n's
sleeve. If Hamlet simply shakes the spider off, and goes on with the
funeral unconcerned, then Miss Dickinson is a man. But if Hamlet screams
bloody murder, throws the skull at the grave digger, falls over into the
grave, tears his shirt, jumps out of the grave and shakes his imaginary
skirts, gathers them up in his hands and begins to climb up the scenes
like a Samantha cat chased by a dog, and gets on top of the first fly and
raises Hamlet's back and spits, then Miss Dickinson is a woman. The
country will watch eagerly for the result of this test, which we trust
will be made at the Boston Theatre next week.

EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF A DOUGHNUT.

"'Twas midnight's holy hour, and silence was brooding like a gentle spirit
o'er the still and pulseless world." Not a sound was heard, except
Robert's dog baying at a sorrel haired young man and a muchmussed girl,
who were returning home from a suburban picnic. As they passed out of
hearing, and the dog was peacefully cannibalizing on a link of sausage
that had been condemned by the board of health, owing to a piece of brass
padlock that showed through the silky nickel plating made of fiddling
string material, a soft cry of a child was heard in an upper room of a
mansion owned by a prosperous business man. The head of the house heard it
and sat up in bed to still the small voice, but couldn't, when the mother
of the child said that she had forgotten to bring up anything for the
child to eat in the night, and she must go down cellar and get a doughnut.
The man said he could never stay there and enjoy himself in bed and think
of his wife, groping around in the dark below stairs after it. After
telling him that he would probably come up with a pickle, ehe let him go.
Carefully he got out of bed, in an angelic frame of mind and a night
shirt, and barefooted he prepared to make the descent. As he stopped to
hold one foot in his hand, the instep of which had struck the rocker of
the baby crib, she told him the doughnuts were in the third crock in the
pantry on the floor. He said it was one evidence of a clear headed man,
that he could walk all over his own house in the dark. At the head of the
first pair of stairs he tripped on a baby cart and the tongue flew up and
struck him on the knee, but by hanging to the bannisters he saved himself.
At the foot of the stairs he tumbled over a block house and broke off a
toe nail. He said it was a mean man that wouldn't sacrifice a few to