a side of bacon impaled
itself on an iron hitching-post. Pretty soon a chain of sausages fell in
a circle around her, flattening out as if a road-roller had passed over
them. Then there was a lull--nothing came down but dried fish, cold
puddings and flannel under-clothing; but presently her wishes began to
take effect again, and a quarter of beef descended with terrific
momentum upon the top of the little orphan's head."

S.E.--How did the editor of _The Reasonable Virtues_ like that quarter
of beef?

P.C.--Oh, he swallowed it like a little man, and stuck in a few dressed
pigs of his own. I've left them out, because I don't want outsiders
altering the Little Story. (_Reads_.)

"One would have thought that ought to suffice; but not so. Bedding,
shoes, firkins of butter, mighty cheeses, ropes of onions, quantities of
loose jam, kegs of oysters, titanic fowls, crates of crockery and
glassware, assorted house-keeping things, cooking ranges, and tons of
coal poured down in broad cataracts from a bounteous heaven, piling
themselves above that infant to a depth of twenty feet. The weather was
more than two hours in clearing up; and as late as half-past three a
ponderous hogshead of sugar struck at the corner of Clay and Kearney
Streets, with an impact that shook the peninsula like an earthquake and
stopped every clock in town.

"At daybreak the good merchants arrived upon the scene with shovels and
wheelbarrows, and before the sun of the new year was an hour old, they
had provided for all of these provisions--had stowed them away in their
cellars, and nicely arranged them on their shelves, ready for sale to
the deserving poor."

S.E.--And the little girl--what became of _her_?

P.C.--You musn't get ahead of the Little Story. (_Reads_.)

"When they had got down to the wicked little orphan who had not been
content with her lot some one brought a broom, and she was carefully
swept and smoothed out. Then they lifted her tenderly, and carried her
to the coroner. That functionary was standing in the door of his office,
and with a deprecatory wave of his hand, he said to the man who was
bearing her:

"'There, go away, my good fellow; there was a man here three times
yesterday trying to sell me just such a map.'"

THE PARENTICIDE CLUB

MY FAVORITE MURDER

Having murdered my mother under circumstances of singular atrocity, I
was arrested and put upon my trial, which lasted seven years. In
charging the jury,