fe to play a game at backgammon.

"Oh dear!" he sighed, reclining back upon the sofa, and there he lay
for half an hour, feeling as he had never felt in his life. At nine
o'clock he went to bed, and remained awake for half the night.

Much to his satisfaction, when he opened his eyes on the next morning,
the sun was shining into his window brightly. He would not be confined
to the house so closely for another day.

A few weeks sufficed to exhaust all of Mr. Parker's time-killing
resources. The newspapers, he complained, did not contain any thing of
interest now. Having retired on his money, and set up for something of
a gentleman, he, after a little while, gave up visiting at the shops of
his old fellow-tradesmen. He did not like to be seen on terms of
intimacy with working people! Street-walking did very well at first,
but he tired of that; it was going over and over the same ground. He
would have ridden out and seen the country, but he had never been twice
on horseback in his life, and felt rather afraid of his neck. In fact,
nothing was left to him, but to lounge about the house the greater
portion of his time, and grumble at every thing; this only made matters
worse, for Mrs. Parker would not submit to grumbling without a few
words back that cut like razors.

From a contented man, Mr. Parker became, at the end of six months, a
burden to himself. Little things that did not in the least disturb him
before, now fretted him beyond measure. He had lost the quiet, even
temper of mind that made life so pleasant.

A year after he had given up business he met Mr. Steele for the first
time since his retirement from the shop.

"Well, my old friend," said that gentleman to him familiarly, "how is
it with you now? I understand you have retired from business."

"Oh yes; a year since."

"So long? I only heard of it a few weeks ago. I have been absent from
the city. Well, do you find doing nothing any easier than manufacturing
good hats and serving the community like an honest man, as you did for
years? What is _your_ experience worth?"

"I don't know that it is worth any thing, except to myself; and it is
doubtful whether it isn't too late for even me to profit by it."

"How so, my friend? Isn't living on your money so pleasant a way of
getting through the world as you had supposed it to be?"

"I presume there cannot be a pleasanter way; but we are so constituted
that we are never happy in any position."

"Perhaps no