rials to which they are submitted. They have nothing to do but to
develope enormous calluses at every point of contact with
authorship. Their business is not a matter of sympathy, but of
intellect. They must reject the unfit productions of those whom
they long to befriend, because it would be a profligate charity to
accept them. One cannot burn his house down to warm the hands even
of the fatherless and the widow.

THE PROFESSOR UNDER CHLOROFORM.

--You haven't heard about my friend the Professor's first
experiment in the use of anaesthetics, have you?

He was mightily pleased with the reception of that poem of his
about the chaise. He spoke to me once or twice about another poem
of similar character he wanted to read me, which I told him I would
listen to and criticize.

One day, after dinner, he came in with his face tied up, looking
very red in the cheeks and heavy about the eyes.--Hy'r'ye?--he
said, and made for an arm-chair, in which he placed first his hat
and then his person, going smack through the crown of the former as
neatly as they do the trick at the circus. The Professor jumped at
the explosion as if he had sat down on one of those small CALTHROPS
our grandfathers used to sow round in the grass when there were
Indians about,--iron stars, each ray a rusty thorn an inch and a
half long,--stick through moccasins into feet,--cripple 'em on the
spot, and give 'em lockjaw in a day or two.

At the same time he let off one of those big words which lie at the
bottom of the best man's vocabulary, but perhaps never turn up in
his life,--just as every man's hair MAY stand on end, but in most
men it never does.

After he had got calm, he pulled out a sheet or two of manuscript,
together with a smaller scrap, on which, as he said, he had just
been writing an introduction or prelude to the main performance. A
certain suspicion had come into my mind that the Professor was not
quite right, which was confirmed by the way he talked; but I let
him begin. This is the way he read it:-

Prelude.

I'm the fellah that tole one day
The tale of the won'erful one-hoss-shay.
Wan' to hear another? Say.
--Funny, wasn'it? Made ME laugh,--
I'm too modest, I am, by half,--
Made me laugh'S THOUGH I SH'D SPLIT,--
Cahn' a fellah like fellah's own wit?--
--Fellahs keep sayin',--"Well, now that's nice;
Did it once, but cahn' do it twice."--
Don' you b'lieve the'z no more fat;
Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that.
Fus