CHAPTER XV.

An offer for the Horse-Difficulty of Shipping him according to the Terms of Bill of Lading-Anticipations-Marine Sketch-Mrs. Sparrowgrass buys a Patent Bedstead-An essay on Mechanical Forces, and Suggestions in regard to a Bronze Legislature-The New Bedstead is tried and found-"not available."

"MRS. SPARROWGRASS," said I, during one of the remarkably bland evenings we have had lately; “there is, at last, an offer for our horse." This good news being received with an incredulous look, I pulled from my pocket the Louisville Journal, and read therein as follows:

"The admirers of Mr. Sparrowgrass' will be pleased to learn, that he bargained for a horse. After detailing his experiences with the animal, Mr. Sparrowgrass thus posts him: 'Does anybody want a horse at a low price? A good, stylish-looking animal, close-ribbed, good loin, and good stifle, sound legs, with only the heaves, and the blind staggers, and a slight defect in one of his eyes?" We can put Mr. S. in the way of a trade. We know a physician, who feeds his horse well, who pays more for horsewhips than for provender. He would trade for any animal that has a thin skin and a good memory."

ANTICIPATIONS.

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"Well," said Mrs. Sp., "what of that? What can you do in relation to the matter? You have not seen the other horse." "True," I replied, "but that need not prevent me SHIPPING MINE! And you may depend upon it, if ever I get him on board ship, and the bill of lading is in my pocket, no earthly power can make me take him back again. I shall say to the captain, 'My dear sir; that horse is not accustomed to going, but, if he has any go in him, he will have to go now."" This play upon words, so entirely original, struck me as being pretty fair; whereupon, I sat down quite complacently to read the rest of the paper. "But," continued Mrs. Sparrowgrass, smoothing her hair with both hands, "suppose, after they get him on board the vessel, they should find out what kind of a horse he was, and suppose, then, they should refuse to take him, how could you help it?"

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Why, my dear," replied I, "if I have a bill of lading, they must take him. A bill of lading is a certificate or contract signed by the captain and owners of the vessel, in which they agree to carry such and such goods from the port where they receive them, to the port to which the vessel is bound. A bill of lading reads something like

this: 'Shipped in good order, and well-conditioned""

"How does it begin?" said Mrs. S., with the first word in the key of C sharp.

"Shipped in good order, and well-conditioned," I responded, but my voice was in the key of F minor. For here, at the very threshold of my hope, was a barrier. The terms of the bill of lading itself would prevent me shipping him. How could I say he was "in good order and wellconditioned ?"

To my mind, there is nothing so common in life as disappointments. Let any man take his happiest day, and see if it be not somewhat flecked and flawed with them. I think the most favored could count twenty balks to one success in his past days. The human mind is apt to anticipate the end before the beginning has begun. Tom Ailanthus hears he has fallen heir to an estate worth one hundred thousand dollars, and before he sleeps, buys a house near Fifth Avenue, furnishes it, gets married, presents his wife with a splendid set of diamonds, invests forty thousand as special partner in some safe concern, makes another fortune, does the tour of Europe, gets back, mar

THE HORSE-HIS EXODUS. 211

ries off his daughters, moves into the country, builds a villa, with lawns, fish-ponds, conservatories, hot and cold graperies, and circulates around his domains, the Sir Roger de Coverly of the neighborhood. But when the estate comes to be settled, and its value established, Tom Ailanthus, who before never had kept a dollar long enough in his company to get thoroughly acquainted with it, finds himself a poor man, with only fifty thousand. His anticipations have presented him with fifty thousand disappointments. So we go:

"The space between the ideal of man's soul

And man's achievement, who hath ever past?
An ocean spreads between us and that goal,
Where anchor ne'er was cast!"

We are born to disappointments as the sparks fly upward. See, now, how my anticipations were balked. I had imagined everything when I read that paragraph. Look upon the picture:

THE HORSE-HIS EXODUS.

Livery-stable keeper hears he's going to Kentucky-ho!
Whoa! (Tableau.)

A crowd of idle Nepperhanners cluster at the steamboat wharf,
To see him g' off.

Steamboat struggles down the river (panorama-Palisades)

Country fades

Town approaches—churches, cabmen, steamboats, stenches, streets,

and slips,

Lots of ships!

GANG-PLANK SCENE-Old ladies, baskets-land him! "g' up !" won't budge a bit.

'P'leptic fit!

Orange-woman bankrupt, crazy! (horse has smashed her tropic

fruit).

Pay the woman-have to do't.

Reach the N' Orleans packet (racket), horse is hoisted up in slings, Pegasus! (no wings.)

Skipper signs the bill of lading! horse is lowered down below. "Whose horse is't?" "Don't know."

Steam-tug Ajax 'long-side packet-lugs her, tugs her down the

bay;

(S'pulchral neigh!)

SEA SCENE!-Narrows-Staten Island-horsep't'l-light-houseSandy Hook

Captain-cook.

Morning-dawning-lighthouse fainting-at the anchor heaves

the crew.

Horse heaves too!

And ship goeth over the ocean blue!

SCENE II.

GULF-SCENE-Tempest-inky water-Norther! (strikes one like a

blow).

Squalls (with snow).