door,” concluded Mr. Beanson with an urbane wave of the hand, as he resumed his seat and began silently to arrange the papers before him.

Miss Sophia, white with rage, did not stir or speak.

Involuntarily the hands of Mr. Beanson paused in the labours they had undertaken, and fell heavily, one on each side of his chair, almost to the floor. As he sat and gazed at the still shape before him, the idea of the ghost in Hamlet was suddenly suggested to the fertile mind of Mr. Beanson. This was not a remarkable conception, taken apart from its consequences; yet Mr. Beanson, forgetting the matter of gender, not only congratulated himself on the aptness of the allusion, though not expressed in words, but actually chuckled, and at last, laughed outright, as an encouragement to his own genius.

Had it not been for this fatal laugh, Miss Garr could have spoken, and her speech might have been terrible. But something came perversely up into her throat. Turning briskly upon her heel, she darted through the door to be in advance of her own tears; and she and the first brief of Mr. Archibald Beanson disappeared together.

Ralph Keeler.

---

EPITAPH FOR HIMSELF.

THE BODY

OF

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

(LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK,

ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT,

AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING)

LIES HERE FOOD FOR WORMS;

YET THE WORK ITSELF SHALL NOT BE LOST,

FOR IT WILL (AS HE BELIEVED) APPEAR ONCE MORE

IN A NEW

AND MORE BEAUTIFUL EDITION,

CORRECTED AND AMENDED

BY

THE AUTHOR.

Benjamin Franklin.

---

THE DUKE OF BRIDGEWATER.

ONE of these fellows was about seventy, or upwards, and had a bald head and very grey whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses—no, he only had one. He had an old long-tailed blue jeans coat, with slick brass buttons, flung over his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.

The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out was that these chaps didn’t know one another.

“What got you into trouble?” says the bald-head to t’other chap.

“Well, I’d been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth—and it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it—but I stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out with you. That’s the whole yarn—what’s yourn?”

“Well, I’d ben a-runnin’ a little temperance revival thar, ’bout a week, and was the pet of the women-folks, big and little, for I was makin’ it mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and takin’ as much as five or six dollars a night—ten cents a head, children and niggers free—and business a growin’ all the time; when somehow or another a little report got around, last night, that I had a way of puttin’ in my time with a private jug, on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this mornin’, and told me the people was getherin’ on the quiet, with their dogs and horses, and they’d be along pretty soon and give me ’bout half-an-hour’s start, and then run me down, if they could; and if they got me they’d tar and feather me, and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn’t wait for no breakfast—I warn’t hungry.”

“Old man,” says the young one, “I reckon we might double-team it together; what do you think?”

“I ain’t undisposed. What’s your line—mainly?”

“Jour printer, by trade; do a little in patent medicines; theatre-actor—tragedy, you know; take a turn at mesmerism and phrenology when there’s a chance; teach singing geography school for a change; sling a lecture, sometimes—oh, I do lots of things—most anything that comes handy, so it ain’t work. What’s your lay?”

“I’ve done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin’ on o’ hands is my best holt—for cancer, and paralysis, and sich things; and I k’n tell a fortune pretty good, when I’ve got somebody along to find out the facts for me. Preachin’s my line, too; and workin’ camp meetin’s; and missionaryin’ around.”

Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh and says—

“Alas!”

“What’re you alassin’ about?” says the bald-head.

“To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded down into such company.” And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye with a rag.

“Dern your skin, ain’t the company good enough for you?” says the bald-head, pretty pert and uppish.

“Yes, it is good enough for me; it’s as good as I deserve; for who fetched me so low, when I was so high? I did myself. I don’t blame you, gentlemen—far from it; I don’t blame anybody. I deserve it all. Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know—there’s a grave somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it’s always done, and take everything from me—loved ones, property, everything—but it can’t take that. Some day I’ll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heart will be at rest.” He went on a-wiping.

“Drot your pore broken heart,” says the bald-head; “what are you heaving your pore broken heart at us f’r? We hain’t done nothing.”

“No, I know you haven’t. I ain’t blaming you, gentlemen. I brought myself down—yes, I did it myself. It’s right I should suffer—perfectly right—I don’t make any moan.”

“Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?”

“Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes—let it pass—’tis no matter. The secret of my birth——”

“The secret of your birth? Do you mean to say——”

“Gentlemen,” says the young man, very solemn, “I will reveal it to you, for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!”

Jim’s eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too. Then the bald-head says: “No! you can’t mean it?”

“Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the title and estates—the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal descendant of that infant—I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the companionship of felons on a raft!”

Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but he said it warn’t much use, he couldn’t be much comforted; said if we was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anything else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we ought to bow, when we spoke to him, and say, “Your Grace,” or “My Lord,” or “Your Lordship”—and he wouldn’t mind it if we called him plain “Bridgewater,” which he said was a title, anyway, and not a name; and one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for him he wanted done.

Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood around and waited on him, and says, “Will yo’ Grace have some o’ dis, or some o’ dat?” and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to him.

But the old man got pretty silent, by-and-by—didn’t have much to say, and didn’t look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along in the afternoon, he says—

“Looky here, Bilgewater,” he says, “I’m nation sorry for you, but you ain’t the only person that’s had troubles like that.”

“No?”

“No, you ain’t. You ain’t the only person that’s ben snaked down wrongfully out’n a high place.”

“Alas!”

“No, you ain’t the only person that’s had a secret of his birth.” And by jings, he begins to cry.

“Hold! What do you mean?”

“Bilgewater, kin I trust you?” says the old man, still sort of sobbing.

“To the bitter death!” He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it, and says, “The secret of your being: speak!”

“‘BILGEWATER, I AM THE LATE DAUPHIN!’”

“Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!”

You bet you Jim and me stared, this time. Then the duke says—

“You are what?”

“Yes, my friend, it is too true—your eyes is lookin’ at this very moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the Sixteen and Marry Antonette.”

“You! At your age! No! You mean you’re the late Charlemagne; you must be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least.”

“Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung these grey hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin’, exiled, trampled-on, and sufferin’ rightful King of France.”

Well, he cried and took on so, that me and Jim didn’t know hardly what to do, we was so sorry—and so glad and proud we’d got him with us, too. So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort him. But he said it warn’t no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all could do him any good; though he said it often made him feel easier and better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him “Your Majesty,” and waited on him first at meals, and didn’t set down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this and that and t’other for him, and standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn’t look a bit satisfied with the way things was going; still, the king acted real friendly towards him, and said the duke’s great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by his father, and was allowed to come to the palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good while, till by-and-by the king says—

“Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time, on this h-yer raft, Bilgewater, and so what’s the use o’ your bein’ sour? It’ll only make things oncomfortable. It ain’t my fault I warn’t born a duke, it ain’t your fault you warn’t born a king—so what’s the use to worry? Make the best o’ things the way you find ’em, says I—that’s my motto. This ain’t no bad thing that we’ve struck here—plenty grub and an easy life—come, give us your hand, Duke, and less all be friends.”

The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took away all the uncomfortableness, and we felt mighty good over it, because it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.

It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings nor dukes, at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it’s the best way; then you don’t have no quarrels, and don’t get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn’t no objections, ‘long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn’t no use to tell Jim, so I didn’t tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.

Samuel L. Clemens (“Mark Twain”).

(From “Huckleberry Finn.”)

---

A VISIT TO BRIGHAM YOUNG.

“‘WILTIST THOU NOT TARRY HEAR IN THE PROMIST LAND?’”

IT is now goin on 2 (too) yeres, as I very well remember, since I crossed the Planes for Kaliforny, the Brite land of Jold. While crossin the Planes all so bold I fell in with sum noble red men of the forest (N.B. This is rote Sarcastical. Injins is Pizin, whar ever found), which thay Sed I was their Brother, & wantid for to smoke the Calomel of Peace with me. Thay than stole my jerkt beef, blankits, etsettery, skalpt my orgin grinder & scooted with a Wild Hoop. Durin the Cheaf’s techin speech he sed he shood meet me in the Happy Huntin Grounds. If he duz thare will be a fite. But enuff of this ere. Reven Noose Muttons, as our skoolmaster who has got Talent into him, cussycally obsarves.

I arrove at Salt Lake in doo time. At Camp Scott there was a lot of U.S. sojers, hosstensibly sent out thare to smash the mormins but really to eat Salt vittles & play poker & other beautiful but sumwhat onsartin games. I got acquainted with sum of the officers. Thay lookt putty scrumpshus in their Bloo coats with brass buttings onto um & ware very talented drinkers, but so fur as fitin is consarned I’d willingly put my wax figgers agin the hull party.

My desire was to exhibit my grate show in Salt Lake City, so I called on Brigham Yung, the grate mogull amung the mormins, and axed his permishun to pitch my tent and onfurl my banner to the gintle breezis. He lookt at me in a austeer manner for a few minits, and sed—

“Do you bleeve in Solomon, Saint Paul, the immaculateness of the Mormin Church and the Latter-day Revelashuns?”

Sez I, “I’m on it!” I make it a pint to git along plesunt, tho I didn’t know what under the Son the old feller was drivin at. He sed I mite show.

“You air a marrid man, Mister Yung, I bleeve?” sez I, preparin to rite him som free parsis.

“I hev eighty wives, Mister Ward. I sertinly am marrid.”

“How do you like it as far as you hev got?” sed I.

He sed “middlin,” and axed me wouldn’t I like to see his famerly, to which I replide that I wouldn’t mind minglin with the fair Seck & Barskin in the winnin smiles of his interestin wives. He accordingly tuk me to his Scareum. The house is powerful big & in an exceedin large room was his wives and children, which larst was squawkin and hollerin enuff to take the roof rite orf the house. The wimin was of all sizes and ages. Sum was pretty & sum was plane—sum was helthy and sum was on the Wayne—which is verses, tho sich was not my intentions, as I don’t ’prove of puttin verses in Proze rittins, tho ef occashun requires I can jerk a Poim ekal to any of them Atlantic Munthly fellers.

“My wives, Mister Ward,” sed Yung.

“Your sarvant, marms,” sed I, as I sot down in a cheer which a red-heded female brawt me.

“Besides these wives you see here, Mister Ward,” sed Yung, “I hav eighty more in varis parts of this consecrated land which air Sealed to me.”

“Which,” sez I, gittin up & starin at him.

“Sealed, Sir! sealed.”

“Whare bowts?” sez I.

“I sed, Sir, that they was sealed!” He spoke in a traggerdy voice.

“Will they probly continner on in that stile to any great extent, Sir,” I axed.

“Sir,” sed he, turnin as red as a biled beet, “don’t you know that the rules of our Church is that I, the Profit, may hev as meny wives as I wants?”

“Jes so,” I sed. “You are old pie, ain’t you?”

“Them as is Sealed to me—that is to say, to be mine when I wants um—air at present my sperretooul wives,” sed Mister Yung.

“Long may thay wave!” sez I, seein I shood git into a scrape ef I didn’t look out.

In a privit conversashun with Brigham I learnt the follerin fax:—It takes him six weeks to kiss his wives. He don’t do it only onct a yere, & sez it is wuss nor cleanin house. He don’t pretend to know his children, thare is so many of um, tho they all know him. He sez about every child he meats call him Par, and he takes it for grantid it is so. His wives air very expensive. They allers want suthin & ef he don’t buy it for um they set the house in a uproar. He sez he don’t have a minit’s peace. His wives fite amung theirselves so much that he has bilt a fitin room for thare speshul benefit, & when too of em get into a row he has em turned loose into that place, whare the dispoot is settled a cordin to the rules of the London prize ring. Sumtimes thay abooz hisself individooally. Thay hev pulled the most of his hair out at the roots & he wares meny a horrible scar upon his body, inflicted with mop-handles, broomsticks and sich. Occashunly they git mad & scald him with bilin hot water. When he got eny waze cranky thay’d shut him up in a dark closit, previsly whippin him arter the stile of muthers when thare orfsprings git onruly. Sumtimes when he went in swimmin thay’d go to the banks of the Lake and steal all his close, thereby compellin him to sneek home by a sircootius rowt, drest in the Skanderlus stile of the Greek Slaiv. “I find that the keers of a marrid life way hevy onto me,” sed the Profit, “& sumtimes I wish I’d remained singel.” I left the Profit and startid for the tavern whare I put up to. On my way I was overtuk by a lurge krowd of Mormons, which they surrounded me & statid that they were goin into the Show free.

“Wall,” sez I, “ef I find a individooal who is goin’ round lettin folks into his show free, I’ll let you know.”

“We’ve had a Revelashun biddin us go into A. Ward’s Show without payin nothin!” thay showtid.

“Yes,” hollered a lot of femaile Mormonesses, ceasin me by the cote tales & swingin me round very rapid, “we’re all goin in free! So sez the Revelashun!”

“What’s Old Revelashun got to do with my show?” sez I, gittin putty rily. “Tell Mister Revelashun,” sed I, drawin myself up to my full hite and lookin round upon the ornery krowd with a prowd & defiant mean, “tell Mister Revelashun to mind his own bizness, subject only to the Konstitushun of the United States!”

“Oh now let us in, that’s a sweet man,” sed several femailes, puttin thare arms rownd me in lovin stile. “Becum 1 of us. Becum a Preest & hav wives Sealed to you.”

“Not a Seal!” sez I, startin back in horror at the idee.

“Oh stay, Sir, stay,” sed a tall gawnt femaile, ore whoos hed 37 summirs must hev parsd, “stay, & I’ll be your Jentle Gazelle.”

“Not ef I know it, you won’t,” sez I. “Awa, you skanderlus femaile, awa! Go & be a Nunnery!” That’s what I sed, jes so.

“& I,” sed a fat chunky femaile, who must hev wade more than too hundred lbs., “I will be your sweet gidin Star!”

Sez I, “Ile bet two dollers and a half you won’t!” Whare ear I may Rome Ile still be troo 2 thee, Oh Betsy Jane! [N.B. Betsy Jane is my wife’s Sir naime.]

“Wiltist thou not tarry hear in the Promist Land?” sed several of the miserabil critters.

“Ile see you all essenshally cussed be 4 I wiltist!” roared I, as mad as I cood be at thare infernul noncents. I girded up my Lions & fled the Seen. I packt up my duds & left Salt Lake, which is a 2nd Soddum and Germorrer, inhabitid by as theavin & onprincipled a set of retchis as ever drew Breth in any spot on the Globe.

Artemus Ward.

---

DUET FOR THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

ROMANTIC HUSBAND.

THOU art my love! I have none other,

But only thee—but only thee.

SENSIBLE WIFE.

Now, Charles, do stop this silly bother,

And drink your tea—your cooling tea.

ROMANTIC HUSBAND.

Your eyes are diamonds, gems refined,

Your teeth are pearl, your hair is gold.

SENSIBLE WIFE.

Oh, nonsense now! I know you’ll find

Your cutlets cold—exceeding cold.

ROMANTIC HUSBAND.

Where’er thou art, my passions burn;

I envy not the monarch’s crown.

SENSIBLE WIFE.

Put some hot water in the urn,

And toast this bread, and toast it brown.

ROMANTIC HUSBAND.

Had I Golconda’s wealth, I say

’Twere thine at will—’twere thine at will.

SENSIBLE WIFE.

Then let me have a cheque to pay

The dry-goods bill—that tedious bill!

ROMANTIC HUSBAND.

Oh, heed it not, my trembling flower;

If want should press us, let it come.

SENSIBLE WIFE.

And, apropos, the bill for flour;

Is quite a sum—an unpaid sum.

ROMANTIC HUSBAND.

So rich in love, so rich in joy,

No change our cup of bliss can spill.

SENSIBLE WIFE.

Now do be quiet! You destroy

My cambric frill—my well-starched frill.

ROMANTIC HUSBAND.

Ha! senseless, soulless, loveless girl,

To sympathy and passion dead!

SENSIBLE WIFE.

A moment since I was your “pearl,”

Your “only love”—at least you said.

ROMANTIC HUSBAND.

I spoke it in the bitter jest

Of one his own deep sadness scorning.

SENSIBLE WIFE.

Well, candour is at all times best;

I wish you, sir, a fair good morning!

Charles Graham Halpine.

---

KITTY ANSWERS.

IT was dimmest twilight when Kitty entered Mrs. Ellison’s room, and sank down on the first chair in silence.

“The Colonel met a friend at the St. Louis, and forgot about the expedition, Kitty,” said Fanny, “and he only came in half-an-hour ago. But it’s just as well; I know you’ve had a splendid time. Where’s Mr. Arbuton?”

Kitty burst into tears.

“Why, has anything happened to him?” cried Mrs. Ellison, springing towards her.

“To him? No! What should happen to him?” Kitty demanded, with an indignant accent.

“Well, then, has anything happened to you?”

“I don’t know if you can call it happening. But I suppose you’ll be satisfied now, Fanny. He’s offered himself to me.”

Kitty uttered the last words with a sort of violence, as if, since the fact must be stated, she wished it to appear in the sharpest relief.

“Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Ellison, not so well satisfied as the successful match-maker ought to be. So long as it was a marriage in the abstract, she had never ceased to desire it; but as the actual union of Kitty and this Mr. Arbuton, of whom, really, they knew so little, and of whom, if she searched her heart, she had as little liking as knowledge, it was another affair. Mrs. Ellison trembled at her triumph, and began to think that failure would have been easier to bear. Were they in the least suited to each other? Would she like to see poor Kitty chained for life to that impassive egotist, whose very merits were repellent, and whose modesty even seemed to convict and snub you? Mrs. Ellison was not able to put the matter to herself with moderation, either way; doubtless she did Mr. Arbuton injustice now.

“Did you accept him?” she whispered feebly.

“Accept him?” repeated Kitty. “No!”

“Oh, dear!” again sighed Mrs. Ellison, feeling that this was scarcely better, and not daring to ask further.

“I’m dreadfully perplexed, Fanny,” said Kitty, after waiting for the questions which did not come, “and I wish you’d help me think.”

“I will, darling. But I don’t know that I’ll be of much use. I begin to think I’m not very good at thinking.”

Kitty, who longed chiefly to get the situation more distinctly before herself, gave no heed to this confession, but went on to rehearse the whole affair. The twilight lent her its veil; and in the kindly obscurity she gathered courage to face all the facts, and even to find what was droll in them.

“It was very solemn, of course, and I was frightened; but I tried to keep my wits about me, and not to say yes, simply because that was the easiest thing. I told him that I didn’t know,—and I don’t; and that I must have time to think,—and I must. He was very ungenerous, and said he had hoped I had already had time to think; and he couldn’t seem to understand, or else I couldn’t very well explain, how it had been with me all along.”

“He might certainly say you had encouraged him,” Mrs. Ellison remarked, thoughtfully.

“Encouraged him, Fanny? How can you accuse me of such indelicacy?”

“Encouraging isn’t indelicacy. The gentlemen have to be encouraged, or of course they’d never have any courage. They’re so timid, naturally.”

“I don’t think Mr. Arbuton is very timid. He seemed to think that he had only to ask as a matter of form, and I had no business to say anything. What has he ever done for me? And hasn’t he often been intensely disagreeable? He oughtn’t to have spoken just after overhearing what he did. It was horrid to do so. He was very obtuse, too, not to see that girls can’t always be so certain of themselves as men, or, if they are, don’t know they are as soon as they’re asked.”

“Yes,” interrupted Mrs. Ellison, “that’s the way with girls. I do believe that most of them—when they’re young like you, Kitty—never think of marriage as the end of their flirtations. They’d just like the attentions and the romance to go on for ever, and never turn into anything more serious; and they’re not to blame for that, though they do get blamed for it.”

“Certainly,” assented Kitty eagerly, “that’s it; that’s just what I was saying; that’s the very reason why girls must have time to make up their minds. You had, I suppose.”

“Yes, two minutes. Poor Dick was going back to his regiment, and stood with his watch in his hand. I said no, and called after him to correct myself. But, Kitty, if the romance had happened to stop without his saying anything, you wouldn’t have liked that either, would you?”

“No,” faltered Kitty; “I suppose not.”

“Well, then, don’t you see? That’s a great point in his favour. How much time did you want, or did he give you?”

“I said I should answer before we left Quebec,” answered Kitty, with a heavy sigh.

“Don’t you know what to say now?”

“I can’t tell. That’s what I want you to help me think out.”

Mrs. Ellison was silent for a moment before she said, “Well, then, I suppose we shall have to go back to the very beginning.”

“Yes,” assented Kitty, faintly.

“You did have a sort of fancy for him the first time you saw him, didn’t you?” asked Mrs. Ellison coaxingly, while forcing herself to be systematic and coherent, by a mental strain of which no idea can be given.

“Yes,” said Kitty, yet more faintly, adding, “but I can’t tell just what sort of a fancy it was. I suppose I admired him for being handsome and stylish, and for having such exquisite manners.”

“Go on,” said Mrs. Ellison; “and after you got acquainted with him?”

“Why, you know we’ve talked that over once already, Fanny.”

“Yes, but we oughtn’t to skip anything now,” replied Mrs. Ellison, in a tone of judicial accuracy, which made Kitty smile.

But she quickly became serious again, and said, “Afterwards I couldn’t tell whether to like him or not, or whether he wanted me to. I think he acted very strangely for a person in—love. I used to feel so troubled and oppressed when I was with him. He seemed always to be making himself agreeable under protest.”

“Perhaps that was just your imagination, Kitty.”

“Perhaps it was; but it troubled me just the same.”

“Well, and then?”

“Well, and then after that day of the Montgomery expedition he seemed to change altogether, and to try always to be pleasant, and to do everything he could to make me like him. I don’t know how to account for it. Ever since then he’s been extremely careful of me, and behaved—of course without knowing it—as if I belonged to him already. Or maybe I’ve imagined that too. It’s very hard to tell what has really happened the last two weeks.”

Kitty was silent, and Mrs. Ellison did not speak at once. Presently she asked, “Was his acting as if you belonged to him disagreeable?”

“I can’t tell. I think it was rather presuming. I don’t know why he did it.”

“Do you respect him?” demanded Mrs. Ellison.

“Why, Fanny, I’ve always told you that I did respect some things in him.”

Mrs. Ellison had the facts before her, and it rested upon her to sum them up, and do something with them. She rose to a sitting posture, and confronted her task.

“Well, Kitty, I’ll tell you. I don’t really know what to think. But I can say this: if you liked him at first, and then didn’t like him, and afterwards he made himself more agreeable, and you didn’t mind his behaving as if you belonged to him, and you respected him, but after all didn’t think him fascinating——”

“He is fascinating—in a kind of way. He was, from the beginning. In a story his cold, snubbing, putting-down ways would have been perfectly fascinating.”

“Then why didn’t you take him?”

“Because,” answered Kitty, between laughing and crying, “it isn’t a story, and I don’t know whether I like him.”

“But do you think you might get to like him?”

“I don’t know. His asking brings all the doubts I ever had of him, and that I’ve been forgetting the past two weeks. I can’t tell whether I like him or not. If I did, shouldn’t I trust him more?”

“Well, whether you are in love or not, I’ll tell you what you are, Kitty,” cried Mrs. Ellison, provoked with her indecision, and yet relieved that the worst, whatever it was, was postponed thereby for a day or two.

“What?”

“You’re——”

But at this important juncture the colonel came lounging in, and Kitty glided out of the room.

“Richard,” said Mrs. Ellison, seriously, and in a tone implying that it was the colonel’s fault, as usual, “you know what has happened, I suppose?”

“No, my dear, I don’t; but no matter: I will presently, I daresay.”

“Oh, I wish for once you wouldn’t be so flippant. Mr. Arbuton has offered himself to Kitty.”

Colonel Ellison gave a quick, sharp whistle of amazement, but trusted himself to nothing more articulate.

“Yes,” said his wife, responding to the whistle, “and it makes me perfectly wretched.”

“Why, I thought you liked him.”

“I didn’t like him; but I thought it would be an excellent thing for Kitty.”

“And won’t it?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know?”

“No.”

The colonel was silent, while Mrs. Ellison stated the case in full, and its pending uncertainty. Then he exclaimed vehemently as if his amazement had been growing upon him. “This is the most astonishing thing in the world! Who would ever have dreamt of that young iceberg being in love?”

“Haven’t I told you all along he was?”

“Oh yes, certainly! but that might be taken either way, you know. You would discover the tender passion in the eye of a potato.”

“Colonel Ellison,” said Fanny, with sternness, “why do you suppose he’s been hanging about us for the last four weeks? Why should he have stayed in Quebec? Do you think he pitied me, or found you so very agreeable?”

“Well, I thought he found us just tolerable, and was interested in the place.”

Mrs. Ellison made no direct reply to this pitiable speech, but looked a scorn which, happily for the colonel, the darkness hid. Presently she said that bats did not express the blindness of men, for any bat could have seen what was going on.

“Why,” remarked the colonel, “I did have a momentary suspicion that day of the Montgomery business; they both looked very confused when I saw them at the end of that street, and neither of them had anything to say; but that was accounted for by what you told me afterwards about his adventure. At the time I didn’t pay much attention to the matter. The idea of his being in love seemed too ridiculous.”

“Was it ridiculous for you to be in love with me?”

“No; and yet I can’t praise my condition for its wisdom, Fanny.”

“Yes! that’s like men. As soon as one of them is safely married, he thinks all the love-making in the world has been done for ever, and he can’t conceive of two young people taking a fancy to each other.”

“That’s something so, Fanny. But granting—for the sake of argument merely—that Boston has been asking Kitty to marry him, and she doesn’t know whether she wants him, what are we to do about it? I don’t like him well enough to plead his cause; do you? When does Kitty think she’ll be able to make up her mind?”

“She’s to let him know before we leave.”

The colonel laughed. “And so he’s to hang about here on uncertainties for two whole days! That is rather rough on him. Fanny, what made you so eager for this business?”

“Eager? I wasn’t eager.”

“Well, then,—reluctantly acquiescent?”

“Why, she’s so literary and that.”

“And what?”

“How insulting! Intellectual, and so on; and I thought she would be just fit to live in a place where everybody is literary and intellectual. That is, I thought that, if I thought anything.”

“Well,” said the colonel, “you may have been right on the whole, but I don’t think Kitty is showing any particular force of mind, just now, that would fit her to live in Boston. My opinion is, that it’s ridiculous for her to keep him in suspense. She might as well answer him first as last. She’s putting herself under a kind of obligation by her delay. I’ll talk to her——”

“If you do, you’ll kill her. You don’t know how she’s wrought up about it.”

“Oh, well, I’ll be careful of her sensibilities. It’s my duty to speak with her. I’m here in the place of a parent. Besides, don’t I know Kitty? I’ve almost brought her up.”

“Maybe you’re right. You’re all so queer that perhaps you’re right. Only do be careful, Richard. You must approach the matter very delicately, indirectly, you know. Girls are different, remember, from young men, and you mustn’t be blunt. Do manœuvre a little, for once in your life.”

“All right, Fanny; you needn’t be afraid of my doing anything awkward or sudden. I’ll go to her room pretty soon, after she is quieted down, and have a good, calm, old, fatherly conversation with her.”

The colonel was spared this errand; for Kitty had left some of her things on Fanny’s table, and now came back for them with a lamp in her hand. Her averted face showed the marks of weeping; the corners of her firm-set lips were downward bent, as if some resolutions which she had taken were very painful. This the anxious Fanny saw; and she made a gesture to the colonel which any woman would have understood to enjoin silence, or, at least, the utmost caution and tenderness of speech. The colonel summoned his finesse and said, cheerily, “Well, Kitty, what’s Boston been saying to you?”

Mrs. Ellison fell back upon her sofa as if shot, and placed her hands over her face.

Kitty seemed not to hear her cousin. Having gathered up her things, she bent an unmoved face and an unseeing gaze full upon him, and glided from the room without a word.

“Well, upon my soul,” cried the colonel, “this is a pleasant, nightmarist, sleep-walking, Lady-Macbethish, little transaction. Confound it, Fanny! this comes of your wanting me to manœuvre. If you’d let me come straight at the subject, like a man——”

“Please, Richard, don’t say anything more now,” pleaded Mrs. Ellison in a broken voice. “You can’t help it, I know; and I must do the best I can, under the circumstances. Do go away for a little while, darling! Oh dear!”

William Dean Howells.

---

PUCK.

OH, it was Puck! I saw him yesternight

Swung up betwixt a phlox-top and the rim

Of a low crescent moon that cradled him,

Whirring his rakish wings with all his might,

And pursing his wee mouth, that dimpled white

And red, as though some dagger keen and slim

Had stung him there, while ever faint and dim

His eerie warblings piped his high delight;

Till I, grown jubilant, shrill answer made,

At which, all suddenly, he dropped from view;

And peering after, ’neath the everglade,

What was it, do you think, I saw him do?

I saw him peeling dewdrops with a blade

Of starshine sharpened on his bat-wing shoe.

James Whitcomb Riley.

---

THE REVENGE OF ST. NICHOLAS.

A TALE FOR THE HOLYDAYS.

EVERYBODY knows that in the famous city of New York, whose proper name is New Amsterdam, the excellent St. Nicholas—who is worth a dozen St. George’s and dragons to boot, and who, if every tub stood on its right bottom, would be at the head of the seven champions of Christendom—I say, everybody knows the excellent St. Nicholas, in holyday times, goes about among the people in the middle of the night, distributing all sorts of toothsome and becoming gifts to the good boys and girls in this his favourite city. Some say that he comes down the chimneys in a little Jersey waggon; others, that he wears a pair of Holland skates, with which he travels like the wind; and others, who pretend to have seen him, maintain that he has lately adopted a locomotive, and was once actually detected on the Albany railroad. But this last assertion is looked upon to be entirely fabulous, because St. Nicholas has too much discretion to trust himself in such a new-fangled jarvie; and so I leave this matter to be settled by whomsoever will take the trouble. My own opinion is that his favourite mode of travelling is on a canal, the motion and speed of which aptly comport with the philosophic dignity of his character. But this is not material, and I will no longer detain my readers with extraneous and irrelevant matters, as is too much the fashion with our statesmen, orators, biographers, and story-tellers.

It was in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty, or sixty-one, for the most orthodox chronicles differ in this respect; but it was a very remarkable year, and it was called annus mirabilis on that account. It was said that several people were detected in speaking the truth about that time; that nine staid, sober, and discreet widows, who had sworn on an anti-masonic almanac never to enter a second time into the holy state, were snapped up by young husbands before they knew what they were about; that six venerable bachelors wedded as many buxom young belles, and, it is reported, were afterwards sorry for what they had done; that many people actually went to church from motives of piety; and that a great scholar, who had written a book in support of certain opinions, was not only convinced of his error, but acknowledged it publicly afterwards. No wonder the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty, if that was the year, was called annus mirabilis!

What contributed to render this year still more remarkable was the building of six new three-storey brick houses in the city, and three persons setting up equipages, who, I cannot find, ever failed in business afterwards or compounded with their creditors at a pestareen in the pound. It is, moreover, recorded in the annals of the horticultural society of that day, which were written on a cabbage leaf, as is said, that a member produced a forked radish of such vast dimensions that, being dressed up in fashionable male attire at the exhibition, it was actually mistaken for a travelled beau by several inexperienced young ladies, who pined away for love of its beautiful complexion, and were changed into daffadowndillies. Some maintain it was a mandrake, but it was finally detected by an inquest of experienced matrons. No wonder the year seventeen hundred and sixty was called annus mirabilis!

But the most extraordinary thing of all was the confident assertion that there was but one grey mare within the bill of mortality; and, incredible as it may appear, she was the wife of a responsible citizen, who, it was affirmed, had grown rich by weaving velvet purses out of sows’ ears. But this was looked upon as being somewhat of the character of the predictions of almanac-makers. Certain it is, however, that Amos Shuttle possessed the treasure of a wife who was shrewdly suspected of having established within doors a system of government not laid down in Aristotle or the Abbe Sieyès, who made a constitution for every day in the year, and two for the first of April.

Amos Shuttle, though a mighty pompous little man out of doors, was the meekest of human creatures within. He belonged to that class of people who pass for great among the little, and little among the great; and he would certainly have been master in his own house had it not been for a woman! We have read somewhere that no wise woman ever thinks her husband a demigod. If so, it is a blessing that there are so few wise women in the world.

Amos had grown rich, Heaven knows how—he did not know himself; but, what was somewhat extraordinary, he considered his wealth a signal proof of his talents and sagacity, and valued himself according to the infallible standard of pounds, shillings, and pence. But though he lorded it without, he was, as we have just said, the most gentle of men within doors. The moment he stepped inside of his own house his spirit cowered down, like that of a pious man entering a church; he felt as if he was in the presence of a superior being—to wit, Mrs. Abigail Shuttle. He was, indeed, the meekest of beings at home except Moses; and Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s song, which Sir Toby Belch declared “would draw nine souls out of one weaver,” would have failed in drawing half a one out of Amos. The truth is, his wife, who ought to have known, affirmed that he had no more soul than a monkey; but he was the only man in the city thus circumstanced at the time we speak of. No wonder, therefore, the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty was called annus mirabilis!

Such as he was, Mr. Amos Shuttle waxed richer and richer every day, insomuch that those who envied his prosperity were wont to say, “that he had certainly been born with a dozen silver spoons in his mouth, or such a great blockhead would never have got together such a heap of money.” When he had become worth ten thousand pounds, he launched his shuttle magnanimously out of the window, ordered his weaver’s beam to be split up for oven wood, and Mrs. Amos turned his weaver’s shop into a boudoir. Fortune followed him faster than he ran away from her. In a few years the ten thousand doubled, and in a few more trebled, quadrupled—in short, Amos could hardly count his money.

“What shall we do now, my dear?” asked Mrs. Shuttle, who never sought his opinion that I can learn, except for the pleasure of contradicting him.

“Let us go and live in the country, and enjoy ourselves,” quoth Amos.

“Go into the country! go to——” I could never satisfy myself what Mrs. Shuttle meant; but she stopped short, and concluded the sentence with a withering look of scorn, that would have cowed the spirit of nineteen weavers.

Amos named all sorts of places, enumerated all sorts of modes of life he could think of, and every pleasure that might enter into the imagination of a man without a soul. His wife despised them all; she would not hear of them.

“Well, my dear, suppose you suggest something; do now, Abby,” at length said Amos, in a coaxing whisper; “will you, my onydoney?”

“Ony fiddlestick! I wonder you repeat such vulgarisms. But if I must say what I should like, I should like to travel.”

“Well, let us go and make a tour as far as Jamaica, or Hackensack, or Spiking Devil. There is excellent fishing for striped bass there.”

“Spiking Devil!” screamed Mrs. Shuttle; “aren’t you ashamed to swear so, you wicked mortal! I won’t go to Jamaica, nor Hackensack among the Dutch Hottentots, nor to Spiking Devil to catch striped bass; I’ll go to Europe!”

If Amos had possessed a soul it would have jumped out of its skin at the idea of going beyond seas. He had once been on the sea-bass banks, and gone seasoning there, the very thought of which made him sick. But as he had no soul, there was no great harm done.

When Mrs. Shuttle said a thing, it was settled. They went to Europe. Taking their only son with them, the lady ransacked all the milliners’ shops in Paris, and the gentleman visited all the restaurateurs. He became such a desperate connoisseur and gourmand, that he could almost tell an omelette au jambon from a gammon of bacon. After consummating the polish, they came home, the lady with the newest old fashions, and the weaver with a confirmed preference of potage à la turque over pepper-pot. It is said the city trembled, as with an earthquake, when they landed, but the notion was probably superstitious.

They arrived near the close of the year, the memorable year, the annus mirabilis one thousand seven hundred and sixty. Everybody that had ever known the Shuttles flocked to see them, or rather to see what they had brought with them; and such was the magic of a voyage to Europe, that Mr. and Mrs. Amos Shuttle, who had been nobodies when they departed, became somebodies when they returned, and mounted at once to the summit of ton.

“You have come in good time to enjoy the festivities of the holydays,” said Mrs. Hubblebubble, an old friend of Amos the weaver and his wife.

“We shall have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year,” exclaimed Mrs. Doubletrouble, another old acquaintance of old times.

“The holydays,” drawled Mrs. Shuttle; “the holydays? Christmas and New Year? Pray what are they?”

It is astonishing to see how people lose their memories abroad sometimes. They often forget their old friends, old customs, and occasionally themselves.

“Why, la! now, who’d have thought it?” cried Mrs. Doubletrouble; “why, sure you haven’t forgot the oily cooks and the mince-pies, the merry meetings of friends, the sleigh-rides, the Kissing Bridge, and the family parties?”

“Family parties!” shrieked Mrs. Shuttle, and held her salts to her nose; “family parties! I never heard of anything so Gothic in Paris or Rome; and oily cooks—oh, shocking! and mince-pies—detestable! and throwing open one’s doors to all one’s old friends, whom one wishes to forget as soon as possible—oh! the idea is insupportable!” And again she held the salts to her nose.

Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble found they had exposed themselves sadly, and were quite ashamed. A real, genteel, well-bred, enlightened lady of fashion ought to have no rule of conduct, no conscience, but Paris—whatever is fashionable there is genteel—whatever is not fashionable is vulgar. There is no other standard of right, and no other eternal fitness of things. At least so thought Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble.

“But is it possible that all these things are out of fashion abroad?” asked the latter, beseechingly.

“They never were in,” said Mrs. Amos Shuttle. “For my part, I mean to close my doors and windows on New Year’s Day—I’m determined.”

“And so am I,” said Mrs. Hubblebubble.

“And so am I,” said Mrs. Doubletrouble.

And it was settled that they should make a combination among themselves and their friends, to put down the ancient and good customs of the city, and abolish the sports and enjoyments of the jolly New Year. The conspirators then separated, each to pursue her diabolical designs against oily cooks, mince-pies, sleigh-ridings, sociable visitings, and family parties.

Now the excellent St. Nicholas, who knows well what is going on in every house in the city, though, like a good and honourable saint, he never betrays any family secrets, overheard these wicked women plotting against his favourite anniversary, and he said to himself—

“Vuur en Vlammen! but I’ll be even with you, mein vrouw.” So he determined he would play these conceited and misled women a trick or two before he had done with them.

It was now the first day of the new year, and Mrs. Amos Shuttle, and Mrs. Doubletrouble, and Mrs. Hubblebubble, and all their wicked abettors, had shut up their doors and windows, so that when their old friends called they could not get into their houses. Moreover, they had prepared neither mince-pies, nor oily cooks, nor crullers, nor any of the good things consecrated to St. Nicholas by his pious and well-intentioned votaries, and they were mightily pleased at having been as dull and stupid as owls, while all the rest of the city were as merry as crickets, chirping and frisking in the warm chimney-corner. Little did they think what horrible judgments were impending over them, prepared by the wrath of the excellent St. Nicholas, who was resolved to make an example of them for attempting to introduce their new-fangled corruptions in place of the ancient customs of his favourite city. These wicked women never had another comfortable sleep in their lives!

The night was still, clear, and frosty—the earth was everywhere one carpet of snow, and looked just like the ghost of a dead world, wrapped in a white winding-sheet; the moon was full, round, and of a silvery brightness, and by her discreet silence afforded an example to the rising generation of young damsels, while the myriads of stars that multiplied as you gazed at them, seemed as though they were frozen into icicles, they looked so cold and sparkled with such a glorious lustre. The streets and roads leading from the city were all alive with sleighs filled with jovial souls, whose echoing laughter and cheerful songs mingled with a thousand merry bells, that jingled in harmonious dissonance, giving spirit to the horses and animation to the scene. In the licence of the season, hallowed by long custom, each of the sleighs saluted the other in passing with a “Happy New Year,” a merry jest, or mischievous gibe, exchanged from one gay party to another. All was life, motion, and merriment; and as old frost-bitten Winter, aroused from his trance by the rout and revelry around, raised his weather-beaten head to see what was passing, he felt his icy blood warming and coursing through his veins, and wished he could only overtake the laughing buxom Spring, that he might dance a jig with her, and be as frisky as the best of them. But as the old rogue could not bring this desirable matter about, he contented himself with calling for a jolly bumper of cocktail, and drinking a swinging draught to the health of the blessed St. Nicholas, and those who honour the memory of the president of good-fellows.

“THE EXCELLENT ST. NICHOLAS OVERHEARD THESE WICKED WOMEN.”

All this time the wicked women and their abettors lay under the malediction of the good saint, who caused them to be bewitched by an old lady from Salem. Mrs. Amos Shuttle could not sleep, because something had whispered in her apprehensive ear that her son, her only son, whom she had engaged to the daughter of Count Grenouille, in Paris, then about three years old, was actually at that moment crossing Kissing Bridge in company with little Susan Varian, and some others besides. Now Susan was the fairest little lady of all the land; she had a face and an eye just like the widow Wadman in Leslie’s charming picture; a face and an eye which no reasonable man under Heaven could resist, except my uncle Toby—beshrew him and his fortifications, I say! She was, moreover, a good little girl, and an accomplished little girl—but, alas! she had not mounted to the step in Jacob’s ladder of fashion which qualifies a person for the heaven of high ton, and Mrs. Shuttle had not been to Europe for nothing. She would rather have seen her son wedded to dissipation and profligacy than to Susan Varian; and the thought of his being out sleigh-riding with her was worse than the toothache. It kept her awake all the live-long night, and the only consolation she had was scolding poor Amos, because the sleigh-bells made such a noise.

As for Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble, they neither of them got a wink of sleep during a whole week for thinking of the beautiful French chairs and damask curtains Mrs. Shuttle had brought from Europe. They forthwith besieged their good men, leaving them no rest until they sent out orders to Paris for just such rich chairs and curtains as those of the thrice-happy Mrs. Shuttle, from whom they kept the affair a profound secret, each meaning to treat her to an agreeable surprise. In the meanwhile they could not rest for fear the vessel which was to bring these treasures might be lost on her passage. Such was the dreadful judgment inflicted on them by the good St. Nicholas.

The perplexities of Mrs. Shuttle increased daily. In the first place, do all she could, she could not make Amos a fine gentleman. This was a metamorphosis which Ovid would never have dreamed of. He would be telling the price of everything in his house, his furniture, his wines, and his dinners, insomuch that those who envied his prosperity, or perhaps only despised his pretensions, were wont to say, after eating his venison and drinking his old Madeira, “that he ought to have been a tavern-keeper, he knew so well how to make out a bill.” Mrs. Shuttle once overheard a speech of this kind, and the good St. Nicholas himself, who had brought it about, almost felt sorry for the mortification she endured on the occasion.

Scarcely had she got over this, when she was invited to a ball by Mrs. Hubblebubble, and the first thing she saw on entering the drawing-room was a suite of damask curtains and chairs, as much like her own as two peas, only the curtains had far handsomer fringe. Mrs. Shuttle came very near fainting away, but escaped for that time, determined to mortify this impudent creature by taking not the least notice of her finery. But St. Nicholas ordered it otherwise, so that she was at last obliged to acknowledge they were very elegant indeed. Nay, this was not the worst, for she overheard one lady whisper to another that Mrs. Hubblebubble’s curtains were much richer than Mrs. Shuttle’s.

“Oh, I daresay,” replied the other—“I daresay Mrs. Shuttle bought them second-hand, for her husband is as mean as pursley.”

This was too much. The unfortunate woman was taken suddenly ill—called her carriage, and went home, where it is supposed she would have died that evening had she not wrought upon Amos to promise her an entire new suite of French furniture for her drawing-room and parlour to boot, besides a new carriage. But for all this she could not close her eyes that night for thinking of the “second-hand curtains.”

Nor was the wicked Mrs. Doubletrouble a whit better off when her friend Mrs. Hubblebubble treated her to the agreeable surprise of the French window curtains and chairs. “It is too bad—too bad, I declare,” she said to herself; “but I’ll pay her off soon.” Accordingly she issued invitations for a grand ball and supper, at which both Mrs. Shuttle and Mrs. Hubblebubble were struck dumb at beholding a suite of curtains and a set of chairs exactly of the same pattern with theirs. The shock was terrible, and it is impossible to say what might have been the consequences, had not the two ladies all at once thought of uniting in abusing Mrs. Doubletrouble for her extravagance.

“I pity poor Mr. Doubletrouble,” said Mrs. Shuttle, shrugging her shoulders significantly, and glancing at the room.

“And so do I,” said Mrs. Hubblebubble, doing the same.

Mrs. Doubletrouble had her eye upon them, and enjoyed their mortification, until her pride was brought to the ground by a dead shot from Mrs. Shuttle, who was heard to exclaim, in reply to a lady who observed the chairs and curtains were very handsome—

“Why yes, but they have been out of fashion in Paris a long time; and, besides, really they are getting so common that I intend to have mine removed to the nursery.”

Heavens! what a blow! Poor Mrs. Doubletrouble hardly survived it. Such a night of misery as the wicked woman endured almost made the good St. Nicholas regret the judgment he had passed upon these mischievous and conceited females. But he thought to himself he would persevere until he had made them a sad example to all innovators upon the ancient customs of our forefathers.

Thus were these wicked and miserable women spurred on by witchcraft from one piece of extravagance to another, and a deadly rivalship grew up between them which destroyed their own happiness and that of their husbands. Mrs. Shuttle’s new carriage and drawing-room furniture in due time were followed by similar extravagances on the part of the two other wicked women who had conspired against the hallowed institutions of St. Nicholas; and soon their rivalship came to such a height that neither of them had a moment’s rest or comfort from that time forward. But they still shut their door on the jolly anniversary of St. Nicholas, though the old respectable burghers and their wives, who had held up their heads time out of mind, continued the good custom, and laughed at the presumption of these upstart interlopers who were followed only by a few people of silly pretensions, who had no more soul than Amos Shuttle himself. The three wicked women grew to be almost perfect skeletons, on account of the vehemence with which they strove to outdo each other, and the terrible exertions necessary to keep up the appearance of being the best friends in the world. In short, they became the laughing-stock of the town; and sensible, well-bred folks cut their acquaintance, except when they sometimes accepted an invitation to a party, just to make merry with their folly and conceitedness.

The excellent St. Nicholas, finding they still persisted in their opposition to his rites and ceremonies, determined to inflict on them the last and worst punishment that can befall the sex. He decreed that they should be deprived of all the delights springing from the domestic affections, and all taste for the innocent and virtuous enjoyments of a happy fireside. Accordingly they lost all relish for home; they were continually gadding about from one place to another in search of pleasure, and worried themselves to death to find happiness where it is never to be found. Their whole lives became one long series of disappointed hopes, galled pride, and gnawing envy. They lost their health, they lost their time, and their days became days of harassing impatience, their nights nights of sleeplessness, feverish excitement, ending in weariness and disappointment. The good saint sometimes felt sorry for them, but their continued obstinacy determined him to persevere in his plan to punish the upstart pride of these rebellious females.

Young Shuttle, who had a soul, which I suppose he inherited from his mother, all this while continued his attentions to little Susan Varian, which added to the miseries inflicted on his wicked mother. Mrs. Shuttle insisted that Amos should threaten to disinherit his son, unless he gave up this attachment.

“Lord bless your soul, Abby!” said Amos. “What’s the use of my threatening; the boy knows as well as I do that I’ve no will of my own. Why, bless my soul, Abby——”

“Bless your soul!” interrupted Mrs. Shuttle; “I wonder who’d take the trouble to bless it but yourself? However, if you don’t I will.”

Accordingly she threatened the young man with being disinherited unless he turned his back on little Susan Varian, which no man ever did without getting a heartache.

“If my father goes on as he has done lately,” sighed the youth, “he won’t have anything left to disinherit me of but his affection, I fear. But if he had millions I would not abandon Susan.”

“Are you not ashamed of such a low-lived attachment? You that have been to Europe! But, once for all, remember this, renounce this low-born upstart, or quit your father’s house for ever.”

“Upstart!” thought young Shuttle; “one of the oldest families in the city.” He made his mother a respectful bow, bade Heaven bless her, and left the house. He was, however, met by his father at the door, who said to him—

“Johnny, I give my consent; but mind don’t tell your mother a word of the matter. I’ll let her know I’ve a soul as well as other people,” and he tossed his head like a war-horse.

The night after this Johnny was married to little Susan, and the blessing of affection and beauty lighted upon his pillow. Her old father, who was in a respectable business, took his son-in-law into partnership, and they prospered so well that in a few years Johnny was independent of all the world, with the prettiest wife and children in the land. But Mrs. Shuttle was inexorable, while the knowledge of his prosperity and happiness only worked her up to a higher pitch of anger, and added to the pangs of jealousy perpetually inflicted on her by the rivalry of Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble, who suffered under the like affliction from the wrathful St. Nicholas, who was resolved to make them an example to all posterity.

No fortune, be it ever so great, can stand the eternal sapping of wasteful extravagance, engendered and stimulated by the baleful passion of envy. In less than ten years from the hatching of the diabolical conspiracy of these three wicked women against the supremacy of the excellent St. Nicholas, their spendthrift rivalship had ruined the fortunes of their husbands, and entailed upon themselves misery and remorse. Rich Amos Shuttle became at last as poor as a church mouse, and would have been obliged to take to the loom again in his old age, had not Johnny, now rich, and a worshipful magistrate of the city, afforded him and his better half a generous shelter under his own happy roof. Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble had scarcely time to condole with Mrs. Shuttle, and congratulate each other, when their husbands went the way of all flesh—that is to say, failed for a few tens of thousands, and called their creditors together to hear the good news. The two wicked women lived long enough after this to repent of their offence against St. Nicholas; but they never imported any more French curtains, and at last perished miserably in an attempt to set the fashions in Pennypot Alley.

Mrs. Abigail Shuttle might have lived happily the rest of her life with her children and grand-children, who all treated her with reverent courtesy and affection, now that the wrath of mighty St. Nicholas was appeased by her exemplary punishment; but she could not get over her bad habits and feelings, or forgive her lovely daughter-in-law for treating her so kindly when she so little deserved it. She gradually pined away; and though she revived at hearing of the catastrophe of Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble, it was only for a moment. The remainder of the life of this wicked woman was a series of disappointments and heartburnings, and when she died, Amos tried to shed a few tears, but he found it impossible, I suppose, because, as his wife always said, “he had no soul.”

Such was the terrible revenge of St. Nicholas, which ought to be a warning to all who attempt to set themselves up against the venerable customs of their ancestors, and backslide from the hallowed institutions of the blessed saint, to whose good offices, without doubt, it is owing that this, his favourite city, has transcended all others of the universe in beautiful damsels, valorous young men, mince-pies, and New Year cookies. The catastrophe of these three wicked women had a wonderful influence in the city, insomuch that from this time forward no grey mares were ever known, no French furniture was ever used, and no woman was hardy enough to set herself up in opposition to the good customs of St. Nicholas. And so wishing many happy New Years to all my dear countrywomen and countrymen, saving those who shut their doors to old friends, high or low, rich or poor, on that blessed anniversary which makes more glad hearts than all others put together,—I say, wishing a thousand happy New Years to all, with this single exception, I lay down my pen, with a caution to all wicked women to beware of the revenge of St. Nicholas.

Dominie Nicholas Ægidius Oudenarde.

James K. Paulding.

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AN APHORISM AND A LECTURE.

ONE of the Boys mentioned, the other evening, in the course of a very pleasant poem he read us, a little trick of the Commons table-boarders, which I, nourished at the parental board, had never heard of. Young fellows being always hungry——Allow me to stop dead-short, in order to utter an aphorism which has been forming itself in one of the blank interior spaces of my intelligence, like a crystal in the cavity of a geode.

Aphorism by the Professor.

In order to know whether a human being is young or old, offer it food of different kinds at short intervals. If young, it will eat anything at any hour of the day or night. If old, it observes stated periods, and you might as well attempt to regulate the time of high-water to suit a fishing-party as to change these periods.

The crucial experiment is this. Offer a bulky and boggy bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is eagerly accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established. If the subject of the question starts back and expresses surprise and incredulity, as if you could not possibly be in earnest, the fact of maturity is no less clear.

---

—Excuse me,—I return to my story of the Commonstable. Young fellows being always hungry, and tea and dry toast being the meagre fare of the evening meal, it was a trick of some of the Boys to impale a slice of meat upon a fork, at dinner-time, and stick the fork, holding it, beneath the table, so that they could get it at tea-time. The dragons that guarded this table of the Hesperides found out the trick at last, and kept a sharp look-out for missing forks;—they knew where to find one, if it was not in its place. Now the odd thing was that, after waiting so many years to hear of this College trick, I should hear it mentioned a second time within the same twenty-four hours by a College youth of the present generation. Strange, but true. And so it has happened to me and to every person, often and often, to be hit in rapid succession by these twinned facts or thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot.

I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder over this, taking it as an unexplained marvel. I think, however, I will turn over a furrow of subsoil in it. The explanation is, of course, that in a great many thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these instantly arrest our attention. Now we shall probably never have the least idea of the enormous number of impressions which pass through our consciousness, until in some future life we see the photographic record of our thoughts and the stereoscopic picture of our actions. There go more pieces to make up a conscious life or a living body than you think for. Why, some of you were surprised when a friend of mine told you there were fifty-eight separate pieces in a fiddle. How many “swimming glands”—solid, organised, regularly formed, rounded disks, taking an active part in all your vital processes, part and parcel, each one of them, of your corporeal being—do you suppose are whirled along like pebbles in a stream with the blood which warms your frame and colours your cheeks? A noted German physiologist spread out a minute drop of blood, under the microscope, in narrow streaks, and counted the globules, and then made a calculation. The counting by the micrometer took him a week. You have, my full-grown friend, of these little couriers in crimson or scarlet livery, running on your vital errands day and night as long as you live, sixty-five billions, five hundred and seventy thousand millions, errors excepted. Did I hear some gentleman say “Doubted”? I am the Professor; I sit in my chair with a petard under it that will blow me through the skylight of my lecture-room, if I do not know what I am talking about, and whom I am quoting.

Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands to your foreheads and saying to yourselves that you feel a little confused, as if you had been waltzing until things began to whirl slightly round you, is it possible that you do not clearly apprehend the exact connection of all that I have been saying, and its bearing on what is now to come? Listen, then. The number of these living elements in our bodies illustrates the incalculable multitude of our thoughts; the number of our thoughts accounts for those frequent coincidences spoken of; these coincidences in the world of thought illustrate those which we constantly observe in the world of outward events, of which the presence of the young girl now at our table, and proving to be the daughter of an old acquaintance some of us may remember, is the special example which led me through this labyrinth of reflections, and finally lands me at the commencement of this young girl’s story, which, as I said, I have found the time and felt the interest to learn something of, and which I think I can tell without wronging the unconscious subject of my brief delineation.

A Short Lecture on Phrenology.

Read to the Boarders at our Breakfast-Table.

I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a Pseudo-science. A Pseudo-science consists of a nomenclature, with a self-adjusting arrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favours its doctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some lucrative practical application. Its professors and practitioners are usually shrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink and laugh a good deal among themselves. The believing multitude consists of women of both sexes, feeble-minded inquirers, poetical optimists, people who always get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists who insist on hurrying up the millennium, and others of this class, with here and there a clergyman, less frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician, and almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detective police.—I did not say that Phrenology was one of the Pseudo-sciences.

A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It may contain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank starts with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay on the strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a good one. The practitioners of the Pseudo-sciences know that common minds, after they have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump at the merest rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have one fact found us, we are very apt to supply the next out of our own imagination. (How many persons can read Judges xv. 16 correctly the first time?) The Pseudo-sciences take advantage of this.—I did not say that it was so with Phrenology.

I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there was something in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly agreed, promises intellect; one that is “villainous low,” and has a huge hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as rarely met an unbiassed and sensible man who really believed in the bumps. It is observed, however, that persons with what the Phrenologists call “good heads” are more prone than others toward plenary belief in the doctrine.

It is so hard to prove a negative, that if a man should assert that the moon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable substance of the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, I might be puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar cheese, I call on him to prove the truth of the caseous nature of our satellite before I purchase.

“I PROCEED TO FUMBLE HIS SKULL.”

It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological statement. It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved, and cannot be, by the common course of argument. The walls of the head are double, with a great air-chamber between them, over the smallest and most closely crowded “organs.” Can you tell how much money there is in a safe, which also has thick double walls, by kneading its knobs with your fingers? So when a man fumbles about my forehead, and talks about the organs of Individuality, Size, etc., I trust him as much as I should if he felt of the outside of my strong-box and told me that there was a five-dollar or a ten-dollar bill under this or that particular rivet. Perhaps there is; only he doesn’t know anything about it. But this is a point that I, the Professor, understand, my friends, or ought to, certainly, better than you do. The next argument you will all appreciate.

I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of Phrenology, which is very similar to that of the Pseudo-sciences. An example will show it most conveniently.

A. is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and find a good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. Casts and drawings of A. are multiplied, and the bump does not lose in the act of copying.—I did not say it gained.—What do you look so for? (to the boarders).

Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But B. has no bump at all over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology.—Not a bit of it. Don’t you see how small Conscientiousness is? That’s the reason B. stole.

And then comes C., ten times as much a thief as either A. or B.,—used to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own pockets and put its contents in another, if he could find no other way of committing petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a hollow, instead of a bump, over Acquisitiveness. Ah! but just look and see what a bump of Alimentiveness! Did not C. buy nuts and gingerbread, when a boy, with the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a thief, and how his example confirms our noble science.

At last comes along a case which is apparently a settler, for there is a little brain with vast and varied powers,—a case like that of Byron, for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which covers everything and renders it simply impossible ever to corner a Phrenologist. “It is not the size alone, but the quality of an organ, which determines its degree of power.”

Oh! oh! I see.—The argument may be briefly stated thus by the Phrenologist: “Heads I win, tails you lose.” Well, that’s convenient.

It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to the Pseudo-sciences.—I did not say it was a Pseudo-science.

I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and amazed at the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of Phrenology had read their characters written upon their skulls. Of course the Professor acquires his information solely through his cranial inspections and manipulations.—What are you laughing at? (to the boarders).—But let us just suppose, for a moment, that a tolerably cunning fellow, who did not know or care anything about Phrenology, should open a shop and undertake to read off people’s characters at fifty cents or a dollar a-piece. Let us see how well he could get along without the “organs.” I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I would invest one hundred dollars, more or less, in casts of brains, skulls, charts, and other matters that would make the most show for the money. That would do to begin with. I would then advertise myself as the celebrated Professor Brainey, or whatever name I might choose, and wait for my first customer. My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him,—ask him a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang of him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, dictating as follows:—

SCALE FROM 1 TO 10.

List of Faculties for Customer.	Private Notes for my Pupil: Each to be accompanied with a wink.
Amativeness, 7.	Most men love the conflicting sex, and all men love to be told they do.
Alimentiveness, 8.	Don’t you see that he has burst off his lowest waistcoat-button with feeding—hey?
Acquisitiveness, 8.	Of course. A middle-aged Yankee.
Approbativeness, 7, +	Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the effect of that plus sign.
Self-esteem, 6.	His face shows that.
Benevolence, 9.	That’ll please him.
Conscientiousness, 8½	That fraction looks first-rate.
Mirthfulness, 7	Has laughed twice since he came in.
Ideality, 9.	That sounds well.
Form, Size, Weight, Colour} Locality, Eventuality, } etc., etc. }	4 to 6. Average everything that can’t be guessed.

And so of the other faculties.

Of course, you know, that isn’t the way the Phrenologists do. They go only by the bumps. What do you keep laughing so for? (to the boarders). I only said that is the way I should practise “Phrenology” for a living.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

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APHORISMS.

We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches.

To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

A man sits as many risks as he runs.

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers.

If you give money, spend yourself with it.

Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half-witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.

Thoreau.

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AN ENGLISH FUNERAL.

London, October 15, 1802.

THE most humorous sight which I have seen was an English funeral, performed in the most fashionable manner; for you must know they perform funerals here. An undertaker’s sign exhibits these words, “Funerals performed.” The first one which I saw was such a novelty, I followed it a short distance, not knowing what it was; and, as my manner is to question every one whom I think can give me any information (a Yankee custom), I asked an honest fellow “what the show was?” He seemed a little offended, but directly replied, “You may know one day, if you do not come to the gallows.” This man, like Chatham, was “original and unaccommodating.” But, observing that I was surprised at his answer, and feeling, perhaps, a little mortified, he asked, “Do you live in London?” I told him I had just come. “Well, but people die, sometimes, in your town.” By this I discovered that the performance was a funeral.

William Austin.

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A LOST CHILD.

Ye CRYER.

Here’s a reward for who’ll find Love!

Love is a-straying

Ever since Maying;

Hither and yon, below, above,

All are seeking Love!

Ye HAND-BILL.

Gone astray—between the Maying

And the gathering of the hay,

Love, an urchin ever playing—

Folk are warned against his play.

How may you know him? by the quiver,

By the bow he’s wont to bear.

First on your left there comes a shiver,

Then a twinge—the arrow’s there.

By his eye of pansy colour,

Deep as wounds he dealeth free;

If its hue have faded duller,

’Tis not that he weeps for me.

By the smile that curls his mouthlet;

By the mockery of his sigh;

By his breath, a spicy South, let

Slip his lips of roses by.

By the devil in his dimple;

By his lies that sound so true;

By his shaft-string, that no simple

Ever culled will heal for you.

By his beckonings that embolden;

By his quick withdrawings then;

By his flying hair, a golden

Light to lure the feet of men.

By the breast where ne’er a hurt’ll

Rankle ’neath his kerchief hid—

What? you cry; he wore a kirtle?

Faith! methinks the rascal did!

Here’s a reward for who’ll find Love!

Love is a-straying

Ever since Maying;

Hither and you, below, above,

I am seeking Love.

ye Finder pray’d

to Bring her to

Master Corydon,

Petticoat Lane.

CRYER: H. BUNNER,

GRUB STREET,

CRY’S WEDDINGS,

BURYINGS, LOFT

CHILDN, AND RIGHT

CHEAPLIE.

YE IID. KNOCKER.

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AMONG THE SPIRITS.

MY naburs is mourn harf crazy on the new-fangled idear about Sperrets. Sperretooul Sircles is held nitely & 4 or 5 long hared fellers has settled here and gone into the sperret biznis excloosively. A atemt was made to git Mrs. A. Ward to embark into the Sperret biznis but the atemt faled. 1 of the long hared fellers told her she was a ethereal creeter & wood make a sweet mejium, whareupon she attact him with a mop handle & drove him out of the house. I will hear obsarve that Mrs. Ward is a invalerble womun—the partner of my goys & the shairer of my sorrers. In my absunce she watchis my interests & things with a Eagle Eye & when I return she welcums me in afectionate stile. Trooly it is with us as it was with Mr. & Mrs. Ingomer in the Play, to whit—

2 soles with but a single thawt

2 harts which beet as 1.

My naburs injooced me to attend a Sperretooul Sircle at Squire Smith’s. When I arrove I found the east room chock full includin all the old maids in the villige & the long hared fellers a4sed. When I went in I was salootid with “hear cums the benited man”—“hear cums the hory-heded unbeleever”—“hear cums the skoffer at trooth,” etsettery, etsettery.

Sez I, “my frens, it’s troo I’m hear, & now bring on your Sperrets”

1 of the long hared fellers riz up and sed he would state a few remarks. He sed man was a critter of intelleck & was movin on to a Gole. Sum men had bigger intellecks than other men had and thay wood git to the Gole the soonerest. Sum men was beests & wood never git into the Gole at all. He sed the Erth was materiel but man was immateriel, and hens man was different from the Erth. The Erth, continnered the speaker, resolves round on its own axeltree onct in 24 hours, but as man haint gut no axeltree he cant resolve. He sed the ethereal essunce of the koordinate branchis of superhuman natur becum mettymorfussed as man progrest in harmonial coexistunce & eventooally anty humanized theirselves & turned into reglar sperretuellers. [This was versifferusly applauded by the cumpany, and as I make it a pint to get along as pleasant as possible, I sung out “bully for you, old boy.”]

The cumpany then drew round the table and the Sircle kommenst to go it. Thay axed me if thare was anbody in the Sperret land which I wood like to convarse with. I sed if Bill Tompkins, who was onct my partner in the show biznis, was sober, I should like to convarse with him a few periods.

“Is the Sperret of William Tompkins present?” sed 1 of the long hared chaps, and there was three knox on the table.

Sez I, “William, how goze it, Old Sweetness?”

“Pretty ruff, old hoss,” he replide.

That was a pleasant way we had of addressin each other when he was in the flesh.

“Air you in the show biznis, William?” sed I.

He sed he was. He sed he & John Bunyan was travelin with a side show in connection with Shakspere, Jonson & Co.’s Circus. He sed old Bun (meaning Mr. Bunyan) stired up the animils & ground the organ while he tended door. Occashunally Mr. Bunyan sung a comic song. The Circus was doin middlin well. Bill Shakspeer had made a grate hit with old Bob Ridley, and Ben Jonson was delitin the peple with his trooly grate ax of hossmanship without saddul or bridal. Thay was rehersin Dixey’s Land & expected it would knock the peple.

Sez I, “William, my luvly frend, can you pay me that 13 dollars you owe me?” He sed no with one of the most tremenjis knox I ever experienced.

The Sircle sed he had gone. “Are you gone, William?” I axed. “Rayther,” he replide, and I knowd it was no use to pursoo the subjeck furder.

I then called for my farther.

“How’s things, daddy?”

“Middlin, my son, middlin.”

“Ain’t you proud of your orfurn boy?”

“Scacely.”

“Why not, my parient?”

“Becawz you hav gone to writin for the noospapers, my son. Bimeby you’ll lose all your character for trooth and verrasserty. When I helpt you into the show biznis I told you to dignerfy that there profeshun. Litteratoor is low.”

He also statid that he was doin middlin well in the peanut biznis & liked it putty well, tho’ the climit was rather warm.

When the Sircle stopt thay axed me what I thawt of it.

Sez I, “my friends I’ve bin into the show biznis now goin on 23 years. Theres a artikil in the Constitooshun of the United States which sez in effeck that everybody may think just as he darn pleases, & them is my sentiments to a hare. You dowtlis beleeve this Sperret doctrin while I think it is a little mixt. Just so soon as a man becums a reglar out & out Sperret rapper he leeves orf workin, lets his hare grow all over his fase & commensis spungin his livin out of other peple. He eats all the dickshunaries he can find & goze round chock full of big words, scarein the wimmin folks & little children & destroyin the peace of mind of evry famerlee he enters. He don’t do nobody no good & is a cuss to society & a pirit on honest peple’s corn beef barrils. Admittin all you say abowt the doctrin to be troo, I must say the reglar perfessional Sperret rappers—them as makes a biznis on it—air abowt the most ornery set of cusses I ever enkountered in my life. So sayin I put on my surtoot and went home.”

Respectably Yures,

Artemus Ward.

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POETRY AND THE POET.

[A SONNET.]

(Found on the Poet’s desk.)

WEARY, I open wide the antique pane

I ope to the air

I ope to

I open to the air the antique pane

And gaze {beyond?} the thrift-sown field of wheat,

{ across } [commonplace?]

A-shimmering green in breezes born of heat;

And lo!

And high

And my soul’s eyes behold { a? } billowy main

{ the }

Whose farther shore is Greece strain

again

vain

[Arcadia—mythological allusion.—Mem.: Lemprière.]

I see thee, Atalanta, vestal fleet,

And look! with doves low-fluttering round her feet,

Comes Venus through the golden {fields of?} grain.

{ bowing }

(Heard by the Poet’s neighbour.)

Venus be bothered—it’s Virginia Dix!

(Found on the Poet’s door.)

Out on important business—back at 6.

H. C. Bunner.

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A NEW SYSTEM OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

I HAVE often thought that the adjectives of the English language were not sufficiently definite for the purposes of description.

They have but three degrees of comparison—a very insufficient number, certainly, when we consider that they are to be applied to a thousand objects, which, though of the same general class or quality, differ from each other by a thousand different shades or degrees of the same peculiarity. Thus, though there are three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, all of which must, from the nature of things, differ from each other in the matter of climate, we have but half-a-dozen expressions to convey to one another our ideas of this inequality. We say—“It is a fine day;” “It is a very fine day;” “It is the finest day we have seen;” or, “It is an unpleasant day;” “A very unpleasant day;” “The most unpleasant day we ever saw.”

But it is plain that none of these expressions give an exact idea of the nature of the day; and the two superlative expressions are generally untrue. I once heard a gentleman remark, on a rainy, snowy, windy, and (in the ordinary English language) indescribable day, that it was “most preposterous weather.” He came nearer to giving a correct idea of it than he could have done by any ordinary mode of expression; but his description was not sufficiently definite.

Again:—we say of a lady—“She is beautiful;” “She is very beautiful;” or “She is perfectly beautiful;” descriptions which, to one who never saw her, are no descriptions at all, for among thousands of women he has seen, probably no two are equally beautiful; and as to a perfectly beautiful woman, he knows that no such being was ever created—unless by G. P. R. James, for one of the two horsemen to fall in love with, and marry at the end of the second volume.

If I meet Smith in the street, and ask him—as I am pretty sure to do—“How he does?” he infallibly replies, “Tolerable, thank you,” which gives one no exact idea of Smith’s health, for he has made the same reply to me on a hundred different occasions, on every one of which there must have been some slight shade of difference in his physical economy, and of course a corresponding change in his feelings.

To a man of a mathematical turn of mind, to a student and lover of the exact sciences, these inaccuracies of expression, this inability to understand exactly how things are, must be a constant source of annoyance; and to one who, like myself, unites this turn of mind to an ardent love of truth, for its own sake,—the reflection that the English language does not enable us to speak the truth with exactness, is peculiarly painful. For this reason I have, with some trouble, made myself thoroughly acquainted with every ancient and modern language, in the hope that I might find some one of them that would enable me to express precisely my ideas; but the same insufficiency of adjectives exist in all except that of the Flathead Indians of Puget Sound, which consists of but forty-six words, mostly nouns, but to the constant use of which exists the objection, that nobody but that tribe can understand it. And as their literary and scientific advancement is not such as to make a residence among them, for a man of my disposition, desirable, I have abandoned the use of their language, in the belief that for me it is hyas, cultus, or, as the Spaniard hath it, no me vale nada.

Despairing, therefore, of making new discoveries in foreign languages, I have set myself seriously to work to reform our own; and have, I think, made an important discovery, which, when developed into a system and universally adopted, will give a precision of expression, and a consequent clearness of idea, that will leave little to be desired, and will, I modestly hope, immortalise my humble name as the promulgator of the truth, and the benefactor of the human race.

Before entering upon my system I will give you an account of its discovery (which perhaps I might with more modesty term an adaptation and enlargement of the idea of another), which will surprise you by its simplicity, and, like the method of standing eggs on end, of Columbus, the inventions of printing, gunpowder, and the mariner’s compass—prove another exemplification of the truth of Hannah More’s beautifully expressed sentiment—

“Large streams from little fountains flow,

Large aches from little toe-corns grow.”

During the past week my attention was attracted by a large placard embellishing the corners of our streets, headed in mighty capitals with the word “PHRENOLOGY,” and illustrated by a map of a man’s head, closely shaven and laid off in lots, duly numbered from one to forty-seven. Beneath this edifying illustration appeared a legend, informing the inhabitants of San Diego and vicinity that Professor Dodge had arrived and taken rooms (which was inaccurate, as he had but one room) at Gyascutus House, where he would be happy to examine and furnish them with a chart of their heads, showing the moral and intellectual endowments, at the low price of three dollars each.

Always gratified with an opportunity of spending my money and making scientific researches, I immediately had my hair cut and carefully combed, and hastened to present myself and my head to the Professor’s notice. I found him a tall and thin Professor, in a suit of rusty, not to say seedy black, with a closely-buttoned vest, and no perceptible shirtcollar or wristbands. His nose was red, his spectacles were blue, and he wore a brown wig, beneath which, as I subsequently ascertained, his bald head was laid off in lots, marked and numbered with Indian ink, after the manner of the diagram upon his advertisement. Upon a small table lay many little books with yellow covers, several of the placards, pen and ink, a pair of iron callipers with brass knobs, and six dollars in silver. Having explained the object of my visit, and increased the pile of silver by six half-dollars from my pocket—whereat he smiled, and I observed he wore false teeth (scientific men always do; they love to encourage art)—the Professor placed me in a chair, and rapidly manipulating my head, after the manner of a shampooh (I am not certain as to the orthography of this expression), said that my temperament was “lymphatic, nervous, bilious.” I remarked that “I thought myself dyspeptic,” but he made no reply. Then, seizing on the callipers, he embraced with them my head in various places, and made notes upon a small card that lay near him on the table. He then stated that my “hair was getting very thin on the top,” placed in my hand one of the yellow-covered books, which I found to be an almanac containing anecdotes about the virtue of Dodge’s Hair Invigorator, and recommending it to my perusal, he remarked that he was agent for the sale of this wonderful fluid, and urged me to purchase a bottle—price two dollars. Stating my willingness to do so, the Professor produced from a hair trunk that stood in the corner of the room, which he stated, by the way, was originally an ordinary pine box, on which the hair had grown since “the Invigorator” had been placed in it—(a singular fact)—and recommended me to be cautious in wearing gloves while rubbing it upon my head, as unhappy accidents had occurred—the hair growing freely from the ends of the fingers, if used with the bare hand. He then seated himself at the table, and rapidly filling up what appeared to me a blank certificate, he soon handed over the following singular document:—

“Phrenological Chart of the Head of Mr. John Phœnix, by Flatbroke B. Dodge, Professor of Phrenology, and inventor and proprietor of Dodge’s celebrated Hair Invigorator, Stimulator of the Conscience, and Arouser of the Mental Faculties:—

Temperament—Lymphatic, Nervous, Bilious.

Size of Head, 11.

Amativeness, 11½.

Caution, 3.

Conscientiousness, 12.

Destructiveness, 9.

Hope, 10.

Imitation, 11.

Self-Esteem, ½.

Benevolence, 12.

Combativeness, 2½.

Credulity, 1.

Causality, 12.

Mirth, 1.

Language, 12.

Firmness, 2.

Veneration, 12.

Philoprogenitiveness, 0.”

Having gazed on this for a few moments in mute astonishment—during which the Professor took a glass of brandy and water, and afterwards a mouthful of tobacco—I turned to him and requested an explanation.

“Why,” said he, “it’s very simple; the number 12 is the maximum, 1 the minimum; for instance, you are as benevolent as a man can be—therefore I mark you, Benevolence, 12. You have little or no self-esteem—hence I place you, Self-esteem, ½. You’ve scarcely any credulity, don’t you see?”

I did see! This was my discovery. I saw at a flash how the English language was susceptible of improvement, and, fired with the glorious idea, I rushed from the room and the house; heedless of the Professor’s request that I would buy more of his Invigorator; heedless of his alarmed cry that I would pay for the bottle I had got; heedless that I tripped on the last step of the Gyascutus House, and smashed there the precious fluid (the step has now a growth of four inches of hair on it, and the people use it as a door-mat); I rushed home, and never grew calm till with pen, ink, and paper before me, I commenced the development of my system.

This system—shall I say this great system?—is exceedingly simple, and easily explained in a few words. In the first place, “figures won’t lie.” Let us then represent by the number 100, the maximum, the ne plus ultra of every human quality—grace, beauty, courage, strength, wisdom, learning—everything. Let perfection, I say, be represented by 100, and an absolute minimum of all qualities by the number 1.

Then by applying the numbers between, to the adjectives used in conversation, we shall be able to arrive at a very close approximation to the idea we wish to convey; in other words, we shall be enabled to speak the truth. Glorious, soul-inspiring idea! For instance, the most ordinary question asked of you is, “How do you do?” To this, instead of replying, “Pretty well,” “Very well,” “Quite well,” or the like absurdities—after running through your mind that perfection of health is 100, no health at all, 1—you say, with a graceful bow, “Thank you, I’m 52 to-day;” or, feeling poorly, “I’m 13, I’m obliged to you,” or, “I’m 68,” or “75,” or “87½” as the case may be! Do you see how very close in this way you may approximate to the truth; and how clearly your questioner will understand what he so anxiously wishes to arrive at—your exact state of health?

Let this system be adopted into our elements of grammar, our conversation, our literature, and we become at once an exact, precise, mathematical, truth-telling people. It will apply to everything but politics; there, truth being of no account, the system is useless. But in literature, how admirable! Take an example:—

As a 19 young and 76 beautiful lady was 52 gaily tripping down the side-walk of our 84 frequented street, she accidentally came in contact—100 (this shows that she came in close contact)—with a 73 fat, but 87 good-humoured looking gentleman, who was 93 (i.e., intently) gazing into the window of a toy-shop. Gracefully 56 extricating herself, she received the excuses of the 96 embarrassed Falstaff with a 68 bland smile, and continued on her way. But hardly—7—had she reached the corner of the block, ere she was overtaken by a 24 young man, 32 poorly dressed, but of an 85 expression of countenance; 91 hastily touching her 54 beautifully rounded arm, he said, to her 67 surprise—

“Madam, at the window of the toy-shop yonder, you dropped this bracelet, which I had the 71 good fortune to observe, and now have the 94 happiness to hand to you.”

(Of course the expression “94 happiness” is merely the young man’s polite hyperbole.)

Blushing with 76 modesty, the lovely (76, as before, of course) lady took the bracelet—which was a 24 magnificent diamond clasp—(24 magnificent, playfully sarcastic; it was probably not one of Tucker’s) from the young man’s hand, and 84 hesitatingly drew from her beautifully 38 embroidered reticule a 67 portemonnaie. The young man noticed the action, and 73 proudly drawing back, added—

“Do not thank me; the pleasure of gazing for an instant at those 100 eyes (perhaps too exaggerated a compliment) has already more than compensated me for any trouble that I might have had.”

She thanked him, however, and with a 67 deep blush and a 48 pensive air, turned from him, and pursued with 33 slow step her promenade.

Of course you see that this is but the commencement of a pretty little tale, which I might throw off, if I had a mind to, showing in two volumes, or forty-eight chapters of thrilling interest, how the young man sought the girl’s acquaintance, how the interest first excited deepened into love, how they suffered much from the opposition of parents (her parents, of course), and how, after much trouble, annoyance, and many perilous adventures, they were finally married—their happiness, of course, being represented by 100. But I trust that I have said enough to recommend my system to the good and truthful of the literary world; and besides, just at present I have something of more immediate importance to attend to.

You would hardly believe it, but that everlasting (100) scamp of a Professor has brought a suit against me for stealing a bottle of his disgusting Invigorator; and as the suit comes off before a Justice of the Peace, whose only principle of law is to find guilty and fine any accused person whom he thinks has any money—(because if he don’t he has to take his costs in County Scrip), it behoves me to “take time by the forelock.” So for the present, adieu!

Should my system succeed to the extent of my hopes and expectations, I shall publish my new grammar early in the ensuing month, with suitable dedication and preface; and should you, with your well-known liberality, publish my prospectus, and give me a handsome literary notice, I shall be pleased to furnish a presentation copy to each of the little Pioneer children.

P.S.—I regret to add, that having just read this article to Mrs. Phœnix, and asked her opinion thereon, she replied that, “If a first-rate magazine article were represented by 100, she should judge this to be about 13; or if the quintessence of stupidity were 100, she should take this to be in the neighbourhood of 96.”

This, as a criticism, is perhaps a little discouraging, but as an exemplification of the merits of my system it is exceedingly flattering. How could she, I should like to know, in ordinary language, have given so exact and truthful an idea—how expressed so forcibly her opinion (which, of course, differs from mine) on the subject?

As Dr. Samuel Johnson learnedly remarked to James Boswell, Laird of Auchinleck, on a certain occasion—“Sir, the proof of the pudding is the eating thereof.”

“John Phœnix.”

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