of the bar again, and I'll off
coat and go to work like a Trojan."

"Ab Hart," said Smith, "when you came to me, you was so green you could
hardly tell a crossed quarter from a bogus pistareen--the 'run of the
till' you learnt in a week, while in less than a month you was the best
hand at 'knocking down' I ever met! There's fifty dollars, you and I are
square; we will keep so--go!"

Poor Absalom was beat at his own game, and soon left for parts unknown.

People Do Differ!

Fifty years ago, Uncle Sam was almost a stranger on the maps; he hadn't
a friend in the world, apparently, while he had more enemies than he
could shake a stick at. Every body snubbed him, and every body wanted to
lick him. But Sam has now grown to be a crowder; his spunk, too, goes up
with his resources, and he don't wait for any body to "knock the chip
off his hat," but goes right smack up to a crowd of fighting bullies,
and rolling up his sleeves, he coolly "wants to know" if any body had
any thing to say about him, in that crowd! Uncle Sam is no longer "a
baby," his _physique_ has grown to be quite enormous, and we rather
expect the old fellow will have to have a pitched battle with some body
soon, _or he'll spile!_

Bill Whiffletree's Dental Experience.

Have you ever had the tooth-ache? If not, then blessed is your
ignorance, for it is indeed bliss to know nothing about the tooth-ache,
as you know nothing, absolutely nothing about pain--the acute,
double-distilled, rectified agony that lurks about the roots or fangs of
a treacherous tooth. But ask a sufferer how it feels, what it is like,
how it operates, and you may learn something theoretically which you may
pray heaven that you may not know practically.

But there's poor William Whiffletree--he's been through the mill,
fought, bled, and died (slightly) with the refined, essential oil of the
agony caused by a raging tooth. Every time we read _Othello_, we are
half inclined to think that _more_ than half of Iago's devilishness came
from that "raging tooth," which would not let him sleep, but tortured
and tormented "mine ancient" so that he became embittered against all
the world, and blackamoors in particular.

William Whiffletree's case is a very strong illustration of what
tooth-ache is, and what it causes people to do; and affords a pretty
fair idea of the manner in which the tooth and sufferer are medicinally
and morally treated by the _materia medica_, and friends