way, and finds something horrible; as, for instance, he
seeks for treasure, and finds a dead body; for the gold that somebody
has hidden, and brings to light his accumulated sins.

* * * * *

An auction of second-hands,--thus moralizing how the fashion of this
world passeth away.

* * * * *

Noted people in a town,--as the town-crier, the old fruit-man, the
constable, the oyster-seller, the fish-man, the scissors-grinder, etc.

* * * * *

The magic ray of sunshine for a child's story,--the sunshine circling
round through a prisoner's cell, from his high and narrow window. He
keeps his soul alive and cheerful by means of it, it typifying
cheerfulness; and when he is released, he takes up the ray of sunshine,
and carries it away with him, and it enables him to discover treasures
all over the world, in places where nobody else would think of looking
for them.

* * * * *

A young man finds a portion of the skeleton of a mammoth; he begins by
degrees to become interested in completing it; searches round the world
for the means of doing so; spends youth and manhood in the pursuit; and
in old age has nothing to show for his life but this skeleton of a
mammoth.

* * * * *

For a child's sketch:--a meeting with all the personages mentioned in
Mother Goose's Melodies, and other juvenile stories.

* * * * *

Great expectation to be entertained in the allegorical Grub Street of
the great American writer. Or a search-warrant to be sent thither to
catch a poet. On the former supposition, he shall be discovered under
some most unlikely form, or shall be supposed to have lived and died
unrecognized.

* * * * *

An old man to promise a youth a treasure of gold, and to keep his
promise by teaching him practically a golden rule.

* * * * *

A valuable jewel to be buried in the grave of a beloved person, or
thrown over with a corpse at sea, or deposited under the
foundation-stone of an edifice,--and to be afterwards met with by the
former owner, in some one's possession.

* * * * *

A noted gambler had acquired such self-command that, in the most
desperate circumstances of his game, no change of feature ever betrayed
him; only there was a sli