cumpny wid when it was a little saplin. Dem's de trees dat 's orful sojt in de grain, ef dey is white, and delikit, and dem's de trees dat 'll be rolled ober fur kinlins whareber dey grows, ef it fall toward de souf, or ef it fall toward de norf, fur in de place whar de tree fall dere it shill be.

'But who is de sinnah dat 'll be cut up in dose days wen de wood-man cums along wid de axt ob judgent and ob de 'possles? Dere's many a tough ole tree, my bredren, dat grows jiss as it pleases all fru life, and bleeves it wus predustynated fur nuffin else but to make nice timber uf; an I must allow, bredren, dat some of dem tough ole trees dus make putty good timber arter all - precious for axe handles and whipstocks but arter a while de axe handles break and de whip-stocks git cracked and de timber is burned, and den de crooked part ob de tree what was left is hunted up and cass into de fiah, fur in dat day it shill be as a fussakin bough and an uppermose branch which dey left because ob de chilren ob Isrel, and dere shill be deselation.

'But who is de sinnah dat 'll be cut up in dose days and roll into de furniss of raff and hab de dore shut and de draff turned on wid de ole poker of wengeance stirrin him ober and ober and ober? What is de tree dat grows by de riber-side, and bleeves it aint no count less it gits dipt in de water and puts all its fafe in washin-like de new-fashioned doctor fokes dat cures ebery thing wid baff tubs, and wet rags, an spackins? Dar 'll be a time, my bredren, when de water 'll be wantin' to dat tree, when de twigs 'll go off like shavens under de grate, and de fiah will consume it utterly, fur all de trees ob de feel shill know dat de high tree has been brought down, and dried up de green tree, and made de dry tree to florish.

But who is de sinnah dat 'll be forgiven and made into precious furnitur dat 'll be kep furever unbroken and set up in de parler? Not de pine tree ob pride, nur de hickary ob stubberness, nur de willer-tree ob de waters dat weeps fur nuffin, wurl widout end. No, my Crestian frens, it's de beautiful ebeny de dark wood dat neber gits cass into de fiah and de fine black walnut, and de dark complected cedar, and de African pam. Dem's de sort dat you neber see split into kinlins, fur it's de kind dat de true beliebers is made uf, and de righteous shill florish like de pam tree, he shill grow like de cedar in Libinum. Amen!'

Here the preacher caved in, completely done up, and falling back on the seat, began to fan himself with a white cambric, while the congregation went off in a particularly steep hymn, adapted to the extra skylarking, short-lick metre. And Hiram, who had so far smoked like a steam-engine in a sort of stiff amazement, fell back too, and exclaimed with a take-my-hat expression:

'I'll be shot if it aint that nigger Thompson!'

I believe that Hiram began to take a queer sort of interest in Mr. Thompson Alexander Glasgow after this, particularly when he found that the horses were duly attended to. For some time, nothing out of the way showed itself beyond Thompson's taking a prize at the Industrial Colored Fair, for the best door-mat, or beyond his inquiring confidentially of me one morning, 'If a culled man could larn de law

yer bisness would dey let him plead cases fur de odder culled people in de Tombs?' But having obtained a day's liberty; he employed it in painting all the shutters of our opposite neighbor, who informed Hiram that Thompson did it quite as well as a regular painter, at half-price; while the evening was passed at some ingenious leather-strap work, which he informed Hiram was to be a bridle present fur Massa Sloper !'

6

Finally, Hiram discovering him one day deep in the mysteries of a silver watch, which he had taken to pieces and was repairing for some other darkey - he was general watch-fixer for all the niggers of his acquaintance burst out with:

Well, you ARE a genius.'

'Well, Mars' Twine,' replied Thompson with a grin, 'I b'lieve I is.' 'But, Thompson,' says Hiram, letting out a leisurely puff of smoke, and holding out one leg, while Thompson, who had just seen a smutch of dust on the pantaloon, proceeded to dust it very carefully off with his felt hat. Thompson, why the d-1 don't you button down on one thing; take up some line, spread yourself on it, and go your die ? ' De fac is, Mars' Twine,' replied Thompson, looking up very serious from the dusting he was bending over to; de fac is, I can't keep myself in. You mout jist as well feed a man on nuffin but tater as keep a head like mine on to one bizness.'

"Nuf ced,'' quoth Hiram, as he turned off. 'It is a fact that some human heads are naturally split like swallows' tails, soft-shell tickets and old-fashioned sermons into different divisions. Split they will.'

'Of course,' says I;' and when the fancy or genius to do every thing well is really natural, they don't as a general thing ask much favor from the world. These born pollylateral all sorts of fellows generally contrive to do pretty well in the long run. Thompson makes out to get along, and has money in the savings bank. But when it is n't natural to a chap, and he sets out to spread himself in all sorts of directions, he's apt to split in another way.'

'On the rocks?'

Ex-actly. And now,' said I-by this time we had got to the office, and were laying off comfortably in the furniture I will tell you a story.'

'Propel!' quoth Hiram.

'I once knew a druggist,' said I, 'who got along so well in dealing in all sorts of rip-raps and in such a rumbled-come-tumbled mess of miscellaneous contraptions, that he at last undertook to go heavily into the fancy segar-case business. That he understood, too. Then he went one step further and tried segars. That he did n't.

'Well, it came round that one day he bought of some swindler or other a thousand segars, which were so heathen bad that the devil would n't have smoked one for fear the smell would have been too hard on the condemned. But Jimmy did n't know this, and thought he'd made an A No. 1 bargain.

has

'Jimmy had a great reputation for being close, and when he

'When he has,' replied Hiram,' he 'd better make up his mind to

have a more miserable life than the devil ever deserved, unless, indeed, he is a stingy character.'

pre

(Reader, I only bring in this little outburst of Hiram's because I know that he would feel like caving my head in if he knew that I ever made an allusion to the subject of meanness in my writings, and he sent, without making him say something savage against it. For I do believe, that of all the vile things that sin ever spawned into this mortal world, Hiram does hate a mean man; and Mace Sloper with him.) 'Well,' I went on, Jimmy had an out-and-out character for being close; and, of course, he had friends accordingly. Lively young chaps, who would n't mind trying a loud old sell on him. Jolly fellows, who'd have smoked him to death in a ton of his own segars. And they did pretty nearly.

When the fact that a thousand of these almighty mean segars were in Jimmy's shop got around, a little arrangement was made, the first result of which was to send Colonel Bill Davis in and make him smell of them.

Devilish fine segars those of yours, Jimmy,' says the Colonel. 'Now Jimmy was n't quite certain before that they were first chop, and when Colonel Davis praised them so, he smiled

right.

What an aroma, what a bookay, what ah- what a tremendous perfume!' says the Colonel. Nothing like it. We do n't smell that rich old odor often now-a-days, Jimmy-hey? That fine delicious exhalation of the Spanish isle of flowers requires a smeller like yours, Jimmy, to nose it out. I don't believe,' he exclaimed very solemn, 'so help me Moses, that any man but you in this country would ever have had such segars as THOSE publicly for sale in his shop. There aint many men who have the nerve to pay such high prices as you must have given for them. Taxed you pretty severe, I suppose ?' Maybe Jimmy did n't go to work on this hint. He hesitated one minute and then bolted out at a desperate gulp: "A shillin' a-piece for them segars, Colonel. "I should think they did,' said Colonel Davis. If you did n't steal 'em, Jimmy, you did n't get than two hundred dollars. Why, man alive, those are the great Labrador Scampadora Terra del Fuego brand. Cabanas and Principe themselves, can't get those segars. One box of 'em is sent every year to the Queen of Spain, and a hundred to General Espartero. (You know I've been in Cuba!) Well, I'll take a hundred of 'em. Wish I could afford the lot!'

Cost me most that.'

' Shillin' be d -d! that thousand for less

'And Colonel Davis swept out with his hundred as if he had just nailed the tallest sort of a bargain. In less than five minutes Pen. Lewis came rushing in:

"Jimmy, I want to see those segars. Same variety you sold Colonel Davis. Mind now, the same lot. Don't run your bogus on me this time.'

'The segars came out and Pen. took two hundred. About an hour after in came Josh Border blowing like an old porpoise.

'Ooh whoare's the segars. Ho'ape you've no'at soald 'em ao'll.

Ooa-h! The segoares, Pen. Louis baought—u'h. Great segoares, ooah!'

'You know that Josh always talks in a sort of chuckle-blow as if he had both cheeks full of mush, mixed up with letter As. There are some Dutch who talk in the same way.

- uh

on

'Hoaw many 've you got left? Who-o-o. Seven houndred. Only seven houndred -whoa the duvel caon take a foar smoak seven houndred such segoares? I'll toake thaot lot-wuh! If you caon get moare, buy 'em!'

'And Josh, after doing up this lot of tick, puffed off, and the segars were sent after him. By-and-by a lot more fellows came rushing in and roaring after the great Labrador Scampadora brand as if they'd missed their fortunes, lost their sweet-hearts, and suffered promiscuous ruin, generally speaking. Where were the Scampadoras; could he get any more Scampadoras; why the devil could n't he keep a few Scampadoras in a private way for his regular customers. Some went off in a huff; some cussed him; some raised thunder; some told him what they thought of him; some raked up stories about his grand-father; all going to prove that a more unkinder-hearted flinty old set of unnatural rips, who would n't keep segars for their friends family, than that of Jimmy's never existed.

Now Jimmy began to privately suspect that either his friends had gone mad, or that some body in Cuba must have been crazy in sending such segars on at a hundredth part of them. He knew where plenty more were to be had of the same sort down at old Pedro Fumadore's, (you know Pedro, Hiram, the Spaniard, they used to call High Joe up at the Astor House,) though why they did it is more than I can tell.

'Well, Jimmy started bright and early next morning, and bought up all the Scampadoras he could lay his claws on, besides ordering another lot. Pedro stuck him for about two thousand dollars' worth.'

Well,' said Hiram, 'how did the second lot go off?'

Never went at all, that ever I heard of,' answered I; 'nobody ever called for one of 'em, strange as it may seem. The Scampadora stock went down to zero the very next day. By-and-by the story got round that a lot of the Onion Club fellows had clubbed together to sell old Jimmy, and had done it. That's all.'

'Moral? ' inquired Hiram.

That a man may spread himself as far as his wings will go and no further. The fancy segar-case was within Jimmy's hatching abilities; segars were an egg beyond him.'

A bad egg they were for him,' quoth Hiram reflectively and wondering as I guessed (by the look of his boots and eyes) if a certain lot of land he 'd bought the day before in 89,427th street, was n't about a foot beyond his own hatching range. 'A confounded bad egg.'

Well,' says I, 'on the strength of that let's liquor!'

And the dark old bottle came forth, and the ice-water slid like a glass string from the office-filter; and if there were any ghosts around they may go and tell the editor of the Christian Spiritualist that Mace Sloper and Hiram sinned 'Otard-ishly.'

A NEW FABLE FOR CRITICS.

BY CHARLES DESMARAIS G

A RUGGED crust of sterile soil

Once mocked a rustic's stubborn toil :
The scarce-hid rocks the plough-share feel,
And angry sparks snap at the steel,
And fright the oxen from the path,
And rouse the bumpkin's stupid wrath.
He spurns the sod with moody curse,

And, growling, swears there 's ne'er a worse-
More useless-good-for-nothing lump
Of stone, on all the world's broad hump;
Then, on his beasts, with coward goad,
He vents his rage and seeks the road.

Ere long, a scholar, travel sore,
But learned in all the mystic lore
Of Nature's secret laws, most wise
In al Art's wondrous mysteries,
Upon this barren glebe at length
Was fain to rest for lack of strength;
And on the furrowed crust he flings
His weary limbs like slackened strings:
His listless hand awhile, uneyed,
Toys with the pebbles at his side,
Till instinct, (like a memory stung
To sudden life by something sung-
Some echo of a sound, once woke
A central nerve's electric stroke,)
Rings on the tymbral of his ear,
A tinkle he was wont to hear
When on some metal's hidden track,
Of yore, his hammer's head would crack:
His eye that smouldered dull but now
Flashes beneath his heated brow;
With miser's grip his agile hand
Snatches the pebbles from the sand;
With microscopic power he strains
His vision on the flinty grains;

Then, leaping from his couch of mould,

He shouts in triumph: 'Gold! gold! gold!'

Phil.. Dec. 16, 1856.

MORAL.

The truth by which we might the happiest live
Is, 'Human wisdom is comparative:

The fear by which we should be oftenest nudged
Would seem to be: Judge not, lest ye be judged;
And last, not least, methinks the trustiest 'saw'
Is this, Opinion's but a thatch of straw,
Which, to conceal our want, in vain we raise;
A neighbor scrapes a match-lo! it is all a-blaze!