d the lady certainly did not pout. After other subjects had been
discussed, and worn thread-bare, the lady made inquiries as to the price
of a sewing machine, and where such an article could be purchased in this
city. The gentleman ventured the opinion that she had "better secure a
husband first." This opened the way for another branch of conversation,
and the broken field was industriously cultivated.

By the time the train arrived at the depot in this city, the gentleman
had proposed and been accepted (although the lady afterwards declared she
regarded it all as a good joke). The party separated; the gentleman, all
in good earnest, started for a license, and the lady made her way to a
boarding-house on Broadway, above Third, for dinner. At two o'clock the
gentleman returned with a license and a Justice, to the great
astonishment of the fair one, and after a few tears and
half-remonstrative expressions, she submitted with becoming modesty, and
the Squire performed the little ceremony in a twinkling. If this is not
a fast country, a search-warrant would hardly succeed in finding one.

--_Cincinnati Commercial_.

THE MERCHANT AND HIS CLERK.

A London merchant resided a few miles from the City, in an elegant
mansion, to and from which he journeyed daily, and invariably by third
class. It happened that one of the clerks in his employ lived in a
cottage accessible by the same line of railway, but he always travelled
first class; the same train thus presenting the anomaly of the master
being in that place which one would naturally assign to the man, and the
man appearing to usurp the position of the master. One day these two
alighted at the terminus in full view of each other. "Well," said Mr.
B--, in that tone of banter which a superior so frequently thinks it
becoming to adopt, "I don't know how you manage to ride first-class, when
in these hard times I find third-class fare as much as I can afford."
"Sir," replied the clerk, "you, who are known to be a person of wealth
and position, may adopt the most economical mode of travelling at no more
risk than being thought eccentric, and even with the applause of some for
your manifest absence of pride. But, as for myself, I cannot afford to
indulge in such irregularities. Among the persons I travel with I am
reported to be a well-paid _employe_, and am respected accordingly; to
maintain this reputation I am com