cap, and the others fur. Yet, like as they are
in age and size, and general appearance, anybody may see at a glance
that one is a well-educated boy, and a bit of a gentleman--perhaps
with spending money for the holydays, while the other two are clumsy
scapegraces. Watch them. Observe how the two always keep together, and
how, as they go by the windows of that confectionary-shop, first one
lags a little in the rear, and then the other, till they have stopped
and wheedled their companion into a brief display of his pocket-money.
The rogues!--how well they understand his character! See! he has
determined to have it his own way, in spite of their well-managed
remonstrances and suggestions; and now they all enter the shop
together--he foremost, of course, with a swagger not to be
misunderstood for a moment. And now they have sprung the trap! and the
poor boy is a beggar!

But who are they? Judge for yourself? Do they not belong, of course,
to the same neighborhood? Have they not an air of good-fellowship,
which cannot be counterfeited--a something which explains why they are
always together, and why they are all dressed alike? How they loiter
along, now that they have squeezed him as dry as an orange, as if
they were just returning from a long summer-day's tramp in the
wilderness after flowers and birds-nests--the flowers to tear to
pieces, and the birds-nests to set up in the school for other boys to
have a _shy_ at. By to-morrow, they will be asunder for months--he at
school afar off, and they at leap-frog or marbles. And after a few
years, they will be forgotten by him, and he remembered by them--such
being the difference in their early education--as the boy they were
allowed to associate with, and to fleece at pleasure when he was
nobody but Tom, Dick, or Harry, and thought himself no better than
other folks.

But enough--let us leave the window. It is growing dark; and if you
are not already satisfied, nothing ever will satisfy you, that the
great mass of mankind have ears, but they hear not; and eyes, but
they see not--and go through the world with their night-caps pulled
over both. Poor simpletons!--what would they think of a man who should
run for a wager with both feet in one shoe. Are you satisfied?

I am--of one thing.

And what is that?

Why, that a magazine-writer may coin gold out of any thing--out of the
golden atmosphere of a summer-evening--or the golden motes he sees
playing in the sunshine, on the b