tar, mandolin, violin,
and flute, and the music was good for dancing. Uncle Bill was pounced on
by the Princess Giacinta and whirled off into some kind of a dance, he
did not know what; round flew the room and the nobility; round flew
barrels of teaberry tooth-wash, beautiful princesses, big devils of
Antonellis. Lights, flash, hum, buzz, buzz, zzz--ooo--zoom!

Uncle Bill opened his eyes as the sunlight shed one golden bar into his
sleeping-room at the Hotel d'Europe, and there by his bedside sat his
nephew, Jim Caper, reading a letter, while on a table near at hand was a
goblet full of ice, a bottle of hock, and another bottle corked, with
string over it.

'It's so-da wa-ter,' said Uncle Bill, musing aloud.

'Hallo, uncle, you awake?' asked Caper, suddenly raising his eyes from
his letter.

'I am, my son. Give thy aged father thy blessing, and open that hock and
soda water quicker! I say, Jim, now, what became of the nobility, the
Colonnas and Aldobrandinis, after they finished that barrel? Strikes me
some of them will have an owlly appearance this morning.'

'You don't know them,' answered Caper.

'I am beginning to believe I don't, too,' spoke Uncle Bill. 'I say, now,
Jim, where did we go last night?'

'Why, Uncle Bill, to tell you the plain truth, we went to a ball at the
Costa Palace, and a model ball it was, too.'

'I have you! Models who sit for you painters. Well, if they arn't
nobility, they drink like kings, so it's all right. Give us the hock,
and say no more about it.'

* * * * *

HOWE'S CAVE.

Few persons, perhaps, are aware that Schoharie County, N.Y., contains a
cave said to be nine or ten miles in extent, and, in many respects, one
of the most remarkable in America. Its visitors are few,--owing,
probably, to its recent discovery, together with its comparative
inaccessibility;--yet these few are well rewarded for its exploration.

In the month of August, 1861, I started, with three companions, to visit
this interesting place.

I will not weary the reader by describing the beauty of the Hudson and
the grandeur of the Catskills; yet I would fain fix in my memory forever
one sunrise, seen from the summit of a bluff on the eastern bank of the
river, when the fog, gradually lifting itself from the stream, and
slowly breaking into misty fragments, unveiled broad, smiling meadows,
dark forests, village after village, while above all, far in the
distance, rose the