Court. Witness, you are now before a court of justice, and unless you behave yourself in a more becoming manner, you will be sent to gaol; so begin and tell what you know about the fight at Captain. Rice's.

Witness. [alarmed.] Well, gentlemen, Captain. Rice he gin a treat, and Cousin Sally DilliardChops. I hope the witness may be ordered into custody.

Court. [after deliberating.] Mr. Attorney, the Court is of opinion that we may save time by telling witness to go on in his own way. Proceed, Mr. Harris, with your story, but stick to the point.

Witness. Yes, gentlemen. Well, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and Cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house, and axed me if my wife she mout go? I told Cousin Sally Dilliard that my wife she was poorly, being as how she had the rheumatics in the hips, and the big swamp was up; but howsomever, as it was she, Cousin Sally Dilliard, my wife she mout go. Well, Cousin Sally Dilliard then axed me if Mose he moutn't go. I told Cousin Sally Dilliard as how Mose he was foreman of the crap, and the crap was smartly in

VOL. II.

E

the grass; but howsomever, as it was she, Cousin Sally Dilliard, Mose he mout go. So they goes on together, Mose, my wife, and Cousin Sally Dilliard, and they came to the big swamp and it was up, as I was telling you; but being as how there was a log across the big swamp, Cousin Sally Dilliard and Mose, like genteel folks, they walked the log; but my wife, like a darned fool, hoisted her coats and waded through. And that's all I know about the fight.

V.

THE AGE OF WONDERS.

My neighbour over the way, Colonel Swallowmore, thinks himself born in the age of wonders :and no wonder he thinks so, for he reads the newspapers and believes them! It is astonishing how gravely the Colonel gulps down every crude lump of monstrous fudge the papers contain. Sea-serpents, crook-necked squashes, consumption cured, talking pigs, and three-legged cats, are nothing to an appetite like his. He believes electioneering speeches and predictions of political quidnuncs. All is fish that comes to his net.

"These are times! Mr. Titterwell, these are

times, indeed!" says he to me, with a most rueful visage, as he lays down the newspaper. "What are we coming to! People have got to such a pass! Something is certainly going to happen. before long. I'm really, really frightened to think of it. There never were such doings in my day. Positively I've got so now that I an't surprised at anything!"

And so he shakes his head, hitches up his breeches, sticks his spectacles higher up his nose, and reads the wonders of the day over again.

Twenty-eight several times has this country been irretrievably ruined since I knew the Colonel. Seven times has the world come quite to an end. Nineteen times have we had the hardest winter ever known within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Twenty-one times there never was seen such a backward spring. Forty-seven times the approaching session of Congress has been one of uncommon interest; and thirteen thousand, nine hundred and sixty-six times has death snatched away the best man upon earth, leaving mortals inconsolable, and society with an immense void.

The mental agitations he has undergone in

pondering upon the "wonderful wonders" that spring up as plenty as grasshoppers in this wonderful age, are not to be described; for the Colonel takes an immense interest in public affairs, and cannot see the universe go to ruin about his ears without pangs of sympathy. Whatever molehill he stumbles upon, he makes a mountain of it.

He thought the Salem necessary to the balance of

mill-dam absolutely power, and was certain that the bridge over Peg's Run was the only means of saving the nation.

He went to bed in a great fright on reading in the paper that Emerson's Spelling-book would overthrow the liberties of the country; and he was struck with the deepest alarm when he heard of the feud that had broken out between the Houses of Correction and Reformation about a cart-load of chips.

I shall never forget the anxiety that beset him last summer when the City Council could not come to a choice about the Superintendent of Drains. The newspapers were full of the affair, and the Colonel, I verily believe, would have worried himself into a nervous fever, had this alarming schism