top
of his voice, as he rolled off the platform.

All the way from the Cannibal Islands he fell and tumbled and dropped,
until, with a dull thump, he alighted upon the floor of his own study.

"There! y' 'ave rolled out av yer chair agen, Father Higgins," said his
housekeeper, who at that moment entered the room to order him to bed, as
was her merciful custom.

"So I have," returned the Father, picking himself up. "An' sarved me
right, too. I thought I was the biggest raskil on the face av the earth.
I wondher if it's true. The Lord presarve me from the timptation av
great power, or I'll abuse it, an' abuse me felly-men and the
Church!"--_Harper's Magazine_, May, 1872.

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.

(BORN, 1827.)

* * * * *

FRED TROVER'S LITTLE IRON-CLAD.

Did I never tell you the story? Is it possible? Draw up your chair.
Stick of wood, Harry. Smoke?

You've heard of my Uncle Popworth, though. Why, yes! You've seen
him;--the eminently respectable elderly gentleman who came one day last
summer just as you were going; book under his arm, you remember; weed on
his hat; dry smile on bland countenance; tall, lank individual in very
seedy black. With him my tale begins; for if I had never indulged in an
Uncle Popworth I should never have sported an Iron-Clad.

Quite right, sir; his arrival _was_ a surprise to me. To know how great
a surprise, you must understand why I left city, friends, business, and
settled down in this quiet village. It was chiefly, sir, to escape the
fascinations of that worthy old gentleman that I bought this place, and
took refuge here with my wife and little ones. Here we had respite,
respite and nepenthe from our memories of Uncle Popworth; here we used
to sit down in the evening and talk of the past with grateful and
tranquil emotions, as people speak of awful things endured in days that
are no more. To us the height of human happiness was raising green corn
and strawberries, in a retired neighborhood where uncles were unknown.
But, sir, when that Phantom, that Vampire, that Fate, loomed before my
vision that day, if you had said, "Trover, I'll give ye sixpence for
this neat little box of yours," I should have said, "Done!" with the
trifling proviso that you should take my uncle in the bargain.

The matter with him? What indeed could invest human flesh with such
terrors,--what but this? he was--he is--let me shriek it in your ear--a
bore--a BORE! of