country, or opened the campaign. These pins shifted their positions and either advanced or retired, as the belligerents changed their ground; and when any part of the main force was detached, a pin of a small size was sent to watch its line of march, and declare its operations. The editor by this simple contrivance could not only tell at a glance, by looking at his pins, where the armies were; but, by tracing the holes which the pins had left behind them, could read you off from his maps, at the conclusion of a long war, the history of every campaign. As this worthy, but somewhat fiery and dignified person, was bending over the last proof of his editorial column, which contained a "leader" of some importance in his eyes, inasmuch as it gave the latest intelligence from France, and corrected an answer which had appeared in the Boston Gazette, relative to the movements of Gen. Dumouriez, a strange kind of clinking noise was heard at the foot of the long staircase, which led up to the printing office, at one end of which was Ben's sanctum, where he was examining the proof aforesaid. Nearer and nearer came the noise, as footsteps appeared to ascend the staircase, clink, clink, clink! Everybody wondered what it was; the devil stopped scraping the ball (for rollers, like Mackintoshes, were not dreamt of then), the compositors leaned on their left feet, and left elbows-as compositors will, when there is likely to be any sport, and the pressman stood at the bank, with the heap between his arms, and his ear turned towards the door. Ben Russell heard the strange noise upon the stairs, and he noticed also the kind of dead calm which had suddenly come over the printing-office, at a moment, too, of all others, when he felt that everybody should be on the alert, in order that the "Sentinel" might be got to press. Ben liked neither the noise nor the silence; and, as the clink, clink ! came nearer and nearer, his choler rose with the cause of it until, just as it boiled up to his teeth, and was sure to flow over on somebody, a tall, rawboned fellow, with a stick over his shoulder, on which was slung a motley collection of small iron and wire wares, stalked into the office. To Bon Russell's furious "What the do you want?" the itinerant worker in iron and wire deigned not any reply; but threw off his back a load of ladles, screeners, flesh forks, gridirons, and pot-covers, with as much coolness as if he had just entered his own cabin after a profitable day's work. Ben stared at him with a gaze of mingled astonishment and vexation, as though he were a little doubtful whether the fellow's strange behaviour proceeded from impudence or ignorance; but time was precious. He interrogated him again, when the following dialogue ensued. "What do you want, fellow ?" "I'm no fellow. And if I was, I want nothing o' you." 66 You impudent scoundrel! do you know whom you are speaking to?" "To be sure I do; you're Mr. Russell's foreman, and a great man, I dare say, you think yourself when he's out; but when he's to home you sing small enough, I warrant ! Now, you see, I did not come up here without knowing something about you and your ways; for when your master bargained with me for my notions here, says he, 'Carry them up into my printing-office, pointing up here, and wait till I come to give you the money. And,' says he, giving me a wink, you will see my foreman up there,—a tall chap with his head powdered, a damned impudent fellow; but don't mind him; he'll very likely give you some sauce but don't mind him-throw down your load, and take a chair;'" and as this speech was concluded, the imperturbable intruder sat down in the only spare seat there was in the office, crossed his legs, and began fumbling in a long, deep pocket for a piece of tobacco. For two minutes there was silence, not in heaven, but, from the queer name given to at least one of its inhabitants, in a place of a dif ferent description. Of the pressmen and compositors it may be truly said that, struck with amusement at the fellow's effrontery, "the boldest held his breath for a time," while the devil skulked in behind an old staircase, that he might be out of harm's way in the row which he knew was to come. Like most proud and irritable men, Russell was for a moment thrown off his guard by such an unexpected attack upon the sanctity of his roof, and the dignity he had always maintained in the eyes of his own people. He sprang to his feet; but for a brief space stood staring at the wire-worker with eyes that, if they had been "basilisks," would certainly have "struck him dead." One, two, three bounds, and Ben had the tall man by the throat, and would have dashed his brains out upon the floor; but Jonathan saw him coming, braced his right foot, firmly advanced his left, and was not to be taken by surprise. The death-strug There is no part of the world where a new preacher, whether new-lights or blue lights, produces a greater sensation than in Boston. Though, after he is gone, the people may relapse into their quiet unitarian paths, still they have no objection to wander out of them in search of any novelty in religion; and if they do not always change their belief with every fresh importation, they at least pay a man the compliment of hearing what he has got to say. There happened to be, during the period of which I am speaking, one of these wandering theological meteors blazing around Boston, and people from every lane and by-way flocked to see it, not with pieces of smoked glass in their fingers, but with ten-cent pieces and York shillings, to drop in the green box, by way of adding fuel to the flames. So great was the crowd that the ordinary rules about the quiet possession of pews which the owners had paid for were entirely broken down; everybody took that seat which suited him best, and those who came late sat down in the places left to them by those who had come early. One pleasant Sunday morning Mackay went to the church by times, took his seat in a central pew just under the shadow of the pulpit, and sat bolt upright, with his arms extended, with an apparent degree of unnatural rigidity, down by his sides. He was presently surrounded by half a dozen females, nearly all of whom were strangers to his person, and in a little time the whole church was full to overflowing. gle between Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu was nothing to it; to and fro, and round and round, they went, sometimes stumbling over those miscellaneous ornaments which are to be found on a printing-office floor, and occasionally oversetting a galley of matter, or kicking their heels through a standing form. The workmen would have interfered, but their master's blood was up, and, with the chivalric spirit of that profession to which his leisure hours were devoted he wanted no odds against a single opponent. The combatants were well matched; but Ben had a perfect knowledge of the ground, which gave him the advantage: so that, after upsetting the countryman over sundry type-boxes and paper-heaps, with the exact localities of which he was familiar, he succeeded in pushing him through the door, with his back against a stout wooden railing, which protected the landing-place from those flights of stairs up which Jonathan had wound so recently, unconscious of the prospect before him of a much more rapid descent. To pitch each other over the banisters was now the coup-de-main to be achieved. Ben had got the fellow's spine twisted, and his head and shoulders overhanging the staircase but Jonathan had hold of his collar with both hands; and, besides, had his long legs twisted round the small of his back. They had wrestled in this way for five minutes, and the wire-worker's strength was begining to fail from the twisting of his back-bone over the rail, when, just as his legs began to fail, and his grasp to relax, and as Ben was preparing for one mighty The psalm was sung, the prayer said, the effort, by which the victory was to be secur- sermon delivered in the preacher's best ed, a horrible horse-laugh-something be- style. He dwelt particularly on the retween a real guffaw and a yell,-struck up- quirements of the great precept of brotherly on his ear, and looking through the window love,-upon the beauty of universal benevoin front of him, he saw Mungo Mackay at the lence, on the pleasure which arises, not window of the Exchange Coffee-House op- only from clothing the naked, and feeding posite, shaking his sides as though there the hungry, but from attention to the minwere a whole volcano of fire under his mid- ute and graceful courtesies and charities of riff. In an instant Ben understood the life, by which the thorny path is softened trick. "That infernal fellow Mackay! By and adorned. In the language of the critics Heavens! I'll cowhide him within an inch in such matters, "there was not a dry eye in of his life!" he exclaimed, as he drew the place"; the appeal had found its way Jonathan in from the dangerous position to every heart. All Mackay's immediate where he hung and stood him on his feet. But Russell was too good a fellow to bear malice long, and, moreover, was so rejoiced that he had not committed homicide in addition to making himself ridiculous, that after a few hours, his resentment passed off, and to the day of his death he was never tired of telling the story. neighbors were sensibly affected; he wept with them; the big tears chased each other down his cheeks. But while every one else was busy with their handkerchiefs wiping away the water that the orator, like a second Moses, had by the stroke of his eloquence caused to gush from their flinty hearts, Mackay held his arms stiff and straight, while half a glass of liquid suffused | had been played off for their amusement. his face. The dried eyes of his female A general titter now ran round the place,friends were not slow to observe this; for, in "nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles" were addition to the evident signs of deep feeling the order of the day. Men held down their which it exhibited, his face was rather a heads, and laughed outright: and the ladies handsome face. He wriggled, fidgeted, look- had to stuff the scented cambric into their mouths which had been so recently aped confused and interesting, but raised no hand, searched for no kerchief, and seemed plied to the sparkling founts above. to be in deep distress. At length a young widow lady, who sat beside him, remarked that he was ill at ease, and-heaven bless the female heart! it always melts at any mysterious sorrow-after one or two downcast looks and fluttering pauses, she said in an undertone : "Pray, sir, is there anything the matter with you? You appear to be unwell." "Ah! madam," breathed Mackay in a whisper, "I am a poor paralytic, and have lost the use of my arms. Though my tears have flowed in answer to the touching sentiments of the pastor, I have not the power to wipe them away.' At length something like order was restored, the hymn sung, and the blessing given, amidst stifled noises of various kinds, when the congregation rose to depart. The widow, up to this point, feeling strong in the consciousness of having performed a virtuous action upon a good-looking face, heeded not the gaze of the curious, nor the smiles of the mirthful; but what was her astonishment when Mackay rose from his seat, lifted up one of the paralytic hands, and took his hat from a peg above his head, and with the other began searching in his coatpocket for his gloves! Though the unkindest cut of all was yet to come; for Mackay, having drawn them on, and opened the pew. door, turned, and bowing to his fair friend, put this question in a tone the most insin uating, but still loud enough for fifty people to hear: "" have? In an instant a fair hand was thrust into a reticule, and a white handkerchief scented with otto of roses, was applied to Mackay's eyes; the fair Samaritan seeming to rejoice in this first opportunity of practising what "Is it not, madam, a much greater pleas. had been so recently preached, appeared to polish them with right good will. When ure to operate upon a fine-looking Roman upon such a queer lit she had done, M. looked unutterable obliga-nose like mine, than tions, but whispered she would increase tle snub as you them a thousand-fold if she would, as it wanted it very much, condescend to wipe his nose. The novelty of the request was thought nothing of; the widow was proud of the promptitude she had displayed in succoring the distressed; and to a person who has done you one kind action, the second seems always easy. Her white hand and whiter handkerchief were raised to Mackay's cutwater; but the moment it was completely enveloped in the folds of the cambric, he gave such a sneeze as made the whole church ring-it was in fact more like a neigh. The minister paused in giving out the hymn; the deacons put on their spectacles to see what could be the matter; and in an instant every eye was turned upon Mackay and the fair Samaritan, the latter of whom being so intent upon her object, or so confounded by the general notoriety she had acquired, still convulsively grasped the YOKED.-A Country clerk in a rural town had a pet calf, which he was training up in the ways of the ox. The calf walked around very peacefully under one end of the yoke, while Mr. Clerk held up the other end. But in an unfortunate moment the man conceived the idea of putting his own neck in the yoke to let the calf see how it would seem to work with a partner. This frightened the calf, and, elevating his tail and voice, he struck a dead run" for the village, and Mr. Clerk went along, with his head down and his plug hat in his hand, straining every nerve to keep up, and crying out at the top of his voice: "Here we come! plague our foolish souls! Head us, somebody! AN IRISH emigrant, hearing a sun-set gun at Portsmouth, asked a sailor: "What's "Why that's sunset,' was the that?" "Sunset!" exclaimed Pat; "and reply. does the sun go down in this country with such a bang as that?" 14 THE TWINS. IN form and feature, face and limb, And not a soul knew which. One day (to make the matter worse), This fatal likeness even dogged My footsteps when at school, What would you do, if you were me, Our close resemblance turned the tide In short, year after year the same HENRY S. LEIGH. THE INDIANS AND THE MUSTARD. hold them at the festal board. Everything is novel and strange, yet they give no token of surprise, and scorn to betray their sense of awkwardness, even so much as by asking questions. They take what is offered them and gulp it down with stern and desperate gravity. To one of them a pot of mustard is handed. He helps himself liberally to the mild-looking mixture, and swallows a good spoonful of it. Spirit of the tornado! Fiend of the burning prairie! What is this molten fire, compared to which the "firewater of the trader is as bland as milk? The unhappy warrior struggled to conceal his agony; but though he succeeded in avoiding any contortion of the features, the tears, to his unspeakable disgust, chased themselves in a stream down his dusky cheeks. What would he not have given for an opportunity of scalping the innocent occasion of his trouble! Meanwhile his discomfort had not escaped the keen eyes of an Indian who sat beside him. Nudging his tearful comrade, the latter inquired in low, guttural accents, the cause of his emotion. Suppressing his rage, the other mildly answered, that he was thinking of his honored father who had lately gone to the happy hunting grounds. Whether this explanation was regarded by the question er as perfectly satisfactory we have no means of knowing; he did not, however, press his inquiries any further, nor does he appear to have suspected that the contents of the little jar had had anything in particular to do with the doleful memories of his friend. Presently the mustard came to him. It was a compound all untried; but the warrior was a stranger to fear. He took the condiment without hesitation, and he swallowed it freely-just once. Ah!! Death and torments! Is he on fire ?-Will he die? A PARTY of Indians were being fêted on He is not quite sure; but it requires all his the occasion of their first introduction to strength to keep quiet-The blood mounts the manners and customs of the "Pale to his head, and the tears-ugh!—that he Faces." The stoicism of the red man is a should thus play the squaw before all this well-known trait. From childhood these company-rush from his bulging eyes. Inchildren of the forest are schooled to en- dian No. 1 is an interested observer of this dure pain without crying or wincing; and little incident. His eyes had been upon the to be equally undemonstrative also in their mustard pot, and he had quietly awaited emotions of joy. Any departure from this developments. His turn had now come; standard of manliness they regard as a his revenge was at hand. Nudging his incontemptible weakness. The Indians of wardly writhing neighbor, he asked, in mildour story were true "braves," whom no new est gutterals, "My brother, why do you weep?" experience, either of satisfaction or displeas- To which the furious sufferer gently replied, ure, could startle into any sign more ex- "I was weeping to think that when your pressive than a grunt; their countenances precious father went to the happy hunting being uniformly grave and impassive. Be-grounds he did not take you with him." THE YELLOW DOMINO. In the latter part of the reign of Louis XV. of France the masquerade was an entertainment high in estimation, and was often given at an immense cost on court days and such occasions of rejoicing. As persons of all ranks might gain admission to these spectacles, provided they could afford the purchase of the ticket, very strange rencontres frequently took place at them, and exhibitions almost as curious in the way of disguise or assumption of character. But perhaps the most whimsical among the genuine surprises recorded at any of these spectacles, was that which occurred in Paris the 15th of October, on the day when the dauphin (son of Louis XV.) attained the age of one and twenty. At this fête, which was of a peculiarly glittering character-so much so, that the details of it are given at great length by the historians of the day-the strange demeanor of a man in a yellow domino, early in the evening, excited attention. This mask, who showed nothing remarkable as to figure, ---though tall rather, and of robust proportions, seemed to be gifted with an appetite, not merely past human conception, but passing the fancies even of romance: The dragon of old, who churches ate, he was a nibbler-a mere fool-to this "Is it the same mask or are there several dressed alike?" demanded an officer of the guards, as the yellow domino rose from a seat opposite to him and left the apartment. "I have seen but one, and by Heavens! he is here again," exclaimed the party to whom the query was addressed. The yellow domino spoke not a word, but proceeded straight to the vacant seat which he had just left and again commenced supping, as though he had fasted for the half of a campaign. At length the confusion which the proceeding created, became universal; and the cause reached the ears of the dauphin. "He is a very fiend, your highness!" exclaimed an old nobleman, "or wants but a tail to be so!" "Say rather he should be a famished poet, by his appearance," replied the prince, laughing. "But there must be some jugg ling; he spills all his wine, and hides the provisions under his robe." Even while they were speaking, the yellow domino entered the room in which they were talking, and, as usual, proceeded to the table of refreshments. "See here, my lord," cried one-" I have seen him do this twice!" "I thrice!"-"I five times!"-" and I fifteen ! " This was too much. The master of the ceremonies was questioned. He knew nothing, and the yellow domino was interrupted as he was carrying a bumper of claret to his lips. "The prince desires that monsieur who wears the yellow domino should unmask." The stranger hesitated. "The command with which his highness honors monsieur is perfectly absolute." Against that which is absolute there is no contending. The yellow man threw off his mask and domino; and proved to be a private trooper of the Irish dragoons! "And in the name of gluttony, my good friend (not to ask how you gained admission), how have you contrived," said the prince, "to sup to-night so many times?" "Sire, I was but beginning to when sup, your royal message interrupted me.' "Beginning!" exclaimed the dauphin, in amazement, "then what is it I have heard and seen? Where are the herds of oxen that have disappeared, and the hampers of burgundy? I insist upon knowing how this is!" 66 may "It is, sire." returned the soldier, it please your grace, that the troop to which I belong is to-day on guard. We have purchased one ticket among us, and provided this yellow domino, which fits us all. By which means the whole of the front rank, being myself the last man, have supped, if the truth must be told, at discretion! and the leader of the second rank, saving your highness's commands, is now waiting outside the door to take his turn." |