p hunt for the delinquent.

We found him standing on a table in a saloon, with an old tin lantern
in one hand and the school report in the other, haranguing a gang of
"corned" miners on, the iniquity of squandering the public money on
education "when hundreds and hundreds of honest, hard-working men were
literally starving for whiskey."

He had been assisting in a regal spree with those parties for hours.

We dragged him away, and put him into bed.

Of course there was no school report in the Union, and Boggs held me
accountable, though I was innocent of any intention or desire to compass
its absence from that paper, and was as sorry as any one that the
misfortune had occurred. But we were perfectly friendly.

The day the next school report was due the proprietor of the Tennessee
Mine furnished us a buggy, and asked us to go down and write something
about the property--a very common request, and one always gladly acceded
to when people furnished buggies, for we were as fond of pleasure
excursions as other people.

The "mine" was a hole in the ground ninety feet deep, and no way of
getting down into it but by holding on to a rope and being lowered with
a windlass.

The workmen had just gone off somewhere to dinner.

I was not strong enough to lower Boggs's bulk, so I took an unlighted
candle in my teeth, made a loop for my foot in the end of the rope,
implored Boggs not to go to sleep or let the windlass get the start of
him, and then swung out over the shaft.

I reached the bottom muddy and bruised about the elbows, but safe.

I lit the candle, made an examination of the rock, selected some
specimens, and shouted to Boggs to hoist away.

No answer.

Presently a head appeared in the circle of daylight away aloft, and a
voice came down:

"Are you all set?"

"All set-hoist away!"

"Are you comfortable?"

"Perfectly."

"Could you wait a little?"

"Oh, certainly-no particular hurry."

"Well-good-bye."

"Why, where are you going?"

"After the school report!"

And he did.

I stayed down there an hour, and surprised the workmen when they hauled
up and found a man on the rope instead of a bucket of rock.

I walked home, too--five miles-up-hill.

We had no school report next morning--but the Union had.

AN IDEAL FRENCH ADDRESS

EXTRACT FROM "PARIS NOTES," IN "TOM SAWYER ABROAD," ETC.

I am told that a French sermon is like a French speech--it never names
an historical event, b