ers, that idea of patronage
which is to a rightly constituted Volunteer what a red rag is said to be
to a bull. Soon after this, a war having broken out in Africa, he will
volunteer for active service and will be accepted. Being after all a
young man of pluck and spirit, he will pass with distinction through the
hardships and dangers of the campaign. Amid the stern realities of the
bivouac and the battlefield his swagger and his affectations will
vanish. Returning home in this altered condition it is as likely as not
that he will marry, and having served his Queen with solid credit for
many years, will eventually retire with the rank of General and the
well-earned respect of all who know him.

* * * * *

THE LAST OF THE BACILLI.

(_Feuilleton of the "Medical Record," April, 1900._)

In a gloomy and inaccessible cavity, situated in the diaphragm of the
human body in which he had made his home, stood the last of the Bacilli.
His friends and his brothers, the companions of his innocent childhood,
the associates of his boyish days, his fellow-adventurers in manhood's
prime--all, all had perished. Some had been ruthlessly hunted down by a
skilled body of German assassins; others had died under the cruel
attacks of the pestilent Frenchman. The Cholera Bacillus, the king of
them all, was the first to fall; typhoid and typhus, small-pox and
measles, fits of convulsions or of sneezing, coughs and catarrhs, had
all been deprived of Bacilli and slain. The Wart Bacillus had fought
hard and maintained himself for a long time on a precarious footing of
fingers and thumbs; but he too had been extirpated. The Thirst Bacillus
had given up the ghost yesterday, after keeping up for years a guerilla
warfare disguised either as a green rat or a striped snake. And now the
mighty Hunger Bacillus stood alone, gloomy and defiant. But he knew his
hour had come. "Better death," he shouted, "than the microscope!" and
with these words drew his sword and dashed forth into the darkness.
There was a yell, followed by the sound of steel beaten against steel,
then a blood-curdling gurgle, and all grew still.

"He was a gallant scoundrel, but my quick _riposte_ confused him,"
observed Signor SUCCI, who entered the apartment, wiping his blade on
the advertisement of a new beef-essence, and taking copious draughts of
his elixir.

Thus died, as he had lived, dismal, desperate, degraded, the Hunger
Bacillus, the last of