"I'd like to see one kept in better order!" returned Mrs. Bowser, with a show of spirit.

"But don't sass me back! When a wife begins to sass back, her husband should get his eyes open. I did intend to hand you out a ten-dollar bill this evening and tell you to go down and use it as you liked, but now I sha'n't do it. It would simply be throwing money away. I came home this evening prepared to sit down and enjoy my fireside, and you see how I have been disappointed. It was with the kindest feelings that I frankly admitted that you might possibly know cornstalks from cabbages, and you repaid me by trying to make out that I ought to be led around by a guardian for fear I'd fall into the sewer. They talk about the hundreds of divorces coming up in the courts every term. The only wonder is that there are not thousands and tens of thousands-that there is a husband left in the land who can put up with these things."

"All I said was that it was Corea, and not Cyprus," quietly observed Mrs. Bowser.

"But I say it was Cyprus!" shouted Mr. Bowser. "Don't I know! Isn't it my business to know! Would I be idiot enough to say Cyprus if it wasn't Cyprus! Can any human being on the face of this earth imagine a wife knowing more than her husband about any subject more serious than whooping-cough and nursing-bottles! Mrs. Bowser, you have brought it on your own head! You have finally loaded the last hair on the camel's back! Our lawyers will get together to-morrow and arrange matters, and if you don't want to go to Texas you can go to Corea! I'm going to bed. If our child wakes up, kiss him for me and tell him his father will always love and cherish him, but that he had a dignity to maintain, and was driven to maintain it at the sacrifice of his home and happiness!"

David Law Proudfit

Prehistoric Smith

Quaternary Epoch-Post-Pliocene Period

A MAN sat on a rock and sought
Refreshment from his thumb;

A dinotherium wandered by
And scared him some.

His name was Smith. The kind of rock
He sat upon was shale.

One feature quite distinguished him

"But Fashion's dictates rule supreme,

Ignoring common sense;

And Fashion says, to dock your tail
Is just immense.

"And children now come in the world

With half a tail or less;

Too stumpy to convey a thought,

And meaningless.

"It kills expression. How can one
Set forth, in words that drag,
The best emotions of the soul,
Without a wag?"

Sadly he mused upon the world,

Its follies and its woes;

Then wiped the moisture from his eyes

And blew his nose.

But clothed in earrings, Mrs. Smith

Came wandering down the dale;

And, smiling, Mr. Smith arose
And wagged his tail.

Katherine Kent Child Walker

The Total Depravity of Inanimate Things

I AM confident that, at the annunciation of my theme, Andover, Princeton, and Cambridge will skip like rams, and the little hills of East Windsor, Meadville, and Fairfax, like lambs. However divinity schools may refuse to "skip" in unison, and may butt and batter each other about the doctrine and origin of human depravity, all will join devoutly in the credo, I believe in the total depravity of inanimate things.

The whole subject lies in a nutshell, or, rather, an appleskin. We have clerical authority for affirming that all its miseries were let loose upon the human race by "them greenin's" tempting our mother to curious pomological speculations; and from that time till now-Longfellow, thou reasonest well!— "things are not what they seem," but are diabolically otherwise -masked batteries, nets, gins, and snares of evil.

(In this connection I am reminded of-can I ever cease to remember?-the unlucky lecturer at our lyceum a few winters ago, who, on rising to address his audience, applauding him all the while most vehemently, pulled out his handkerchief, for oratorical purposes only, and inadvertently flung from his pocket three "Baldwins" that a friend had given to him on his way to the hall, straight into the front row of giggling girls.)

My zeal on this subject received new impetus recently from an exclamation which pierced the thin partitions of the country parsonage, once my home, where I chanced to be a guest.

From the adjoining dressing-room issued a prolonged "Y-ah!"-not the howl of a spoiled child, nor the protest of a

captive gorilla, but the whole-souled utterance of a mighty son of Anak, whose amiability is invulnerable to weapons of human aggravation.

I paused in the midst of toilet exigencies and listened sympathetically, for I recognized the probable presence of the old enemy to whom the bravest and sweetest succumb.

Confirmation and explanation followed speedily in the halfapologetic, wholly wrathful declaration, "The pitcher was made foolish in the first place." I dare affirm that, if the spirit of Lindley Murray himself were at that moment hovering over that scene of trial, he dropped a tear, or, better still, an adverbial ly upon the false grammar, and blotted it out forever.

I comprehended the scene at once. I had been there. I felt again the remorseless swash of the water over neat boots and immaculate hose; I saw the perverse intricacies of its meanderings over the carpet, upon which the "foolish" pitcher had been confidently deposited; I knew, beyond the necessity of ocular demonstration, that, as sure as there were "pipe-holes" or cracks in the ceiling of the study below, those inanimate things would inevitably put their evil heads together and bring to grief the long-suffering Dominie, with whom, during my day, such inundations had been of at least bi-weekly occurrence, instigated by crinoline. The inherent wickedness of that "thing of beauty" will be acknowledged by all mankind, and by every female not reduced to the deplorable poverty of the heroine of the following veracious anecdote.

A certain good bishop, on making a tour of inspection through a mission-school of his diocese, was so impressed by the aspect of all its beneficiaries that his heart overflowed with joy, and he exclaimed to a little maiden whose appearance was particularly suggestive of creature-comforts, "Why, my little girl! you have everything that heart can wish, haven't you?" Imagine