unting world. Little does
ostentation know, as it flashes by in satined arrogance and jeweled
pride, of the sorrow it may jostle from its path; and perhaps it is
happy for us as we move along in smiles and pleasantness, not to
comprehend that the glance which meets our own comes from the
bleakness of a withered heart--withered by penury's unceasing
presence.

Moggs is in fault--ay, Montezuma Moggs--what, he "mend boots, mind
shop, tend baby," bringing down his lofty aspirations for the future
to be cabined within the miserable confines of the present!

"Hard work?" sneers Moggs--"yes, if a man sets himself down to hard
work, there he may set--nothing else but hard work will ever come to
him--but if he wont do hard work, then something easier will be sure to
come toddlin' along sooner or later. What can ever find you but hard
work if you are forever in the shop, a thumpin' and a hammerin'? Good
luck never ventures near lap-stones and straps. I never saw any of it
there in the whole course of my life; and I'm waitin' for good luck,
so as to be ready to catch it when it comes by."

Montezuma Moggs had a turn for politics; and for many a year he
exhibited great activity in that respect, believing confidently that
good luck to himself might grow from town-meetings and elections; and
you may have observed him on the platform when oratory addressed the
"masses," or on the election ground with a placard to his button, and
a whole handfull of tickets. But his luck did not seem to wear that
shape; and politically, Montezuma Moggs at last took his place in the
"innumerable caravan" of the disappointed. And thus, in turn, has he
courted fortune in all her phases, without a smile of recognition from
the blinded goddess. The world never knows its noblest sons; and
Montezuma Moggs was left to sorrow and despair.

Could he have been honored with a lofty commission, Montezuma Moggs
might have set forth to a revel in the halls of his namesake; but as
one of the rank and file, he could not think of it. And in private
conversation with his sneering friend Quiggens, to whose captiousness
and criticism Moggs submitted, on the score of the cigars occasionally
derivable from that source, he ventured the subjoined remarks relative
to his military dispositions:

"What I want," said Moggs, "is a large amount of glory, and a bigger
share of pay--a man like me ought to have plenty of both--glory, to
swagger about with, while the people run in