anticipation of seeing a dollar bill fly up, and if you don't sleep
without rocking, we are no prophet. The sport, however, is exhilerating,
and we are glad we went. We are glad because it learned us one thing, and
that is, if we ever want a woodcock real bad, it will be cheaper, easier,
and better to buy it. It will be inferred that we did not see a woodcock.
Such is the case.

But we made the blackbirds sick.

A BALD-HEADED MAN MOST CRAZY.

Last Wednesday the bell to our telephone rung violently at 8 o'clock in
the morning, and when we put our ear to the earaphone, and our mouth to
the mouthaphone, and asked what was the matter, a still small voice,
evidently that of a lady, said, "Julia has got worms, doctor."

We were somewhat taken back, but supposing Julia was going fishing, we
were just going to tell her not to forget to spit on her bait, when a male
voice said, "O, go to the devil, will you?" We couldn't tell whose voice
it was, but it sounded like the clerk at the Plankinton House, and we sat
down.

There is no man who will go further to accommodate a friend than we will,
but by the great ethereal there are some things we will not do to please
anybody. As we sat and meditated, the bell rang once more, and then we
knew the wires had got tangled, and that we were going to have trouble all
day. It was a busy day, too, and to have a bell ringing beside one's ear
all day is no fun.

The telephone is a blessed thing when it is healthy, but when its liver is
out of order it is the worst nuisance on record. When it is out of order
that way you can hear lots of conversation that you are not entitled to.
For instance, we answered the bell after it had rung several times, and a
sweet little female voice said, "Are you going to receive to-morrow?" We
answered that we were going to receive all the time. Then she asked what
made us so hoarse? We told her that we had sat in a draft from the bank,
and it made the cold chills run over us to pay it. That seemed to be
satisfactory, and then she began to tell us what she was going to wear,
and asked if we thought it was going to be too cold to wear a low neck
dress and elbow sleeves. We told her that was what we were going
to wear, and then she began to complain that her new dress was too tight
in various places that she mentioned, and when the boys picked us up off
the floor and bathed our temples, and we told them to take her away, they
thought we were crazy.

[Illustr