ld Tubbs vollop the chap as had insulted his wife," and so he
had it all his own way. He dragged the offender out of the office, and
finished him off on the sidewalk. He was engaged in this laudable
occupation, when his better half, tired of mounting guard over the
wheelbarrow, appeared upon the field.

"Mr. Tubbs!" she screamed.

"Wait a minute, my dear. I've only done one side of his head."

"But, Mr. Tubbs! _That wasn't the man_!"

Tubbs suspended operations, and stood fixed in horror. The remains of
the injured individual were taken into the hourly office. Then came
remorse and apologies unaccepted and unacceptable--a lawyer's
letter--an action for assault and battery, and heavy damages. The real
offender had escaped, and was never heard of; the victim was the
well-behaved young gentleman, who had sat on Mrs. Tubbs's right. Her
description, which had answered for both, had occasioned the dilemma,
which, while it proved an expensive lesson to Mr. Tubbs, was also an
effectual one, and saved him from many a rash and hasty action, and
induced him ever afterwards to adopt Colonel Crockett's golden maxim,
"_Be always sure you're right, then go ahead_."

THE CASTLE ON THE RHINE.

In one of those old feudal castles, which, perched, like eagle nests,
upon the picturesque hills that overhang

"The wide and winding Rhine,"

and with their crumbling and ivy-grown towers, arrest the eyes of the
delighted traveller, as he views them from the deck of the gliding
steamer, there dwelt, some years ago, the Baron Von Rosenburg and his
lady Mathilde. The baron was a very proud man, and continually
boasting of his descent from a "long and noble line of martial
ancestors," gentlemen who were wont, in the "good old times," to wear
steel on head, back, and breast, and each of whom supported a score of
retainers in his feudal castle. Where the money comes from to support
a princely housekeeping, when the head of the family has no property
or employment, is sometimes a mystery nowadays; but no such doubt
attached to the resources of the baron's ancestors. These gentlemen,
when short of provisions, would sally forth at the head of their
followers, and capture the first drove of cattle they encountered,
without stopping to inquire into the ownership. Sometimes they made
excursions on the river, and levied contributions on the little barks
of traders who often carried valuable cargoes from one Rhine town to
another.

But