ces without tumbling into the snare he is
watching?"

"We'll see how you succeed with the charming widow,--whether the wise
man, when his own _jecur_ is pierced with the arrow, may not show it,
as well as other people. And by-the-by, you will have an excellent
opportunity for your experiment. Marcia and I are going to take a sail
this afternoon, and you can entertain Mrs. Sandford while we are gone."

Easelmann softly whistled.

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW.

I intended to have signalized my first appearance by a certain large
statement, which I flatter myself is the nearest approach to a
universal formula of life yet promulgated at this breakfast-table. It
would have had a grand effect. For this purpose I fixed my eyes on a
certain divinity-student, with the intention of exchanging a few
phrases, and then forcing my picture-card, namely, _The great end of
being_.--I will thank you for the sugar,--I said.--Man is a dependent
creature.

It is a small favor to ask,--said the divinity-student,--and passed the
sugar to me.

--Life is a great bundle of little things,--I said.

The divinity-student smiled, as if that was the concluding epigram of
the sugar question.

You smile,--I said.--Perhaps life seems to you a little bundle of great
things?

The divinity-student started a laugh, but suddenly reined it back with
a pull, as one throws a horse on his haunches.--Life is a great bundle
of great things,--he said.

(_Now, then_!) The great end of being, after all, is----

Hold on!--said my neighbor, a young fellow whose name seems to be John,
and nothing else,--for that is what they all call him,--hold on! the
Sculpin is go'n' to say somethin'.

Now the Sculpin (_Cottus Virginianus_) is a little water-beast which
pretends to consider itself a fish, and, under that pretext, hangs
about the piles upon which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the
bait and hook intended for flounders. On being drawn from the water, it
exposes an immense head, a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so
full of spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have
not been able to count them without quarrelling about the number, and
that the colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touch
them, and especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoes
on, to cover the thick wh