mark my comin' at this delightful hour of three o'clock in
the morning."

Then he launched out on the ocean of thought like a magnificent ship
going to sea. And when the night was far spent, and the orgies were
over, and the lights were blown out at the club, I saw him enter his own
sweet home in his glory--entered it, like a thief, with his boots in his
hands,--entered it singing softly to himself:

"I'm called little gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup,
Though I could never tell why--(hic),
Yet still I'm called gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup,
Poor little gutter pup--I--(hic)."

He was unconscious of the presence of the white figure that stood at
the head of the stairs holding up a lamp, like liberty enlightening
the world, and as a tremulous voice called him to the judgment bar, the
door closed behind him on the paradise of a fool, and he sneaked up the
steps, muttering to himself, "What shadows we are--(hic)--what shadows
we pursue." Then I saw him again in the morning, reaping temptation's
bitter reward in the agonies of his drunk-sick; and like Mark Twain's
boat in a storm,

"He heaved and sot, and sot and heaved,
And high his rudder flung,
And every time he heaved and sot,
A mighty leak he sprung."

If I were a woman with a husband like "that," I would fill him so full
of Keely's chloride of gold that he would jingle as he walks and tinkle
as he talks and have a fit at every mention of the silver bill.

The biggest fool that walks on God's footstool is the man who destroys
the joy and peace of his own sweet home; for, if paradise is ever
regained in this world, it must be in the home. If its dead flowers
ever bloom again, they must bloom in the happy hearts of home. If its
sunshine ever breaks through the clouds, it must break forth in the
smiling faces of home. If heaven ever descends to earth and angels tread
its soil, it must be in the sacred precincts of home. That which heaven
most approves is the pure and virtuous home. For around it linger all
the sweetest memories and dearest associations of mankind; upon it hang
the hopes and happiness of the nations of the earth, and above it shines
the ever blessed star that lights the way back to the paradise that was
lost.

[Illustration: RETURNING FROM THE CLUB.]

BACHELOR AND WIDOWER.

I saw a poor old bachelor live all the days of his life in sight of
paradise, too cowardly to put his arm around it and pr