A rich citizen's house was robbed—burglariously entered and robbed; and Peter Houp, the staid, plain Philadelphia carpenter, who would not have bartered his reputation for all the ingots of the Incas, while in his sober senses, was arrested as one of the burglars, and the imputation, false or true, caused him to spend seven years in a penitentiary. O, what an awful probation of sorrow and mental agony were those seven long years! But they passed over, and Peter Houp was again free, not a worse man, fortunately, but a much wiser one! He had not seen or heard a word of those so long dearly cherished, and cruelly deserted—his family—for eight years, and his heart yearned towards them so strongly that, pennyless, pale and care-worn as he was, he would have started immediately for home, but being a good carpenter, and wages high, he concluded to go to work, while he patiently awaited a reply of his abandoned family to his long and penitent written letter. Weeks, months, and a year passed, and no reply came, though another letter was dispatched, for fear of the miscarriage of the first; (and both letters did miscarry, as the wife never received them.) Peter gave himself up as a lost man, his family lost or scattered, and nothing but death could end his detailed wretchedness. But still, as fortune would have it, he never again sought refuge from his sorrows in the poisoned chalice, the rum glass; not he. Peter toiled, saved his money, and at the end of four years found himself in the possession of a snug little sum of hard cash, and a fully established good name. But all of this time he had heard not a syllable of his home; and all of a sudden, one fine day in early spring, he took passage in a ship, arrived in Philadelphia; and in a few rods from the wharf, upon which he landed, he met an old neighbor. The astonishment of the latter seemed wondrous; he burst out—

"My God! is this Peter Houp, come from his grave?"

"No," said Peter, in his slow, dry way, "I'm from New Orleans."

Peter soon learned that his wife and children yet lived in the same place, and long mourned him as forever gone. Peter Houp felt any thing but merry, but he was determined to have his joke and a merry meeting. In an hour or two Peter Houp, the long lost wanderer, stood in his own door.

"Well, Nancy, here is thy leg of mutton!" and a fine one too he had.

The most excellent woman was alone. She was of Quaker origin; sober and stoical as her husband, she regarded him wistfully as he stood in the door, for a long time; at last she spoke—

"Well, Peter, thee's been gone a long time for it."

The next moment found them locked in each other's arms; overtasked nature could stand no more, and they both cried like children.

The carpenter has once held offices of public trust, and lives yet, I believe, an old and highly respected citizen of "Brotherly Love."



A Chapter on Misers.

We all love, worship and adore that everlasting deity—money. The poor feel its want, the rich know its power. Virtue falls before its corrupting and seductive influence. Honor is tainted by it. Pride, pomp and power, are but the creatures of money, and which corrupt hearts and enslaved souls wield to the great annoyance—yea, curse of mankind in general.

It is well, that, though we are all fond of money, not over one in a thousand, prove miserable misers, and go on to amass dollar upon dollar, until the shining heaps of garnered gold and silver become a god, and a faith, that the rich wretch worships with the tenacious devotion of the most frenzied fanatic. In the accumulation of a competency, against the odds and chances of advanced life, a man may be pardoned for a degree of economical prudence; but for parsimonious meanness, there is certainly no excuse. I have heard my father speak of an old miserly fellow, who owned a great many blocks of buildings in Philadelphia, as well as many excellent farms around there, and who, though rich as a Jew (worth $200,000), was so despicably and scandalously mean, as to go through the markets and beg bones of the butchers, to make himself and family soup for their dinners! He resorted to a score of similar humiliating "dodges," whereby to prolong his miserable existence, and add dime and dollar to his already bursting coffers.

At length, Death knocked at his door. The debt was one the poor wretch would fain have gotten a little more time on, but the Court of Death brooks no delay—there is no cunning devise of learned counsel, no writs of error, by which even a miserable miser, or voluptuous millionaire, can gain a moment's delay when death issues his summons. The miser was called for, and he knew his time had come. He sent for the undertaker, he bargained for his burial—

"They say I'm rich! it's a lie, sir—I'm poor, miserably poor. I want but three carriages. My children may want a dozen—I say but three; put that down. A very plain coffin; pine, stained will do, and no ornaments, hark ye. A cheap grave. I would be buried on one of my farms, but then the coach-drivers would charge so much to carry me out! Now, what will you ask for the job?"

"About thirty dollars, sir," said the almost horrified undertaker.

"Thirty dollars! why, do you want to rob me? Say fifteen dollars—give me a receipt—and I'll pay you the cash down!"

Poor wretch! by the time he had uttered this, his soul had flown to its resting-place in another world.

In the upper part of Boston, on what is called "the Neck," there lived, some years ago, a wealthy old man, who resorted to sundry curious methods to live without cost to himself. His house—one of the handsomest mansions in the "South End," in its day—stood near the road over which the gardeners, in times past, used to go to market, with their loads of vegetables, two days of each week. Old Gripes would be up before day, and on the lookout for these wagons.

"Halloo! what have you got there?" says the miser to the countryman.

"Well, daddy, a little of all sorts; potatoes, cabbages, turnips, parsnips, and so on. Won't you look at 'em?"

At this, the old miser would begin to fumble over the vegetables, pocket a potato, an onion, turnip, or—

"Ah, yes, they are good enough, but we poor creatures can't afford to pay such prices as you ask; no, no—we must wait until they come down." The old miser would sneak into the house with his stolen vegetables, and the farmer would drive on. Then back would come the miser, and lay in ambush for another load, and thus, in course of a few hours, he would raise enough vegetables to give his household a dinner. Another "dodge" of this artful old dodger, was to take all the coppers he got (and, of course, a poor creature like him handled a great many), and then go abroad among the stores and trade off six for a fourpence, and when he had four fourpences, get a quarter of a dollar for them, and thus in getting a dollar, he made four per cent., by several hours' disgusting meanness and labor.

But one day the old miser ran foul of a snag. A market-man had watched him for some time purloining his vegetables, and on the first of the year, sent in a bill of several dollars, for turnips, potatoes, parsnips, &c. The old miser, of course, refused to pay the bill, denying ever having had "the goods." But the countryman called, in propria persona, refreshed his memory, and added, that, if the bill was not footed on sight, he should prosecute him for stealing! This made the old miser shake in his boots. He blustered for awhile; then reasoned the case; then plead poverty. But the purveyor in vegetables was not the man to be cabbaged in that way, and the old miser called him into his sitting-room, and ordered his son, a wild young scamp, to go up stairs and see if he could find five dollars in any of the drawers or boxes up there. The young man finally called out—

"Dad, which bag shall I take it out of, the gold or silver?"

"Odd zounds!" bawled the old man—"the boy wants to let on I've got bags of gold and silver!"

And so he had, many thousands of dollars in good gold and silver; he hobbled up stairs, got nine half dollars, and tried to get off fifty cents less than the countryman's bill; but the countryman was stubborn as a mule, and would not abate a farthing—so the old miser had to hobble up stairs and fetch down his fifty cents more, and the whole operation was like squeezing bear's grease from a pig's tail, or jerking out eye-teeth.

The miser never waylaid the market-men again; and not long after this, he got a spurious dollar put upon him in one of his "exchanging" operations, and that wound up his penny shaving.

Time passed—Death called upon the wretched man of ingots and money bags,—but while power remained to forbid it, the old miser refused to have a physician. When, to all appearance, his senses were gone, his friends drew the miser's pantaloons from under his pillow, where he had always insisted on their remaining during his sleeping hours, and his last illness—but as one of the attendants slowly removed the garment, the poor old man, with a convulsive effort—a galvanic-like grab—threw out his bony, cold hand, and seized his old pantaloons!

The miser clutched them with a dying grasp; words struggled in his throat; he could not utter them; his jaw fell—he was dead!

Much curiosity was manifested by the friends and relatives to know what could have caused the poor old man to cling to his time-worn pantaloons; but the mystery was soon revealed—for upon examination of the linings of the waistbands and watch-fob, over $30,000 in bank notes were there concealed!

The Lord's pardon and human sympathy be with all such misguided and wretched slaves of—money, say we.



Dog Day.

I used to like dogs—a puppy love that I got bravely over, since once upon a time, when a Dutch bottier, in the city of Charleston, S. C., put an end to my poor Sue,—the prettiest and most devoted female bull terrier specimen of the canine race you ever did see, I guess. My Sue got into the wrong pew, one morning; the crout-eating cordwainer and she had a dispute—he, the bullet-headed ball of wax, ups with his revolver, and—I was dogless! I don't think dogs a very profitable investment, and every man weak enough to keep a dog in a city, ought to pay for the luxury handsomely—to the city authorities. Some people have a great weakness for dogs. Some fancy gentlemen seem to think it the very apex of highcockalorumdom to have the skeleton of a greyhound and highly polished collar—following them through crowded thorough-fares. Some young ladies, especially those of doubtful ages, delight in caressing lumps of white, cotton-looking dumpy dogs and toting them around, to the disgust of the lookers-on—with all the fondness and blind infatuation of a mamma with her first born, bran new baby. Wherever you see any quantity of white and black loafers—Philadelphia, for instance, you'll see rafts of ugly and wretched looking curs. Boz says poverty and oysters have a great affinity; in this country, for oysters read dogs. Who has not, that ever travelled over this remarkable country, had occasion to be down on dogs? Who that has ever lain awake, for hours at a stretch, listening to a blasted cur, not worth to any body the powder that would blow him up—but has felt a desire to advocate the dog-law, so judiciously practised in all well-regulated cities? Who that ever had a sneaking villanous cur slip up behind and nip out a patch of your trowsers, boot top and calf—the size of an oyster, but has felt for the pistol, knife or club, and sworn eternal enmity to the whole canine race? Who that ever had a big dog jump upon your Russia-ducks and patent leathers—just as he had come out of a mud-puddle, but has nearly forfeited his title to Christianity, by cursing aloud in his grief—like a trooper? Well, I have, for one of a thousand.

The fact of the business is, with precious few exceptions, dogs are a nuisance, whatever Col. Bill Porter of the "Spirit," and his thousand and one dog-fancying and inquiring friends, may think to the contrary; and the man that will invest fifty real dollars in a dog-skin, has got a tender place in his head, not healed up as it ought to be.

While "putting up," t'other day, at the Irving House, New York, I heard a good dog story that will bear repeating, I think. A sporting gent from the country, stopping at the Irving, wanted a dog, a good dog, not particular whether it was a spaniel, hound, pointer, English terrier or Butcher's bull. So a friend advised him to put an advertisement in the Sun and Spirit of the Times, which he did, requesting the "fancy" to bring along the right sort of dog to the Irving House, room number —.

The advertisement appeared simultaneously in the two papers on Saturday. There were but few calls that day; but on Monday, the "Spirit" having been freely imbibed by its numerous readers over Sunday, the dog men were awake, and then began the scene. The occupant of room number —had scarcely got up, before a servant appeared with a man and a dog.

"Believe, sir, you advertised for a dog?" quoth he with the animal.

"Yes," was the response of the country fancy man, who, by the way, it must be premised, was rather green as to the quality and prices of fancy dogs.

"What kind of a dog do you call that?" he added.

"A greyhound, full blooded, sir."

"Full blooded?" says the country sportsman. "Well, he don't look as though he had much blood in him. He'd look better, wouldn't he, mister, if he was full bellied—looks as hollow as a flute!"

This remark, for a moment, rather staggered the dog man, who first looked at his dog and then at the critic. Choking down his dander, or disgust, says he:

"That's the best greyhound you ever saw, sir."

"Well, what do you ask for him?"

"Seventy-five dollars."

"What? Seventy-five dollars for that dog frame?"

"I guess you're a fool any way," says the dog man: "you don't know a hound from a tan yard cur, you jackass! Phe-e-wt! come along, Jerry!" and the man and dog disappeared.

The man with the hollow dog had not stepped out two minutes, before the servant appeared with two more dog merchants; both had their specimens along, and were invited to "step in."

"Ah! that's a dog!" ejaculated the country sportsman, the moment his eyes lit upon the massive proportions of a thundering edition of Mt. St. Bernard.

"That is a dog, sir," was the emphatic response of the dog merchant.

"How much do you ask for that dog?" quoth the sportsman.

"Well," says the trader, patting his dog, "I thought of getting about fifty-five dollars for him, but I—"

"Stop," interrupted the country sportsman, "that's enough—he won't suit, no how; I can't go them figures on dogs." The man and dog left growling, and the next man and dog were brought up.

"Why, that's a queer dog, mister, ain't it? 'Tain't got no hair on it; why, where in blazes did you raise such a dog as that; been scalded, hain't it?" says the rural sportsman, examining the critter.

"Scalded?" echoed the dog man, looking no ways amiable at the speaker, "why didn't you never see a Chinese terrier, afore?"

"No, and if that's one, I don't care about seeing another. Why, he looks like a singed possum?"

"Well, you're a pooty looking country jake, you are, to advertise for a dog, and don't know Chiney terrier from a singed possum?"

Another rap at the door announced more dogs, and as the man opened it to get out with his singed possum, a genus who evidently "killed for Keyser," rushed in with a pair of the ugliest-looking—savage—snub-nosed, slaughter-house pups, "the fancy" might ever hope to look upon! As these meat-axish canines made a rush at the very boot tops of the country sportsman, he "shied off," pretty perceptibly.

"Are you de man advertised for de dogs, sa-a-ay? You needn't be afraid o' dem; come a'here, lay da-own, Balty—day's de dogs, mister, vot you read of!"

"Ain't they rather fierce?" asked the rural sportsman, eyeing the ugly brutes.

"Fierce? Better believe dey are—show 'em a f-f-ight, if you want to see 'em go in for de chances! You want to see der teeth?"

"No, I guess not," timidly responded the sportsman; "they are not exactly what I want," he continued.

"What," says Jakey, "don't want 'em? Why, look a'here, you don't go for to say dat you 'spect I'm agoin' for to fetch d-dogs clean down here, for nuthin', do you, sa-a-ay? Cos if you do, I'll jis drop off my duds and lam ye out o' yer boots!"

Jakey was just beginning to square, when his belligerent propositions were suddenly nipped in the bud, by the servant opening the door and ushering in more dogs; and no sooner did Jakey's pups see the new-comers, than they went in; a fight ensued—both of Jakey's pups lighting down on an able-bodied, big-bone sorrel dog, who appeared perfectly happy in the transaction, and having a tremendous jaw of his own, made the bones of the pups crack with the high pressure he gave them. Of course a dog fight is the cue for a man fight, and in the wag of a dead lamb's tail, Jakey and the proprietor of the sorrel dog had a dispute. Jakey was attitudinizing a la "the fancy," when the sorrel dog man—who, like his dog, was got up on a liberal scale of strength and proportions—walked right into Jakey's calculations, and whirled him in double flip-flaps on to the wash-stand of the rural sportsman's room! Our sporting friend viewed the various combatants more in bodily fear than otherwise, and was making a break for the door, to clear himself, when, to his horror and amazement, he found the entry beset by sundry men and boys, and any quantity of dogs—dogs of every hue, size, and description. At that moment the chawed-up pups of Jakey, and their equally used-up master, came a rushing down stairs—another fight ensued on the stairs between Jakey's dogs and some others, and then a stampede of dogs—mixing up of dogs—tangling of ropes and straps—cursing and hurraing, and such a time generally, as is far better imagined than described. The boarders hearing such a wild outcry—to say nothing of the yelps of dogs, came out of their various rooms, and retired as quickly, to escape the stray and confused dogs, that now were ki-yi-ing, yelping, and pitching all over the house! By judicious marshalling of the servants—broom-sticks, rolling-pins and canes, the dogs and their various proprietors were ejected, and order once more restored; the country sportsman seized his valise, paid his bills and "vamosed the ranche," and ever after it was incorporated in the rules of the Irving, that gentlemen are strictly prohibited from dealing in dogs while "putting up" in that house.



Amateur Gardening.

"I don't see what in sin's become of them dahlias I set out this Spring," said Tapehorn, a retired slop-shop merchant, to his wife, one morning a month ago, as he hunted in vain among the weeds and grass of his garden, to see where or when his two-dollars-a-piece dahlia roots were going to appear.

"Can't think what's the matter with 'em," he continued. "Goldblossom said they were the finest roots he ever sold—ought to be up and in bloom—two months ago."

"Oh, pa, I forgot to tell you," said Miss Tapehorn, "that our Patrick, one morning last Spring, was digging in the garden there, and he turned up some things that looked just like sweet potatoes; mother and I looked at them, and thought they were potatoes those Mackintoshes had left undug when they moved away last winter!"

"Well, you-a—" gasped Tapehorn.

"Well, pa, ma and I had them all dug up and cooked, and they were the meanest tasting things we ever knew, and we gave them all to the pigs!"

Tapehorn looked like a man in the last stages of disgust, and jamming his fists down into his pockets, he walked into the house, muttering:

"Tut, tut, tut!—thirty-two dollars and the finest lot of dahlias in the world—gone to the pigs!"



The Two Johns at the Tremont.

It is somewhat curious that more embarrassments, and queer contre temps do not take place in the routine of human affairs, when we find so many persons floating about of one and the same name. It must be shocking to be named John Brown, troublesome to be called John Thompson, but who can begin to conceive the horrors of that man's situation, who has at the baptismal font received the title of John Smith?

Now it only wants a slight accident, the most trivial occurrence of fate—the meeting of two or three persons of the same name, or of great similarity of name, to create the most singular and even ludicrous circumstances and tableaux. One of these affairs came off at the Tremont House, some time since. One Thomas Johns, a blue-nose Nova-Scotian—a man of "some pumpkins" and "persimmons" at home, doubtless, put up for a few days at the Tremont, and about the same time one John Thomas, a genuine son of John Bull, just over in one of the steamers, took up his quarters at the same respectable and worthy establishment.

Thomas Johns was a linen draper, sold silks, satinets, linen, and dimities, at his establishment in the Provinces, and was also a politician, and "went on" for the part of magistrate, occasionally. John Thomas was a retired wine-merchant, and, having netted a bulky fortune, he took it into his head to travel, and as naturally as he despised, and as contemptuously as he looked upon this poor, wild, unsophisticated country of ours, he nevertheless condescended to come and look at us.

Well, there they were, Thomas Johns, and John Thomas; one was "roomed" in the north wing, the other in the south wing. Thomas Johns went out and began reconnoitering among the Yankee shop-keepers. John Thomas, having a fortnight's pair of sea legs on, and full of bile and beer, laid up at his lodgings, and passed the first three days in "hazing around" the servants, and blaspheming American manners and customs.

Old John was quietly snoring off his bottle after a sumptuous Tremont dinner, when a repeated rap, rap, rap at his door aroused him.

"What are you—at?" growls John.

"It's ma, zur?" says one of the Milesian servants.

"Blast yer hies, what want yer?" again growls John.

"If ye plaze, zur, there's a young man below wishes to see you," says the servant.

"Ha, tell 'im to clear out!" John having predestinated the "young man," he gave an apoplectic snort, relapsed into his lethargy, and the servant whirled down into the rotunda, and informed the "young man" what the gentleman desired.

"He did, eh?" says the young man, who looked as if he might be a clerk in an importing house. The young man left, in something of a high dudgeon.

"What'r yer at now?" roared John Thomas, a second time, roused by the servant's rat-tat-too.

"It's a gentleman wants to see yez's, zur."

"Tell him to go to the d—!" and John snored again.

"Is John in?" asks the gentleman, as the servant returns.

"Mister Thomas did yez mane, zur?"

"No, yes, it is (looking at his tablets) same thing, I suppose; Thomas Johns," says the gentleman.

"I belave it's right, zur," says the servant.

"Well, what did he say?"

"Faith, I think he's not in a good humor, betwane us, zur; he says yez may go to the divil!"

"Did he? Well, that's polite, any how—invite a gentleman to dine with him, and then meet him with such language as that. The infernal 'blue nose,' I'll pull it, I'll tweak it until he'll roar like a calf!" and off went "the gentleman," hot as No. 6.

"I belave he's not in, zur," says the same servant, answering another inquiry for John Thomas, or Thomas Johns, the carriage driver was not certain which.

"Oh, ho!" says the servant, "it's a ride ould John's going fur to take till himself, and didn't want any callers." Reaching John's door, he began his tattoo.

"Be hang'd to ye, what'r ye at now?" growls John, partly up and dressed.

"The carriage is here, zur."

"What carriage is that?" growls John, continuing his toilet.

"I don't know, zur; I'll go down and sae the number, if ye plaze."

"Thunder and tommy! What do I care for the number? Go tell the carriage——"

"To go to the divil, zur?" says the servant, in anticipation of the command.

"No, you bog-trotter, go tell the carriage to wait."

The servant went down, and John continued his toilet, muttering—

"Ah, some of their haccommodations, I expect; these American landlords, as they style 'em in these infernal wild woods 'ere, do manage to give a body tolerable sort of haccommodations; ha, but they'll take care to look hout for the dollars. I don't know, tho', these fellers 'ere appear tolerably clever; want me to ride hout, I suppose, and see some of their Yankee lions. Haw! haw! Lions! I wonder what they'd say hif they saw Lun'un, and looked at St. Paul's once!"

Getting through his toilet—and it takes an Englishman as long to fix his stiff cravat and that stiffer and stauncher shirt-collar, and rub his hat, than a Frenchman to rig out tout ensemble, to say nothing of the gallons of water and dozens of towels he uses up in the operation—John found the carriage waiting; he asked no questions, but jumped in.

"Isn't there some others beside yourself going out, sir?" says the driver, supposing he had the right man, or one of them.

"No; drive off—where are you going to drive me?"

"Mount Auburn, sir, the carriage was ordered for."

"Humph! Some of the battle-grounds, I suppose," John grunts to himself, falls into a fit of English doggedness, and the coach drives off.

Thomas Johns made little or no noise or confusion in the house, consequently he was not known to the servants, and very little known to the clerks. John Thomas was another person—he was all fuss and feathers. He kept his bell ringing, and the servants rushing for towels and water, water and towels, boots and beer, beer and boots, the English papers, maps of America, &c., without cessation. He was John Thomas and Thomas Johns, one and indivisible.

John got his ride, and returned to the hotel sulkier than ever; and by the time he got unrobed of his pea-jackets and huge shawls about his burly neck, he was telegraphed by a servant to come down; there was a gentleman below on business with him. John foreswore business, but the gentleman must see him, and up he came for that purpose. His unmistakable mug told he was "an officer."

"I've a bill against you, sir, $368,20. Must be paid immediately!" said the presenter, peremptorily.

John was thunderstruck.

"Me, and be hanged to ye!" says John, getting his breath.

"Yes, sir, for goods packed at Smith & Brown's, for Nova Scotia. The bill was to be paid this morning, as you agreed, but you told the clerk to go to the d—l! Won't do, that sort of work, here. Pay the bill, or you must go with me!"

John, when he found himself in custody, swore it was some infernal Yankee scheme to gouge him, and he started for the clerk's office, below, to have some explanation. As John and the officer reached the rotunda, a gentleman steps up behind John, and gives his nose a first-rate lug. They clinched, the bystanders and servants interposed, and John and his assailant were parted, and by this time the nose puller discovered he had the wrong man by the nose!

"Is your name Thomas Johns?" says the nose puller.

"Blast you, no!"

"Who pays this bill for the carriage, if your name ain't Johns?" says a man with a bill for the carriage hire.

"I allers heard as ow you Yan-gees were inquisitive, and sharp after the dollars, and I'm 'anged if you ain't awful. My name's John Thomas, from Lun'un, bound back again in the next steamer. Now who's got any thing against me?"

Thomas Johns came in at this climax, an explanation ensued, John was relieved of his embarrassment, and all were finally satisfied, except John Thomas, who, venting a few bottles of his spleen on every body and all things—Americans especially—took to his bed and beer, and snorted for a week.



The Yankee in a Boarding School.

"Well, squire, as I wer' tellin' on ye, when I went around pedlin' notions, I met many queer folks; some on 'em so darn'd preoud and sassy, they wouldn't let a feller look at 'em; a-n-d 'd shut their doors and gates, bang into a feller's face, jest as ef a Yankee pedler was a pizen sarpint! Then there waa-s t'other kind o' human critters, so pesky poor, or 'nation stingy, they'd pinch a fourpence till it'd squeal like a stuck pig. Ye-e-s, I do swow, I've met some critters so dog-ratted mean, that ef you had sot a steel trap onder their beds, a-n-d baited it with three cents, yeou'd a cotch ther con-feoun-ded souls afore mornin'!"

"Massy sakes!" responded the squire.

"Fact! by ginger!" echoed the ex-pedler.

"Well, go on, Ab," said the squire, giving his pipe another 'charge,' and lighting up for the yarn Absalom Slamm had promised the gals, soon as the quilt was out and refreshments were handed around.

"Go on, Ab—let's hear abeout that scrape yeou had with the school marm and her gals."

"Wall, I will, squire; gals, spread yeourselves areound and squat; take care o' yeour corset strings, and keep deth-ly still. Wall; neow, yeou all sot? Hain't none o' ye been in the pedlin' business, I guess; wall, no matter, tho' it's dread-ful pleasant sometimes: then again at others, 'taint."

"Go on, Ab, go on," said the squire.

"Ye-e-s; wall, as I was saying, 'beout tradin', none o' yeou ever been in the tradin' way? Wall, it deon't matter a cent; as I was agoin' to say, I had hard, hard luck one season—got clean busted all tew smash! O-o-o! it was dre-a-a-dful times; jest abeout the time Gineral Jackson clapped his we-toe on the hull o' the banks, kersock. Wall, yeou see, I got broke all tew flinders. My ole hoss died, the sun and rain beat up my wagon, I sold eout my notions tew a feller that paid me all in ceounter-fit money, and then he dug eout, as Parson Dodge says, to undiskivered kedn'try.

"There was only one way abeout it; I was beound to dew somethin', instead o' goin' to set deown and blubber; and as I layed stretched eout in bed one Sunday morning, in Marm Smith's tavern, in the cockloft among the old stuff, I spies a darn'd ole consarn that took my fancy immazin'! As Deb Brown said, when she 'sperienced rele-gen, I felt my sperrets raisin' me clean eout o' bed, and eout I beounced, like a pea in a hot skillet. Deown I goes to Marm Smith; the ole lady was dressed up to death in her Sunday-go-to-meetin's, and jest as preoud and sassy as her darn'd ole skin ceould heould in.

"'Marm Smith,' sez I, 'yeou hain't got no ole stuff yeou deon't want tew sell nor nuthin', dew ye?'

"'Ab Slamm,' sez she, plantin' her thumbs on her hip joints, and as the milishey officer ses on trainin' day, comin' at me, 'right face,' she spread herself like a clapboard. 'Ab Slamm,' sez she, 'what on airth possesses yeou to talk o' tradin' on the Sabbath?'

"'Wall,' sez I, 'Marm Smith, yeou needn't take on so 'beout it; I guess a feller kin ax a question witheout tradin' or breakin' the Sabbath all tew smash, either! Neow,' says I, 'yeou got some ole plunder up ther in the cockloft, where yeou stuck me to sleep; 'tain't much use to yeou, and one article I see I want to trade fur.'

"Wall, we didn't trade 'zactly. Marm Smith, yeou see, got dre-e-e-adful relejus 'beout that time—wouldn't let her gals draw ther breth scacely, and shot her roosters all up in the cellar every Sunday. Fact, by ginger! Wall, yeou see, Marm Smith were agin tradin' on Sunday, but she sed I might arrange it with Ben, her barkeeper, and so I got the instrument, any heow."

"What was it, Ab?" inquired the squire.

"Massy sakes, tell us!" says the gals.

"I sha'n't dew it, till I tell the hull abeout it," Ab replied, rather choosing, like Captain Cuttle, to break the gist of his information into small chunks, and so make it the more telling and comparatively interesting.

"When I got the instrument, and paid Marm Smith my board bill, I wer in possession of a cash capital of jest three fo'pences. I took my jack-knife, and unjinted the instrument, cleaned it off, then wrapped the different sections up in a paper, put the hull in my little yaller trunk, and dug eout. When I got clean eout o' sight and hearin' of everybody I'd ever hear'n tell on, I stopped r-i-g-h-t in my track. My cash capital wer gone, my mortal remains were holler as a flute, and my old trunk had worn a hole clean through the shoulder o' my best Sunday coat. I put up, and sez I tew the landlord:

"'Squire, what sort o' place is this for a sheow?'

"'For a sh-e-ow?' sez he.

"'Ye-e-e-s,' sez I.

"'What a' yeou got to sh-e-o-w?' sez he.

"'The most wonderful instrument ever inwent-'d,' sez I.

"'What's 't fur?' sez he.

"'For the wimen,' sez I.

"'O! sez he, lookin' alfired peart and smeart, as tho' he'd seen a flock o' l'fants; 'quack doctor, I s'pose, eh?'

"'No, I ben't a quack doctor, nuther,' sez I, priming up at the insin-i-wa-tion.

"'Wall, what on airth hev yeou got, any heow?' sez he.

"When he 'poligized in that sort o' way, in course I up and told him the full perticklers 'beout a wonderful instrument I had for the ladies and wimen folks. A-n-d heow I wanted to sheow it before some o' the female sim-i-nar-ries, and give a lectoor on't.

"'By bunker!' sez he, 'then yeou've cum jest teou the spot; three miles up the road is the great Jargon Institoot, 'spressly for young ladies, wher they teach 'em the 'rethmetic, French scollopin', and High-tall-ion curlycues; dancin', tight-lacin', hair-dressin', and so forth, with the use of curlin' irons, forty pinanners, and parfumeries chuck'd in.'

"'Yeou deon't say so?' sez I.

"'Yes, I doos,' sez he; and then yeou had orter seen me make streaks fur the Jargon Institoot.

"I feound the place, knocked on the door, and a feller all starch'd up, lookin' cruel nice, kem and opened the door. I axed if the marm were in. Then he wanted tew kneow which of 'em I wanted tew see. 'The head marm of the Institoot,' sez I. 'Please to give me yeour keard,' sez he. 'You be darn'd,' sez I; 'I'd have yeou know, mister,' sez I, 'I don't deal in keards—never did, nuther!'

"The feller show'd a heap o' ivory, and brought deown the head marm. It weould a' dun Marm Smith's ole heart good to seen this dre-e-a-d-ful pius critter. She looked mighty nice, a-n-d she scolloped reound, and beow'd and cut an orful quantity o' capers, when I ondid my business to her. I went on and told her heow in course o' travel—

"'In furrin pearts?' sez she.

"'Yes,' sez I—'I kim across a great instrument,' sez I. 'It was well known to the wimen and ladies o' the past gin-i-rations,' sez I.

"'The an-shants?' sez she.

"'Yes, marm,' sez I. Then she axed me wether it wer a wind instrer-ment or a stringed instrer-ment. A-n-d I told her it wer a stringed instrer-ment, but went on the hurdy-gurdy pren-cipl', with a crank or treddle. But what I moost dwelt on, as the ox-ion-eer sez, were the great combinations of the instrer-ment, a-n-d I piled it up dre-e-e-adful! I told the marm I wanted to git the thing patented, and put before the people—the wimen and ladies in per-tick'ler—so that every gal in the univarsal world could play upon it—exercise her hands, strengthen her arms and chist, give her form a nater-al de-welop-ment, and so make the hull grist o' wimen critters useful, as well as or-namental, as my instrer-ment was a useful necessity; for while it lent grace and beauty to the female form, and gin forth fust rate music, it was par-fect-ly scriptooral; it ceould be made to clothe the naked and feed the hon-gry. My il-o-quince had the marm. She 'greed to buy one of my machines straight fur use of her Institoot—each school-gal to 'put in' by next day, when I wer to bring the instrer-ment, get my $40, and deliver a lectoor on it. Next mornin', bright and early, I wer there; the puss wer made up, and the gals nigh abeout bilin' over with curiosity to see my wonderful hand-limberer, arm-strengthener, chist-expander, female-beautifier, and univarsal musical machine! When they all got assembled, I ondid the machine; they wer still as death! When I sot it up, they wer breathless with wonderment; when I started it, they gin a gineral screech of delight. Then I sot deown and played 'em old hund'erd, and every gal in the room vowed right eout she'd have one made straight! O-o-o! yeou'd a died to seen the excitement that instrer-ment made in Jargon Institoot. The head marm wanted my ortergraff, and each o' the gals a lock o' my hair. But just then, a confeounded ole woolly-headed Virginny nigger wench, cook o' the Jargon Institoot, kem in, and the moment she clapped her ole eyes on my inwention, she roared reight eout, 'O! de Lud, ef dar ain't one de ole Virginny spinnin' wheels!' I kinder had bus'ness somewheres else 'beout that time! I took with a leaving!"



A Dreadful State of Excitement.

A retrospective view of some ten or fifteen years, brings up a wonderful "heap of notions," which at their birth made quite a different sensation from that which their "bare remembrance" would seem to sanction now. The statement made in a "morning paper" before us, of a fine horse being actually scared stone and instantaneously dead, by a roaring and hissing locomotive, brings to mind "a circumstance," which though it did not exactly do our knitting, it came precious near the climax!

Some years ago, upon what was then considered the "frontier" of Missouri, we chanced to be laid up with a "game leg," in consequence of a performance of a bullet-headed mule that we were endeavoring to coerce at the end of a corn stalk, for his "intervention" in a fodder stack to which he could lay no legitimate claim. About two miles from our "lodgings" was a store, a "grocery," shotecary pop, boots, hats, gridirons, whiskey, powder and shot, &c., &c., and the post office. About three times a week, we used to hobble down to this modern ark, to read the news, see what was going on down in the world, and—pass a few hours with the proprietor of the store, who chanced to be a man with whom we had had a former acquaintance "in other climes." Well, one day, we dropped down to the store, and found pretty much all the men folks—and they were not numerous around there, the houses or cabins being rather scattering—getting ready to go down the river (Missouri) some ten miles, to see a notorious desperado "stretch hemp." My friend Captain V——, the storekeeper, was about to go along too, and proposed that we should mount and accompany him, or—stay and tend store. We accepted the latter proposition, as we were in no travelling kelter, and had no taste for performances on the tight rope. Having officiated for Captain V—— on several former occasions, we had the run of his "grocery" and postal arrangements quite fluent enough to take charge of all the trade likely to turn up that day; so the captain and his friends started, promising a return before sunset.

One individual, living some seven miles up the road, called for his newspaper, and got his jug filled, spent a couple of hours with us—put out, and was succeeded by two squalid Indians, with some skins to trade for corn juice and tobacco; they cleared out, and about two or three P. M., some movers came along; we had a little dicker with them, and that closed up the business accounts of the day.

Having discussed all the availables, from the contents of the post office—seven newspapers and four letters per quarter!—to the crackers and cheese, and business being essentially stagnated, we ups and lies down upon the top of the counter, to take a nap. Captain V——'s store was a log building, about 15 by 30, and stood near the edge of the woods, and at least half a mile from any habitation, except the schoolhouse and blacksmith's shop, two small huts, and at that time—"in coventry." Captain V—— was a bachelor; he boarded—that is, he took his meals at the nearest house—half a mile back from the wood, and slept in his store. We soon fell into the soft soothing arms of Morpheus, and—slept. It was fine mild weather—September, and, of course, the door was wide open. How long we slept we were not at all conscious, but were aroused by a heavy hand that gave us a hearty shake by the shoulder, and in a rather sepulchral voice says—

"How are you?"

Gods! we were up quick, for our sleep had been visited by dreams of southwest tragedies, hanging scrapes, and other nightmare affairs, and as we opened our eyes and caught a glimpse of the double-fisted, cadaverous fellow standing over us, a strong inclination to go off into a cold sweat seized us! Lo! it was after sunset! Almost dark in the store, the stars had already began to twinkle in the sky.

Captain V—— did a considerable trade at his store, and at times had considerable sums of money laying around. Upon leaving in the morning, he notified us, in case we should require change, to look into the desk, where he kept a shot bag of silver coin, and—his pistols.

"How are you?" the words and manner and looks of the man gave us a cold chill.

"How do you do?" we managed to respond, at the same time sliding down behind the counter. The stranger had a heavy walking stick in his hand, and a knapsack looking bundle swung to his shoulder. He looked like the rough remnants of an ill-spent life; had evidently travelled somewhere where barbers, washer-women and such like civilian delicacies, were more matters of tradition than fact.

"Been asleep, eh?" he carelessly continued.

"It appears so," said we, feeling no better or more satisfactory in our mind, and no reason to, for night was now closing in, and we were going through our performances by the slight illumination of the stars, without any positive certainty as to where the Captain kept his tinder box and candle, that we might furnish some sort of light upon the lugubrious state of affairs.

"Do you keep this store?"

"No, we do not," we answered, watching the man as he put his bundle down upon the counter.

"Who does?" was the next question.

"The gentleman who keeps it," we replied, "is away to-day."

"Ah, gone to see a poor human being put out of the world, eh?"

We said "yes," or something of the kind, and thought to ourself, no doubt you know all that's going on of that sort of business like a book, and a host of other ideas flashed across our mind, while all the evil deeds of note transacted in that region for the past ten years, seemed awakened in our mind's eye, working up our nervous system, until the coon skin cap upon our excited head stood upon about fifteen hairs, with the strange and overwhelming impression that our time had come! We would have given the State of Missouri—if it were in our possession, to have heard Captain V——'s voice, or even have had a fair chance to dash out at the door, and give the fellow before us a specimen of tall walking—lame as we were!

"Ain't you got a light? I'd think you'd be a little timid (a little timid!) about laying around here, alone, in the dark, too?" said the fellow, sticking one hand into his coat pocket, and gazing sharply around the store. Mock heroically says we—

"Afraid? Afraid of what?" our valor, like Bob Acres', oozing out at our fingers.

"These outlaws you've got around here," said he. "They say the man they hanged to-day was a decent fellow to what some are, who prowl around in this country!"

We very modestly said, "that such fellows never bothered us."

"Do you sleep in this store—live here?"

"No, sir, we don't," was our answer.

"Where do you lodge and get your eating?"

"First house up the road."

"How far is it?" says he.

"Half a mile or less."

"Well, close up your shop, and come along with me!" says the fellow.

Now we were coming to the tableaux! He wanted us to step outside in order that the business could be done for us, with more haste and certainty, and we really felt as good as assassinated and hid in the bushes! It was quite astonishing how our visual organs intensified! We could see every wrinkle and line in the fellow's face, could almost count the stitches in his coat, and the more we looked, and the keener and more searching became our observation, the more atrocious and subtle became the fellow and his purpose. With a firmness that astonished ourself, we said—

"No, Sir; if you have business there or elsewhere, you had better go!" and with this determined speech, we walked up to the desk, and with the air of a "man of business" or the nonchalance of a hero, says we—

"What are you after—have you any business with us?"

"You're kind of crusty, Mister," says he. "I'm canvassing this State,—wouldn't you like to subscribe for a first-rate map of Missouri, OR A NEW EDITION OF JOSEPHUS?"

We felt too mean all over to "subscribe," but we found a light, and soon found in the stranger one of the best sort of fellows, a man of information and morality, and, though he had looked dangerous, he turned out harmless as a lamb, and we got intimate as brothers before Captain V—— returned that night.



Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Of all the public lecturers of our time and place, none have attracted more attention from the press, and consequently the people, than RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Lecturing has become quite a fashionable science—and now, instead of using the old style phrases for illustrating facts, we call travelling preachers perambulating showmen, and floating politicians, lecturers.

As a lecturer, Ralph Waldo Emerson is extensively known around these parts; but whether his lectures come under the head of law, logic, politics, Scripture, or the show business, is a matter of much speculation; for our own part, the more we read or hear of Ralph, the more we don't know what it's all about.

Somebody has said, that to his singularity of style or expression, Carlyle and his works owe their great notoriety or fame—and many compare Ralph Waldo to old Carlyle. They cannot trace exactly any great affinity between these two great geniuses of the flash literary school. Carlyle writes vigorously, quaintly enough, but almost always speaks when he says something; on the contrary, our flighty friend Ralph speaks vigorously, yet says nothing! Of all men that have ever stood and delivered in presence of "a reporter," none surely ever led these indefatigable knights of the pen such a wild-goose chase over the verdant and flowery pastures of King's English, as Ralph Waldo Emerson. In ordinary cases, a reporter well versed in his art, catches a sentence of a speaker, and goes on to fill it out upon the most correct impression of what was intended, or what is implied. But no such license follows the outpourings of Mr. Emerson; no thought can fathom his intentions, and quite as bottomless are even his finished sentences. We have known "old stagers," in the newspaporial line, veteran reporters, so dumbfounded and confounded by the first fire of Ralph, and his grand and lofty acrobating in elocution, that they up, seized their hat and paper, and sloped, horrified at the prospect of an attempt to "take down" Mr. Emerson.

If Roaring Ralph touches a homely mullen weed, on a donkey heath, straightway he makes it a full-blown rose, in the land of Ophir, shedding an odor balmy as the gales of Arabia; while with a facility the wonderful London auctioneer Robbins might envy, Ralph imparts to a lime-box, or pig-sty, a negro hovel, or an Irish shanty, all the romance, artistic elegance and finish of a first-class manor-house, or Swiss cottage, inlaid with alabaster and fresco, surrounded by elfin bowers, grand walks, bee hives, and honeysuckles.

Ralph don't group his metaphorical beauties, or dainties of Webster, Walker, &c., but rushes them out in torrents—rattles them down in cataracts and avalanches—bewildering, astounding, and incomprehensible. He hits you upon the left lug of your knowledge box with a metaphor so unwieldy and original, that your breath is soon gone—and before it is recovered, he gives you another rhapsody on t'other side, and as you try to steady yourself, bim comes another, heavier than the first two, while a fourth batch of this sort of elocution fetches you a bang over the eyes, giving you a vertigo in the ribs of your bewildered senses, and before you can say "God bless us!" down he has you—cobim! with a deluge of high-heeled grammar and three-storied Anglo Saxon, settling your hash, and brings you to the ground by the run, as though you were struck by lightning, or in the way of a 36-pounder! Ralph Waldo is death and an entire stud of pale horses on flowery expressions and japonica-domish flubdubs. He revels in all those knock-kneed, antique, or crooked and twisted words we used all of us to puzzle our brains over in the days of our youth, and grammar lessons and rhetoric exercises. He has a penchant as strong as cheap boarding-house butter, for mystification, and a free delivery of hard words, perfectly and unequivocally wonderful. We listened one long hour by the clock of Rumford Hall, one night, to an outpouring of argumentum ad hominem of Mr. Emerson's—at what? A boy under an apple tree! If ten persons out of the five hundred present were put upon their oaths, they could no more have deciphered, or translated Mr. Ralph's argumentation, than they could the hieroglyphics upon the walls of Thebes, or the sarcophagus of old King Pharaoh! When Ralph Waldo opens, he may be as calm as a May morn—he may talk for five minutes, like a book—we mean a common-sensed, understandable book; but all of a sudden the fluid will strike him—up he goes—down he fetches them. He throws a double somerset backwards over Asia Minor—flip-flaps in Greece—wings Turkey—and skeets over Iceland; here he slips up with a flower garden—a torrent of gilt-edged metaphors, that would last a country parson's moderate demand a long lifetime, are whirled with the fury and fleetness of Jove's thunderbolts. After exhausting his sweet-scented receiver of this floral elocution, he pauses four seconds; pointing to vacuum, over the heads of his audience, he asks, in an anxious tone, "Do you see that?" Of course the audience are not expected to be so unmannerly as to ask "What?" If they were, Ralph would not give them time to "go in," for after asking them if they see that, he continues—

"There! Mark! Note! It is a malaria prism! Now, then; here—there; see it! Note it! Watch it!"

During this time, half of the audience, especially the old women and the children, look around, fearful of the ceiling falling in, or big bugs lighting on them. But the pause is for a moment, and anxiety ceases when they learn it was only a false alarm, only—

"Egotism! The lame, the pestiferous exhalation or concrete malformation of society!"

You breathe freer, and Ralph goes in, gloves on.

"Egotism! A metaphysical, calcareous, oleraceous amentum of—society! The mental varioloid of this sublunary hemisphere! One of its worst feelings or features is, the craving of sympathy. It even loves sickness, because actual pain engenders signs of sympathy. All cultivated men are infected more or less with this dropsy. But they are still the leaders. The life of a few men is the life of every place. In Boston you hear and see a few, so in New York; then you may as well die. Life is very narrow. Bring a few men together, and under the spell of one calm genius, what frank, sad confessions will be made! Culture is the suggestion from a few best thoughts that a man should not be a charlatan, but temper and subdue life. Culture redresses his balance, and puts him among his equals. It is a poor compliment always to talk with a man upon his specialty, as if he were a cheese-mite, and was therefore strong on Cheshire and Stilton. Culture takes the grocer out of his molasses and makes him genial. We pay a heavy price for those fancy goods, Fine Arts and Philosophy. No performance is worth loss of geniality. That unhappy man called of genius, is an unfortunate man. Nature always carries her point despite the means!"

If that don't convince you of Ralph's high-heeled, knock-kneed logic, or au fait dexterity in concocting flap-doodle mixtures, you're ahead of ordinary intellect as far as this famed lecturer is in advance of gin and bitters, or opium discourses on—delirium tremens!

In short, Ralph Waldo Emerson can wrap up a subject in more mystery and science of language than ever a defunct Egyptian received at the hands of the mummy manufacturers! In person, Mr. Ralph is rather a pleasing sort of man; in manners frank and agreeable; about forty years of age, and a native of Massachusetts. As a lawyer, he would have been the horror of jurors and judges; as a lecturer, he is, as near as possible, what we have described him.



Humbug.

There is no end to the humbug in life. About half we say, and more than half we do, is tinged with humbug. "My Dear Sir," we say, when we address a letter to a fellow we have never seen, and if seen, perhaps don't care a continental cent for him; dear sir! what a humbug expression! "Good morning," (what a lie!) says one, as he meets another one, on a stormy and nasty day, "quite a disagreeable wet day!" What's the use of such a humbug expression as that? If it's a disagreeable and stormy day, every body finds it out, naturally. Full half of the people who appear solicitous about your health, display a gratuitous amount of humbug, for your pocket-book is more beloved than your health; and we have often wondered why matter-of-fact people don't out with it, when they meet, and say—"How's your pocket to-day? Sorry to hear you're out of money!" Or, instead of soft soap, when they meet, why not discard humbug, and say, "Sorry to see you—was blackguarding you all day!" instead of "Glad to see you—have been thinking of you to-day!" or, "I'm glad to see you've been elected Mayor of the city!" when in fact they mean, "Curse you, I wish you had been defeated!" Compliments pass, they say, when gentlemen meet, but, as there are so many counterfeit gentry around, now-a-days, you may bet high that half the compliments that pass are—mere bogus!



Hotel Keeping.

Fortunes are made—very readily, it is said, in our large cities, by Hotel keeping. It does look money-making business to a great many people, who stop in a large hotel a day or two, and perhaps, after eating about two meals out of six—walking in quietly and walking out quietly—no fuss, no feathers, find themselves taxed four or five dollars!

We have had occasion to know something of travel and travellers, hotels, hotel-keepers and their bills, and it has now and then entered our head that money was or could be made—in the hotel business. We have stopped in houses where we honestly concluded—we got our money's worth, and we have again had reason to believe ourselves grossly shaved, in a "first-class" hotel, at two dollars a day—all hurry-scurry, poked up in the cock-loft, mid bugs, dirt, heat and effluvia, very little better than a Dutch tavern in fly time.

We did not fail to observe at the same time, that cool impudence and clamor had a most mollifying effect upon landlord and his attaches, the tinsel and mere electrotypes passing for real bullion, galvanized hums by their noise and pretensions faring fifty per cent. better for the same price—than the more republican, quiet and human wayfarer.

Under such auspices, it is not at all wonderful that ourself and scores of others, paying two dollars and a half per diem, got what we could catch, while Kossuth, and a score of his followers, fared and were favored like princes of a monarchical realm—"though all dead heads!"

Hotels now-a-days must be showy, abounding in tin foil, Dutch metal and gamboge, a thousand of the "modern improvements"—mere clap-trap, and as foreign to the solid comforts of solid people, as icebergs to Norwegians or "east winds" to the consumptive. Without the show, they would be quite deserted; men will pay for this show, must pay for it, and all this show costs money; Turkey carpets, life-size mirrors, ottomans and marble slabs, from dome to kitchen, draw well, and those who indulge in the dance, must pay the piper.

The fact is, most people understand these things about as well as we do, and it but remains for us to give a daguerreotype of a few customers which landlords or their clerks and servants now and then meet. The conductor of one of our first-class houses, gives us such a truly piquant and matter-of-fact picture of his experience, that we up and copy it, believing, as we do, that the reader will see some information and amusement in the subject.

A fussy fellow takes it into his head that he will go on a little tour, he pockets a few dollars and a clean dickey or two, and—comes to town. He's no green horn—O! no, he ain't, he has been around some—he has, and knows a thing or two, and something over. He is dumped out of the cars with hundreds of others, in the great depots, and is assailed by vociferous whips who, in quest of stray dimes, watch the incoming trains and shout and bawl—

"Eh 'up! Tremont House!"

"Up—a! American House—right away!"

"Ha! up! Right off for the Revere!"

"Here's the coach—already for the United States!"

"Yee 'up! now we go, git in, best house in town, all ready for the Winthrop House!"

"Eh 'up, ha! now we are off, for the Pavilion!"

"Exchange Coffee House—dollar a day, four meals, no extra charge—right along this way, sir!"

"Hoo-ray, this coach—take you right up, Exchange Hotel!"

"Jump in, tickets for your baggage, sir, take you up—right off, best house in town, hot supper waitin'—way for the Adams House!"

And so they yell and grab at you, and our fussy friend, having heard of the tall arrangements and great doings of the American, he hands himself over to the coachman, and with a load of others he is rolled over to that institution, in a jiffy. Our fussy friend is slightly "took down" at the idea of paying for the hauling up, having a notion that that was a part of the accommodation! However, he ain't a going to look small or verdant; so he pays the coachman, grabs his valise, and rushes into the long colonnaded office; and making his way to the register, slams down his baggage, and in a dignified, authoritative manner, says—

"A room!"

"Yes, sir," responds the Colonel, or some of the clerks—who may be officiating.

"Supper!" says Capt. Fussy, in the same tone of command.

"Certainly, sir—please register your name, sir!"

Captain Fussy off's gloves, seizes the pen, and down goes his autograph, Captain Fussy, Thumperstown, N. H.

"Now, I want a hot steak!" says he.

"You can have it, sir!" blandly replies the Colonel.

"Hot chocolate," continues Fussy.

"Certainly, sir!"

"Eggs, poached, and a—hot roll!"

"They'll be all ready, sir."

"How soon?"

"Five minutes, sir," says the Colonel, talking to a dozen at the same time.

"Ah, well—show me my room!" says Captain Fussy.

The bells are ringing—servants running to and fro, like witches in a whirlwind; fifty different calls—tastes—orders and fancies, are being served, but Capt. Fussy is attended to, a servant seizes his valise and a taper, and in the most winning way, cries—

"This way, sir, right along!" With a measured tread and the air of a man who knew what it was all about, the Captain follows the garcon and mounts one flight of the broad stairs, and is about to ascend another, when it strikes him that he's not going up to the top of the house, nohow!

"Where are you going to take me to—up into the garret?"

"Oh! no, sir; your room's only 182; that's only on the third floor!"

"Third floor!" cries Capt. Fussy, "take me up into the third story?"

"Plenty of gentlemen on the fifth and sixth floors, sir," says the servant, and he goes ahead, Capt. Fussy following, muttering—

"Pooty doin's this, taking a gentleman up three of these cussed long stairs, to room 182! I'll see about this, I will; mus'n't come no gammon over me; I'm able to pay, and want the worth of my money!"

The third floor is reached, and after a brief meandering along the halls, 182 is arrived at, the door thrown open and Capt. Fussy is ushered in; his first effort is to find fault with the carpets, furniture, bedding or something, but as he had never probably seen such a general arrangement for ease, comfort and convenience—he caved in and merely gave a deep-toned—

"Ah. Got better rooms than this, ain't you?"

"There may be, sir, a few better rooms in the house, not many," said the servant.

"Well, you may go—but stop—how soon'll my supper be ready?"

"There'll be a supper set at eight, another at nine, sir."

"Ah, four minutes of eight," says Fussy, pulling out a "bull's eye" watch, with as much flourish as if it was a premium eighteen-carat lever. "Well, call me when you've got supper ready, do you hear?"

"Yes, sir; but you'll hear the gong."

"The gong—what's that? Ain't you got no bells?"

"The gong is used, sir, instead of bells," says the servant.

"Ah, well, clear out—but say, I want a fire in here."

"Yes, sir; I'll send up a fireman."

"A fireman? What do I want with firemen? Bring in some wood, and, stranger—start up—a hello! thunder and saw mills, what's all that racket about—house a-fire?"

"No, sir!" says the grinning servant—"the gong—supper's on the table!"

"Ah, very well; go ahead; where's the room?"

Conducted to the dining-room, Capt. Fussy's eyes stretch at the wholesale display of table-cloths, arm-chairs, "crockery" and cutlery, mirrors and white-aproned waiters. A seat is offered him, he dumps himself down, amazed but determined to look and act like one used to these affairs, from the hour of his birth!

"I ordered hot steak, poached eggs—hain't you got 'em?"

"Certainly, sir!" says the waiter, and the steak and eggs are at hand.

"Coffee or tea, sir?" another servant inquires.

"Coffee and tea! Humph, I ordered chocolate—hain't you got chocolate?"

"Oh, yes, sir; there it is."

"Ah, umph!" and Fussy gazes around and turns his nose slightly up, at the whole concern, waiters, guests, table, steak, eggs, chocolate, and—even the tempting hot rolls—before him.

Fussy calls for a glass of water, wants to know if there's fried oysters on the table; he finds there is not, and Fussy frowns and asks for a lobster salad, which the waiter informs him is never used at supper, in that hotel.

Eventually, Capt. Fussy being crammed, after an hour's diligent feeding, fuss and feathers, retires, asks all sorts of questions about people and places, at the office; what time trains start and steamers come, omnibuses here and stages there, all of which he is politely answered, of course, and he finally goes to his room, rings his bell every ten minutes, for an hour, and then—goes to bed; next day puts the servants and clerks over another course, and on the third day—calls for his bill, finds but few extras charged, hands over a five, puts on his gloves, seizes his valise, looks savagely dignified and stalks out, big as two military officers in regimentals!

"Ah," says Fussy, as he reaches the street, "I put 'em through—I guess I got the worth of my money!"

We calculate he did!



"According to Gunter."

Old Gunter was going home t'other night with a very heavy "turkey on"—about a forty-four pounder. Gunter accused the pavements of being icy, and down he came—kerchug! A "young lady" coming along, fidgetting and finiking, she made a very sudden and opposite ricochet, on seeing Gunter feeling the ground, and making abortive attempts to "riz." Gunter's gallantry was "up;" he knew his own weakness, and saw the difficulty with the "young lady;" so making a very determinate effort to get on his pins, Gunter elevated his head and then his voice, and says he: "My de-dea-dear ma'm, do-do-don't pu-pu-put yourself out of th-th-the way, on my account!" Tableaux—"young lady" quick-step, and Gunter playing all-fours in the mud!



Quartering upon Friends.

City-bred people have a pious horror of the country in winter, and no great regard for country visitors at any time, however much they may "let on" to the contrary.

In rushing hot weather, when the bricks and mortar, the stagnated, oven-like air of the crowded city threatens to bake, parboil, or give the "citizens" the yellow fever, then we are very apt to think of plain Aunt Polly, rough-hewed Uncle John, and the bullet-headed, uncombed, smock-frocked cousins, nephews, and nieces, at their rural homes, amid the fragrant meadows and umbrageous woods; the cool, silver streams and murmuring brooks of the glorious country. Then, the poetic sunbeams and moonshine of fancy bring to the eye and heart all or a part of the glories and beauties, uses and purposes in which God has invested the ruraldom.

Now, our country friends are mostly desirous, candidly so, to have their city friends come and see them—not merely pop visits, but bring your whole family, and stay a month! This they may do, and will do, and can afford it, as it is more convenient to one's pocket-book, on a farm, to quarter a platoon of your friends than to perform the same operation in the city, where it is apt to give your purse the tick-dollar-owe in no time.

It was not long since, during the prevalence of a hot summer, that Mrs. Triangle one morning said to her stewing husband, who was in no wise troubled with a surplus of the circulating medium—

"Triangle, it's on-possible for us to keep the children well and quiet through this dreadful hot weather. We must go into the country. The Joneses and Pigwigginses and Macwackinses, and—and—everybody has gone out into the country, and we must go, too; why can't we?"

"Why can't we?" mechanically echoed Triangle, who just then was deeply absorbed in a problem as to whether or not, considering the prices of coal, potatoes, house-rents, leather, and "dry goods," he would fetch up in prison or the poor-house first! It was a momentous question, and to his wife's proposal of a fresh detail of domestic expense, Triangle responded—

"Why can't we?"

"Yes, that's what I'd like to know—why can't we?"

"We can't, Mrs. Triangle," decidedly answered her lord and master.

Now Mrs. T., being but a woman, very naturally went on to give Mr. T. a Caudle lecture half an hour long, winding up with one of those time-honored perquisites of the female sex—a good cry.

Poor Triangle put on his hat and marched down to his bake-oven of an "office," to plan business and smoke his cigar. Triangle came home to tea, and saw at a glance that something must be done. Mrs. Triangle was to be "compromised," or far hotter than even the hot, hot weather would be his domicile for the balance of the season. Triangle thought it over, as he nibbled his toast and sipped his hot Souchong.

"My dear," said he, pushing aside his cup, and tilting himself upon the "hind legs" of his chair—"business is very dull, the weather is intolerable, I know you and the children would be much benefitted by a trip into the country—why can't we go?"

"Why can't we?—that's what I'd like to know!" was the ready response of Mrs. T.

"Well, we can go. My friend Jingo has as fine a place in the country as ever was, anywhere; he has asked me again and again to come down in the summer, and bring all the family. Now we'll go; Jingo will be delighted to see us; and we'll have a good, pleasant time, I'll warrant."

Mrs. Triangle was delighted; soon all the clouds of her temper were dispersed, and like people "cut out for each other," Triangle and his wife sat and planned the details of the tour to Jingo Hill Farm. Frederic Antonio Gustavus was to be rigged out in new boots, hat, and breeches. Maria Evangeline Roxana Matilda was to be fitted out in Polka boots, gipsey bonnet, and Bloomer pantalettes, with an entire invoice of handkerchiefs, scarfs, ribbons, gloves, and hosiery for "mother," little Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, and the baby, Henry Rinaldo Mercutio. After three days' onslaught upon poor Triangle's pockets, with any quantity of "fuss and feathers," Mrs. Triangle pronounced the caravan ready to move. But just as all was ready, Bridget Durfy, the maid-of-all-work, who was to accompany them on the expedition as supervisor of the children, threw up her engagement.

"Plaze the pigs," said Biddy; "it's mesilf as niver likes the counthry, at all; an' I'll jist be afther not goin', ma'm, wid yez!"

Here was a go—or rather a "no go!" Triangle had bought tickets for all, and ordered the carriage at four; it was now three P. M., of a hot, roasting day. It would be "on-possible," as Mrs. T. said, to go without a girl; so poor, sweltering Triangle rushed down to the "Intelligence Office," where, from the sweating mass of female humanity awaiting a market for their time and labor, Triangle selected a stout, hearty Irish blonde, warranted perfect, capable, kind, honest, and the Lord only knows how many virtues the keeper of an "Intelligence Office" will not swear belong to one of their stock in trade.

Away went Triangle, sweating and swearing; the Irish maiden, swinging a bundle in one hand and a flaring bandanna in the other, following after her patron with a duck-waddle; and finally the carriage came; all got in but Triangle, who started on foot to the depot, carrying his double-barrelled gun and leading an ugly dog, which he rejoiced in believing was a full-blooded setter, though the best posted dog-fanciers assured him it was a cross between a tan-yard cur and a sheep-stealer! But, after a world of motion and commotion—on the part of Triangle, about the dog, tickets and baggage, and Mrs. Triangle, about the children, satchels, her new gown, and the sleepy Irish girl—they found themselves whisked over the rails, and after some three hours' carriage, they were dumped down in the vicinity of Jingo Hall, where they found the "private conveyance" of the proprietor of Jingo Hill Farm waiting to carry them, bandbox and bundle, rag-tag and bobtail, to Jingo Hall.

The carriage being overfull, Triangle concluded to walk up, stretch his legs, try his dog and gun, and have a pop at the game. But, alas, for the villanous dog; no sooner had he got loose and scampered off up the road, than he sees a flock of sheep some distance across the fields, and away he pitched. The sheep ran, he after the sheep; and poor Triangle after his dog.

"Hay! you Ponto—here—hay—Ponto-o-o! Hey, boy, come here, you dog—hi! hi!—do you hear-r-r?"

But Ponto was off, and after a run of half a mile, he came up with a lamb, and before Triangle could come to the rescue, Ponto had opened the campaign by killing sheep! Triangle was so put out about it that in wrath he up with his gun and was about to terminate the existence of the dog, but compromised the matter by hitting him a whack across the back with the barrels of his shooting-iron; in doing so, he broke off the stock, clean as a whistle! It is useless to deny that Triangle was mad; that he swore equal to an Erie Canal boatman; and that his fury so alarmed the dog that he took to his heels and went—as Triangle hoped—anywhere, head foremost.



With a face as long as a boot-jack, quite tuckered out and disgusted with things as far as he had got, Triangle reached Jingo Hall, where he met the warm welcome of his friend, Major Jingo, and soon recuperated his good humor and physical activity by the contents of the Major's "well-stocked" wine-cellar. Ashamed of the facts of the case, Triangle trumped up a cock-and-bull story about the dog and gun.

After a season, the Triangles got settled away, and the first day or two passed without anything extraordinary turning up, if we may except the upturning of several flower-pots and hen's nests by the children. But the third day opened ominously. Triangle's dog was found with one of the Major's dead lambs under convoy, and the Irish hostler had caught him, tied him up in the stable, and given him such a dressing that Ponto's soul-case was nearly beaten out of him!

The next item was a yowl in the garden! Everybody rushed out—Mrs. Triangle in her excitement, lest something had happened to "baby," and Nora, the girl, struck the centre-table, upset the "Astral," and not only demolished that ancient piece of furniture, but spilled enough thick oil over the gilt-edged literature, table-cloth, and carpet, to make a barrel of soft soap.

The Irish girl came bounding, screeching forth! She had been sauntering through the garden, and ran against the bee-hives, when a bee up and at her. With a presence of mind truly unparalleled, she laid down "baby" upon the grass, and made fight with "the spiteful craturs;" and of course she got her hands full, was beset by tens and hundreds, and was stung in as many places by the pugnacious "divils." Nora was done for. She went to bed; "baby" was found all right, laughing "fit to break its yitty hearty party, at naughty Nora Dory," as Mrs. Triangle very naturally expressed it.

These two tableaux had hardly reached their climax, when in rushed Frederic Antonio Gustavus, with his capacious apron full of "birds he killed in the yard, down by the barns." Poor Jingo! and we may add, poor Mrs. Jingo! for a favorite brood of the finest fowls in the country had been exterminated by the chivalrous young Triangle, and in the bloom of his heroic act he dropped the dead game at the feet of his horror-stricken mother, and astonished father, and the Jingos.

That night the effect of stuffing with green fruit to utter suffocation manifested itself in a general and alarming cholera-morbus among the junior Triangles, and the whole house was up in arms.

In the midst of this, a fresh clamor broke out in Nora's chamber. A huge bat had got into her room, and so alarmed her, that she yelled worse, louder, and longer than seven evil ones.

It was a night of horror to the whole family—to everybody in and about Jingo Hall. The dogs set up a howl; the children bawled, cried, and took on; the Irish girl screeched; gin and laudanum, peppermint and "lollypops," the de'il to pay and no pitch hot.

Triangle felt relieved when daylight came, and had it not been Sunday, he would have packed up and put back for the prosy office and stagnated quietude of the city. But it was Sunday, and after the children, Irish girl, and dogs had been partially quieted, down the carriage came to the door, and as many as could get into it of the Jingos and Triangles, rolled off to meeting.

Triangle and Jingo went to escape the din and noise of dressing "the babies," &c.; and after the service was over, poor Triangle was taken aside by a tall, bony man, who reported himself in no very ceremonious manner as the proprietor of a flock of sheep scared to death, and one rare lamb killed—"by your dog!" Triangle owned to the soft impeachment, and "compromised" for a V.

Returned to Jingo Hall, another coup d'etat all around the lot had broken out. Evangeline Roxana Matilda Triangle had disappeared. The baby, Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, had fallen from a swing in the grove and dislocated her wrist, and flattened her pretty nose quite to her pretty face. Baby was very ill, and from the groans issuing from Nora's attic, it was not on-possible that she was sick as she could be. A general search took place for Evangeline Roxana Matilda, while Maj. Jingo mounted a horse and rode over to the village, to bring down a doctor for Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, "the baby," and—Nora Dougherty.

A glance at the Irish girl convinced poor tried Triangle that she was a case—of small-pox.

Maj. Jingo returned, but without a medical adviser; the village Esculapius having gone off to the city. Things looked gloomy enough. Triangle felt "chawed up," and wished he had been roasted alive in the city before venturing upon such a trip. But he felt he had a duty to perform, and he determined to put it through.

"Major, I'm very sorry, but the fact is"——

"Never mind, never mind, my dear fellow—no trouble to us."

"But," chokingly continued poor Triangle, "but, Major, the fact is, I—a—you've got a large family"——

"Never mind, my dear boy; don't say any more about it."

"But to have the—a—the—small-pox"——

"What?" gasped the Major—"the—a"——

"Small-pox!" seriously enough responded Triangle.

"Small-pox! Who? Where?"

"Our Irish girl—up stairs—awful!"

"O, good Lord! Irish—up stairs—small-pox!" reiterated the really alarmed proprietor of Jingo Hall.

"I wouldn't have"—said Triangle.

"The small-pox in my house"—echoed Jingo.

"For all the blessed countries in the world!" passionately exclaimed Triangle.

"Heavens!" exclaimed the Major; "my wife has a greater dread of small-pox than yellow fever, or death itself!"

"What's to be done?" said poor Triangle.

"Remove the girl to an out-house, instantly!" said the Major, pacing up and down, in great furore.

"That's best, Major; go move her, at once."

"Me? Me move her, sir?" said Jingo.

"Why who will, Major?" responded Triangle.

"Who? Why, you, of course."

"Me?" exclaimed Triangle—"me? endanger my life, and the lives of all my family—me? No, sir, I'll—I'll—I'll be hanged if I do!"

"Blur a' nouns, zur!" bawled the Irish hostler, as he came trotting up to the front veranda, where Triangle and Jingo were discussing the transportation of small-pox—

"Blur a' nouns—the dog's loose!"

"Curse the dog!" said the Major.

"But, zur, it's raving mad, he is!"

"Mad! my dog?" cries Triangle.

"A mad dog, too!" exclaims the Major, in horror.

"O, too bad—horrible—wish I'd never seen"——

"Get your gun, quick—come on!" cried the Major.

"But, my dear Major, my gun's broke all to smash. O! that I had shot the blasted brute instead of breaking my gun!"

"Come on—never mind—seize a club, fork, or anything, and hunt around for the cursed dog. He'll bite some of our people, horses, or cattle." And away ran the Major, with a bit of stick about the size of a fence-rail. Paddy made himself scarce, and Triangle, in agony, flew around to hunt up his daughter, whom they found asleep in a summer-house.

Mrs. Major Jingo, when she heard that the Irish girl had introduced the small-pox on Jingo Hill, liked to have fainted away; but, conquering her weakness, she ordered the carriage, and bundled herself and four children into it, so full of terror and alarm that she never so much as said—"Take care of yourself, Mrs. Triangle!" Maj. Jingo returned, after a fruitless search for Triangle's mad dog, and just as he entered the hall, the Irish girl came rushing down stairs, crying—

"O! murther, murther! I'm dead as a door-nail, entirely, wid dese pains in my face. Be gorra! O, murther!"

One look at the swollen and truly frightful face of the girl put the Major to his taps; and stopping but a moment to tell Triangle to make out the best he could, he left.

Next morning, bag and baggage, the Triangles vamosed. The poor girl having recovered from her attack of the bees, which had led to the alarm of small-pox, looked quite respectable. Never did a party enjoy home more completely than the Triangles after that. Triangle has a holy horror of trips to the country, and the Jingos are down on visitors from the city.



Jake Hinkle's Failings.

In the village of Washington, Fayette Co., Ohio, there was a transient sort of a personage, a kind of floating farmer, named Hinkle,—Jacob Hinkle,—commonly called Old Jake Hinkle. Jake was, originally, a Dutchman, a Pennsylvania, Lancaster County Dutchman; and that was about as Dutch as Holland and Sour Krout could well make a human "critter." Well, Jake Hinkle owned, or had squatted on, a small patch of land, just beyond old Mother Rodger's "bottom," that is, about a mile east of the "Rattle Snake Fork" of Paint Creek, which, every thundering fool out West knows, empties itself into—"Big Paint," which finally rolls out into the Muskingum, and thence into the Ohio. Very well, having settled the geographical position of Jake Hinkle, let me go on to state what kind of a critter Jake was, and how it came about that he was pronounced dead, one cold morning, and how he came up to town and denied the assertion.

Jake Hinkle loved corn, lived on it, as most people do in the interior of Ohio and Kentucky; he loved corn, but loved corn whiskey more, and this love, many a time, brought Jake up to "the Court House" of Washington, through rain, hail and snow, to get a nipper, fill his jug, and go home. Now, in the West it is a custom more honored in the breach than in the observance, perhaps, for grog shops of the village to play all sorts of fantastic tricks upon old codgers who come up to town, or down to town, hitch their horses to the fence, and there let the "critters" stand, from 10 A. M. to 12 P. M., more or less, and longer. The most popular dodge is, to shave the horse's tail, turn it loose, and let it go home. Of course, that horse is not soon seen in the village again, as a horse with a shored tail is about the meanest thing to look at, except a singed possum, or a dandy—you ever did see.

One very cold night, in January, '39, Jake Hinkle came down to the "Court House," hitched his horse to the Court Square fence, and made a straight bend for Sanders' "Grocery," and began to "wood up." Old Jake's tongue was a perfect bell-clapper, and when well oiled with corn juice, could rip into the high and low Dutch like a nor'easter into a field of broom corn. Jake talked and talked, and drank and talked, and about midnight, the cocks crowing, the stars winking and blinking, and the wind nipping and whistling around the grocery, Sanders notified Jake and others that he was going to shut up the concern, and the crowd must be "putting out." Jake made a break for his nag, but she was gone. "Why," says Jake, "she's broke der pridle and gone home, and by skure I shall walk,"—and off Jake put, through the cold and mud.

Next morning, when the Circleville stage came along between old Marm Rodger's "bottom," and the Rattle Snake Fork of Paint, the driver discovered poor old Jake laid out, stiff and cold as a wedge! Alas, poor old Jake! Gone! Quite a gloom hung over the "grocery;" Jake was an inoffensive, good old fellow, nobody denied that, and certain young "fellers" who had shaved the tail of Jake's mare the night previous, and set her loose, now felt sort of sorry for the deed. The editor of the "Argus of Freedom" came down to the "grocery," to get his morning "nip," heard the news, went back to his office, "set up" Jake's obituary notice, pitched in a few sorrowful phrases, and then put his paper to press; that afternoon, the whole edition, of some two hundred copies, were distributed around among the subscribers and "dead heads," and Jake Hinkle was pronounced stone dead—pegged out!

Two or three days afterwards, a man covered with mud and sweat, came rushing into Washington. He paused not, nor turned not right or left, until he found the office of the "Argus of Freedom," where he rushed in, and confronting the editor, he spluttered forth:—

"You der printer of dish paper,—der noosh paper?"

"Yes," says the 'responsible,' "I am the man," looking a little wild.

"Vell, bine de great Jehosaphat, what for you'n make me deat?"

"Me? Make you dead?" says the no little astonished editor.

"Yaas!" bawled old Jake, for it was he—"You'n tell de people I diet; it's a lie! And do you neber do it again, and fool de peeples, witout you git a written order from me!"

That editor, ever afterwards, insisted on seeing the funeral before he recorded an obituary notice.



What's Going to Happen.

In fifty years the steam engine will be as old a notion, and as queer an invention, as the press Ben. Franklin worked is now. In fifty years, copper-plate, steel-plate, lithography, and other fine engravings, will be multiplied for a mere song, in a beautiful manner, by the now infantile art of Daguerreotyping. A passage to California will then be accomplished in twenty-four hours, by air carriages and electricity; or, perhaps, they'll go in buckets down Artesian holes, clean through the earth! The arts of agriculture and horticulture will produce hams ready roasted, natural pies, baked with all sorts of cookies. About that time, a man may live forever at a cent a day, and sell for all he's worth at last—for soap fat!



The Washerwoman's Windfall.

Some years ago, there lived, dragged and toiled, in one of our "Middle States," or Southern cities, and old lady, named Landon, the widow of a lost sea captain; and as a dernier resort, occurring in many such cases, with a family of children to provide for,—the father and husband cut off from life and usefulness, leaving his family but a stone's cast from indigence,—the mother, to keep grim poverty from famishing her hearth and desolating her home, took in gentlemen's washing. Her eldest child, a boy of some twelve years old, was in the habit of visiting the largest hotels in the city, where he received the finer pieces of the gentlemen's apparel, and carried them to his mother. They were done up, and returned by the lad again.

It was in mid-winter, cold and dreary season for the poor—travel was slack, and few and far between were the poor widow's receipts from her drudgery.

"To-morrow," said the widow, as she sat musing by her small fire, "to-morrow is Saturday; I have not a stick of wood, pound of meal, nor dollar in the world, to provide food or warmth for my children over Sunday."

"But, mother," responded her 'main prop,' George, the eldest boy, "that gentleman who gave me the half dollar for going to the bank for him, last week,—you know him we washed for at the United States Hotel,—said he was to be here again to-morrow. I was to call for his clothes; so I will go, mother, to-morrow; maybe he will have another errand for me, or some money—he's got so much money in his trunk!"

"So, indeed, you said, good child; it's well you thought of it," said the poor woman.

Next day the lad called at the hotel, and sure enough, the strange gentleman had arrived again. He appeared somewhat bothered, but quickly gathering up some of his soiled clothes, gave them to the lad, and bade him tell his mother to wash and return them that evening by all means.

"Alas! that I cannot do," said the widow, as her son delivered the message. "My dear child, I have neither fire to dry them, nor money to procure the necessary fuel."

"Shall I take the clothes back again, mother, and tell the gentleman you can't dry them in time for him?"

"No, son. I must wash and dry them—we must have money to-day, or we'll freeze and starve—I must wash and dry these clothes," said the disconsolate widow, as she immediately went about the performance, while her son started to a neighboring coopering establishment, to get a basket of chips and shavings to make fire sufficient to dry and iron the clothes.

The clothes were duly tumbled into a great tub of water, and the poor woman began her manipulations. After a time, in handling a vest, the widow felt a knot of something in the breast pocket. She turned the pocket, and out fell a little mass of almost pulpy paper. She carefully unrolled the saturated bunch—she started—stared; the color from her wan cheeks went and came! Her two little children, observing the wild looks and strange actions of the mother, ran to her, screaming:

"Dear—dear mother! Mother, what's the matter?"

"Hush-h-h!" said she; "run, dear children—lock the door—lock the door! no, no, never mind. I a—I a—feel—dizzy!"

The alarmed children clung about the mother's knees in great affright, but the widow, regaining her composure, told them to sit down and play with their little toys, and not mind her. The cause of this sudden emotion was the unrolling of five five hundred dollar bills. They were very wet—nearly "used up," in fact—but still significant of vast, astounding import to the poor and friendless woman. She was amazed—honor and poverty were struggling in her breast. Her poverty cried out, "You are made up—rich—wash no more—fly!" But then the poor woman's honor, more powerful than the tempting wealth in her hands—triumphed! She laid the wet notes in a book, and again set about her washing.

About this time, quite a different scene was being enacted at the hotel. The gentleman so anxious that his clothes should be returned that evening, was no other than a famous counterfeiter and forger; and it happened, that the day previous, in a neighboring city, he had committed a forgery, drawn some four or five thousand dollars, had the greater part of the notes exchanged—and, with the exception of the five large bills hurriedly thrust into the vest pocket, and which he had sent to the poor laundress, there was little available evidence of the forgery in his possession. The widow's son had scarcely left the traveller's room with the clothes, when in came two policemen. The forger was not arrested as a principal, but certain barely suspicious circumstances had led to an investigation of him and his effects.

"You are our prisoner, sir!" said one of the policemen, as a servant opened the door to let them in.

"Me! What for?" was the quick response of the forger.

"That you will learn in due season; at present we wish to examine your person and effects."

The forger started—his heart beat with the rapidity of galvanic pulsation—the evidence of part of his villany was, as he supposed, among his effects. It was a moment of terror to him, but it passed like a flash, and in a gay and careless tone, he quickly replied:

"O, very well, gentlemen—go ahead. There are my keys and baggage—search, and look around. I have no idea what you are after—probably you'll find." In a low tone, he continued, to himself, "By heavens, how lucky! that boy has saved me!"

A considerable amount of money was found upon the forger, but none that could be identified, and after a long and wearisome private examination at the police court, he was discharged. He returned to the hotel, and shortly afterwards the lad made his appearance with the clothes, presenting him with a small roll of damp paper, saying:

"Here, sir, is something mother found in one of your pockets. She thinks it may be valuable to you, sir, and she is sorry it was wet."

The forger started, as though the little roll of wet money had been a serpent the lad was holding towards him.

"No, no, my little man; return it to your mother; tell her to dry it carefully, and that I will call and see her to-night, when she can return the little parcel."

George stood, his cap in one hand, and the other upon the door-knob; the man was much agitated, and perceiving the lad lingered, he thrust his hand into a carpet-bag, and hauling forth an old-fashioned wallet, he opened it, and taking thence a coin, put it in the hands of the lad and requested him to run home to his mother and deliver the message immediately. The lad did as he was ordered; and the poor washerwoman, the while, sat in her humble and ill-provided home, patiently awaiting the return of her boy, and fearing the anger of the gentleman at the hotel, when he should find his bank notes nearly, if not quite destroyed, would probably so indispose him towards the child that he would return empty-handed. But no; as the quick tread of the blithesome lad smote upon the widow's ear, she rushed to the door to receive him.

"Dear son, was the gentleman very angry?"

"Angry, dear mother? No! he was far from angry. He said you must dry these papers, and he would call to-night for them. And here, dear mother, he gave me a large piece of beautiful yellow money!" And the dutiful boy placed a golden doubloon in the trembling hand of the overjoyed mother. They were saved—the golden coin soon made the widow's domicil cheerful and happy.

It is almost needless to say, the five notes were not called for. They laid in the widow's bureau drawer two entire years, when a friend to the poor woman negotiated for their exchange into a dwelling-house and small store. And to this little incident does a certain elderly lady and her family owe their present prosperous and perfectly honorable position in the respectable society of the city of ——.



We don't Wonder at It.

In the city, we get so many new kicks, and put on so many new ways of living and doing up things, that no wonder the quiet and matter-of-fact country folks make awkward mistakes, and get mixed up with our conventionalities, and other doings. Dining at the American, last week, we sat vis-a-vis with an old-fashioned agricultural gent, whose plate of mock turtle remained cooling for some time, while he was busy thinking over a silver four-pronged fork in his hand. At length a broad smile played over his manly features, as the novel-makers say, and he opened—

"Well, I'm jiggered!—ha! ha! they've got to eating soup with split spoons, too!"



Old Maguire and his Horse Bonny Doon.

Few animals possess the sagacity of the horse; passive and obedient, they are easily trained; bring them up the way you want them to go, and they'll go it! The horse in his old age does not forget the precepts of his youth. A very touching anecdote is told of a horse, in the cavalry service of the British army, during Napoleon's time. After the battle of Waterloo, when the combined force of Europe, through chicanery—not valor—defeated the greatest soldier the world ever saw, the British army was cut down, rank and file—Napoleon having promised to "be a good boy," and let 'em alone in future. Among the cut offs, was a troop of horse, and in this troop was an old veteran Bucephalus, who had stood and made charges, smelt fire and brimstone, faced phalanxes of bayonets, and clashed rough-shod over many bloody fields, besides Waterloo,—this old fellow was turned out to grass—cashiered. When the balance of his retained companions in saddle were leaving the town where the dismemberment had taken place, the old war horse was quietly grazing in a field; the troop passed—the bugler "sounded his horn," and in less than forty winks the old old horse was up, off, over fences, and in the front ranks! The tenacity with which he clung to his place in the column caused—says the historian—the officers and men to shed tears.

So much by way of a prelude. Now for old Maguire and his horse. Some years ago, in the interior of Ohio, there did live an old Irish jintleman, who not only had a fine estate, but likewise a saw-mill, and as fine an old black mare as ever the rays of a noonday's sun lit down upon. "Bonny Doon," Maguire's old mare, was a wonderful "critter;" she opened gates, let down bars, seized the pump handle by her teeth, and actually extracted water from the barn-yard well, with all the facility of a regular double-fisted genus homo. As a sly old joker, she had performed various tricks, such as nipping off the tails of sucking calves, catching chickens in her manger, and making various pieces of them, and kicking in the ribs of strange dogs and horned cattle. But to the eccentric habits and bacchanalian customs of her ex-military master, the old mare's dormant talents owed their "fetching out."

Old "Captain Maguire" had served with credit to himself and honor to the State, in her early struggles against the Indians and French Canadians. "Bonny Doon" was then in her "fille"-hood, and probably the most beautiful, as well as the most saucy jade, in the frontier army. Some twenty-five years had passed, and still the old captain and the mare were about, every-day cronies, for the old man no more thought of walking fifty rods, premeditatedly, than a South Carolina dandy would dream of the possibility of getting a glass of water without the immediate assistance of a son of Ethiopia! The old man had become possessed of wealth as well as years—was likewise the progenitor of a large and flourishing family, of the finest looking men and women in the State, and having gotten all things in this pleasant kind of train, he "laid off" in perfect lavender. The old captain's farm was about four miles from the large and flourishing town of Z——, and here the captain spent most of his time. Riding in on "Bonny Doon," in the morning, and hitching her to the sign-post, the poor beast would stand there—unless taken in by the ostler or others—until midnight, while the captain swigged whiskey, and smoked his pipe in the tavern. Yet "Bonny Doon's" affection for her old master did not flag; she waited patiently until he came—her mane and long tail would then switch about, while she'd "snigger eout" with gladness at his coming, and carry the old man through rain or snow, moonshine, or total darkness, over corduroy railroads, bridges, ravines, and last, though by no means least, over the narrow plank-way of Captain Maguire's saw-mill dam, while the waters on each side foamed and roared like a mountain torrent, and while the old man was either asleep or his hat so full of "bricks," that he was about as difficult to balance in the saddle as a sack of potatoes or Turk's Island salt! A better citizen, when sober, never paid taxes or trod sole leather in that State, than old Captain Maguire; but when he was "up the tree," a little sprung, or tight, as you may say, he was ugly enough, and chock full of wolf and brimstone! One day the captain was summoned to attend court, and testify in a case wherein his evidence was to give a lift to the suit of a neighbor, for whom the old man entertained a most lively disgust and very unchristianly hate. The old man, finding that he must go, went. He wet his whistle several times before starting, repeated the dose several times before he reached the Court House, and about the time he supposed he was wanted, he mounted "Bonny Doon," and started, full chisel, up the steps, through the entry, and into the crowded Court room, just in the nick of time.