perished save me. I swam several miles through the billows, and at last, utterly exhausted, gave up all hope of life. Suddenly I stepped on something hard. It was the United States.

   "And now, my brave boy," exclaimed the man with great glee, "see what I have brought for you." It was but the work of a moment to unclasp from a shawl-strap which he held in his hand and present to George's astonished gaze a large forty-cent watermelon, which until now had been concealed by the shawl-strap.

   "Are you in favor of the prohibitive law, or the license law?" asked her opposite neighbor of the relict of P.P.; corporal of the "Bloody 'Leventh."

   She carefully weighed the question, as though she were selling snuff, and answered,—

   "Sometimes I think I am, and then again I think I am not."

   Her neighbor was perplexed, and repeated the question, varying it a little.

   "Have you seen the 'Mrs. Partington Twilight Soap'?" she asked.

   "Yes," was the reply; "everybody has seen that; but why?"

   "Because," said the dame, "it has two sides to it, and it is hard to choose between them. Now here are my two neighbors, contagious to me on both sides—one goes for probation, t'other for licentiousness; and I think the best thing for me is to keep nuisance."

   She meant neutral, of course. The neighbor admired, and smiled, while Ike lay on the floor, with his legs in the air, trying to balance Mrs. Partington's fancy waiter on his toe.

   Christmas Ike was made the happy possessor of a fiddle, which he found in the morning near his stocking.

   "Has he got a musical bent?" Banfield asked, of whom Mrs. Partington was buying the instrument.

   "Bent, indeed!" said she; "no, he's as straight as an error."

   He explained by repeating the question regarding his musical inclination.

   "Yes," she replied; "he's dreadfully inclined to music since he had a drum, and I want the fiddle to see if I can't make another Pickaninny or an Old Bull of him. Jews-harps is simple, though I can't see how 

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