"Do you ever attend the opera, young man?"
"Frequently," said the cashier. "I am very fond of music."
"Then you must know me," continued Signor Arditi; and taking off his hat he turned his back upon the cashier, and beat time vigorously to an imaginary orchestra.
"Oh yes!" exclaimed the cashier at once. "I know the back of your head well. You are Signor Arditi." And he handed out the money to the musician without further ceremony.
THE END OF THE "CHESAPEAKE."
An English journal contains the following item, for the truth of which we cannot, of course, vouch; but it is interesting if true:
It is not by any means widely known, says the journal, that the Chesapeake, famous for her historic encounter with the British ship Shannon in 1813, is in existence to-day, but is used in the somewhat inglorious capacity of a flour-mill, and is making money for a hearty Hampshire miller in the little parish of Wickham. After her capture by Sir Philip B. V. Broke, she was taken to England in 1814, and in 1820 her timbers were sold to Mr. John Prior, miller of Wickham, Hants. Mr. Prior pulled down his own mill at Wickham, and erected a new one from the Chesapeake timbers, which he found admirably adapted for the purpose. The deck beams were thirty-two feet long, and served, without alteration, for joists. Many of these timbers yet bear the marks of the Shannon's grape-shot, and, in some places the shot are still to be seen deeply embedded in the pitch pine. The metamorphosis of a man-of-war into a peaceful life-sustaining flour-mill is, perhaps, as near an approach to the prophecy that spears and swords shall be beaten into ploughs and pruning-hooks as the conditions of modern civilization will allow.
"Pray, Dr. Smith, what is a good cure for the gout?" was the question of an indolent and very luxurious gentleman to his hard-worked friend.