* * *

Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
And fast their horses ran,
And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
But they found no Happy Man.

They found poor men who would fain be rich,
And rich who thought they were poor;
And men who twisted their waist in stays,
And women that shorthose wore.

They saw two men by the roadside sit,
And both bemoaned their lot;
For one had buried his wife, he said,
And the other one had not.

At last they came to a village gate,
A beggar lay whistling there;
He whistled, and sang, and laughed, and rolled,
On the grass in the soft June air.

The weary couriers paused and looked
At the scamp so blithe and gay;
And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend!
You seem to be happy to-day."

"O yes, fair sirs," the rascal laughed,
And his voice rang free and glad;
"An idle man has so much to do
That he never has time to be sad."

"This is our man," the courier said;
"Our luck has lead us aright.
I will give you a hundred ducats, friend,
For the loan of your shirt to-night."

The merry blackguard lay back on the grass,
And laughed till his face was black;
"I would do it, God wot," and he roared with the fun,
"But I haven't a shirt to my back."

* * * * *

Each day to the King the reports came in
Of his unsuccessful spies,
And the sad panorama of human woes
Passed daily under his eyes.

And he grew ashamed of his useless life,
And his maladies hatched in gloom;
He opened his windows and let the air
Of the free heaven into his room.

And out he went in the world, and toiled
In his own appointed way;
And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
And the King was well and gay.

_John Hay._

JIM BLUDSO

Wal, no! I can't tell whar he lives,
Because he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of livin' like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three years
That you haven't heard folks tell
How Jemmy Bludso passed-in his checks,
The night of the Prairie Belle?

He weren't no saint--them engineers
Is all pretty much alike--
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill,
And another one here in Pike.
A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward man in a row--
But he never flunked, and he never lied;
I reckon he never knowed how.

And this was all the religion he had--
To trea