now-husbands with bad colds-coughing husbands and sneezing husbands—are the stupidest and tiresomest kind of husbands-bad as they may be, ducking don't improve 'em. I'll have recourse to moral suasion; and if that won't answer, I'll duck him afterwards."

3. Suddenly, and in the midst of a protracted jangle, the door flew widely open, and displayed the form of Mrs. Dawson Dawdle, standing sublime-silent-statue-like-wrapped in wrath and enveloped in taciturnity. Dawdle was appalled. "My dear!" and his hand dropped nervelessly from the bell-handle. "My dear, it's me-only me!"

Not a word of response to the tender appeal—the lady remained obdurate in silence-chilly and voiceless as the marble, with her eyes sternly fixed upon the intruder. Dawson Dawdle felt himself running down.

4. "My dear-he! he!" and Dawson laughed with a melancholy quaver-" it's me that's come home-you know me— it's late, I confess-it's most always late-and I-ho! ho!— why don't you say something, Mrs. Dawson Dawdle?-Do you think I'm going to be skeered, Mrs. Dawdle ?"

5. As the parties thus confronted each other, Mrs. Dawdle's "masterly inactivity" proved overwhelming. For reproaches, Dawson was prepared-he could bear part in a war of opinion-the squabble is easy to most of us--but where are we when the antagonist will not deign to speak, and environs us, as it were, in an ambuscade, so that we fear the more, because we know not what to fear?

6. "Why don't she blow me up?" queried Dawdle to himself, as he found his valor collapsing-"why don't she blow me up like an affectionate woman and a loving wife, instead of standing there in that ghostified fashion?"

7. Mrs. Dawdle's hand slowly extended itself towards the culprit, who made no attempt at evasion or defense-slowly it entwined itself in the folds of his neck-handkerchief, and, as the unresisting Dawson had strange fancies relative to bowstrings, he found himself drawn inward by a sure and steady

grasp. Swiftly was he sped through the darksome entry and up the winding stair, without a word to comfort him in his stumbling progress.

8. "Dawson Dawdle!-Look at the clock!-A pretty time of night, indeed, and you a married man. Look at the clock, I say, and see."

Mrs. Dawson Dawdle, however, had, for the moment, lost her advantage in thus giving utterance to her emotion; and Mr. Dawson Dawdle, though much shaken, began to recover his spirits.

9. "Two o'clock, Mr. Dawdle-two!-isn't it two, I ask you?"

"If you are positive about the fact, Mrs. Dawdle, it would be unbecoming in me to call your veracity in question, and I decline looking. So far as I am informed, it generally is two o'clock just about this time in the morning—at least, it always has been whenever I stayed up to see. If the clock is right, you'll be apt to find it two just as it strikes two-that's the reason it strikes, and I don't know that it could have a better

"Yes-pretty enough!" responded Dawdle; "when it don't rain, one time of night is as pretty as another time of night-it's the people that's up in the time of night, that's not pretty; and you, Mrs. Dawdle, are a case in pint-keeping a man out of his own house. It's not the night that's not pretty, Mrs. Dawdle, but the goings on that's not—and you are the goings on. As for me, I'm for peace--a dead-latch key and peace; and I move that the goings on be indefinitely postponed, because, Mrs. Dawdle, I've heard it all before-I know it like a book; and if you insist on it, Mrs. Dawdle, I'll save you trouble, and speak the whole speech for you right off the reel, only I can't cry good when I'm jolly."

11. But Dawson Dawdle's volubility, assumed for the purpose of hiding his own misgivings, did not answer the end which he had in view; for Mrs. Dawson Dawdle, having had

a glimpse at its effects, again resorted to the "silent system" of connubial management. She spoke no more that night, which Dawson, perchance, found agreeable enough; but she would not speak any more the day after, which perplexed him when he came down too late for breakfast, or returned too late for dinner.

12. "I do wish she would say something," muttered Dawdle; "something cross, if she likes-anything, so it makes a noise.—It makes a man feel bad, after he's used to being talked to, not to be talked to in the regular old-fashioned way. When one's so accustomed to being blown up, it seems as if he was lost or didn't belong to anybody, if no one sees to it, that he's blowed up at the usual time. Bachelors, perhaps, can get along well enough without having their comforts properly attended to in this respect. What do they know, the miserable creatures, about such warm receptions, and such little endearments ?"

THE PATIENT.-GELLERT.

1. A MAN, long plagued with aches in joint and limb, Did all the neighbors recommended him;

But, for all that, could nowise gain

Deliverance from his pain.

An ancient dame, to whom he told his case,

Made up a most oracular face,

And thus announced a magic remedy:

"You must," said she,

(Mysteriously hissing in his ear,

And calling him "my dear !")

"Sit on a good man's grave at early light,

And, with the dew fresh-fallen over night,

Thrice bathe your hands, your knee-joints thrice;

"Twill cure you in a trice:

Remember her who gave you this advice!"

2. The sick man did just as the grandam said;
(What will not mortals do, to be
Relieved of misery?)

Went, bright and early, to the burying-ground,
And, on a grave-stone ('twas the first he found)
These words, delighted, read:

"Traveller, what man he was, who sleeps below,
This monument and epitaph may show.

The wonder of his time was he,

The pattern of a genuine piety;

And that thou all in a few words may'st learn,—
Him Church and School and Town and Country mourn."

3. Here the poor cripple takes his seat,

And bathes his hands, his joints, his feet;

But all his labor's worse than vain,

It rather aggravates his pain.

With troubled mind he grasps his staff,

Turns from the good man's grave and creeps
On to the next, where lowly sleeps

One honored by no epitaph.

Scarce had he touched the nameless stone,
When, lo! each racking pain had flown.
His useless staff forgotten on the ground,
He leaves this holy grave, erect and sound.

4. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "is there no line to tell

Who was this holy man that makes me well!”
Just then the Sexton did appear;

Of him he asked: "Pray, who lies buried here ?"
The Sexton waited long, and seemed quite shy
Of making any sort of a reply.

"Ah!" he began at length with deep-drawn sigh,
"God's mercy on us! 'twas a man,

Placed by all honest circles under ban,

Whom scarcely they allowed a decent grave,

Only a miracle whose soul might save;

A heretic, and what is worse,

Wrote plays and verse;

In short, to speak my full conviction,
And without fear of contradiction,
He was an innovator and a scound-"
"No!" cried the man, "no! I'll be bound!
Not so, though all the world the lie repeat;
But that chap there who sleeps hard by us,
Whom you and all the world call pious,
He was no doubt a scoundrel and a cheat."

ECCENTRICITIES OF FREDERICK WILLIAM I., KING OF PRUSSIA-DR. FRED FÖSTER.

1. THE king took much pleasure in joining family parties; he frequently attended christenings and weddings, and sometimes invited himself. When, however, he invited himself as a guest, he had at times to pay the reckoning. One of his generals, who was noted for his parsimony, having declined the honor of a royal visit, under the plea that he had no establishment of his own, his majesty desired him to order a dinner at a Hotel.

2. This of course could not be evaded; the king was invited but came with twice the number of attendants the general had expected. The very best, however, that the cellar or kitchen could afford was produced in the greatest abundance, and the king expressed his entire satisfaction. The general sent for the landlord, and inquired the price per head: "One florin, without the wine." 66 Well, then, here is one florin for myself and another for his majesty; the other gentlemen, whom I did not invite, will pay for themselves." "That is clever," cried the king; "I thought to take in the general, and he has taken me in ;”—upon which he paid the whole bill.

3. The king expected everybody who spoke to him to look him full in the face, for he thought he could read in every