not the least mysterious part of this Mystery of ours, that keeps us all out of doors so much in the unseasonable winter month of December,^[1] and now I am peculiarly a meteorological martyr in feeling obliged to go walking for two whole freezing weeks, or until the Holidays and this—this marriage-business, are over. I didn't tell Mr. SIMPSON, but my real purpose, I reckon, in having this club, is to save myself, by violent exercise with it, from perishing of cold."

"Must you do this, MONTGOMERY?" asks his colloquial sister, thoughtfully. "Perhaps if I were to talk long enough with you—"

"—You'd literally exhaust me into not going? Certainly you would," he returns, confidently. "First, my head would ache from the constant noise; then it would spin; then I should grow faint and hear you less distinctly; then your voice, although you were talking-on the same as ever, would sound like a mere steady hum to me; then I should become unconscious, and be carried home, with you still whispering in my ear. But do not talk, MAGNOLIA; for I must do the walking-match. The prejudice here against my Southern birth makes me a damper upon the festivities of others at this general season of forgiveness to all mankind, and I can't stand the sight of that DROOD and Miss POTTS together. I'd better stay away until they have gone."

He pauses a moment, and adds: "I wish I were not going to this dinner, or that I were not carrying this club there."

He shakes her hand and his own head, glances up at the storm-clouds now gathering in the sky, goes onward to Mr. BUMSTEAD'S boarding-house, halts at the door a moment to moisten his right hand and balance the Indian club in it, and then enters.

EDWIN DROOD'S day before merry Christmas is equally hilarious. Now that the Flowerpot is no longer on his mind, the proneness of the masculine nature to court misfortune causes him to think seriously of Miss PENDRAGON, and wonder whether she would make a wife to ruin a man? It will be rather awkward, he thinks, to be in Bumsteadville for a week or two after the Macassar young ladies shall have heard of his matrimonial disengagement, as they will all be sure to sit symmetrically at every front window in the Alms-House whenever he tries to go by; and he resolves to escape the danger by starting for Egypt, Illinois, immediately after he has seen Mr. DIBBLE and explained the situation to him. Finding that his watch has run down, he steps into a jeweler's to have it wound, and is at once subjected to insinuating overtures by the man of genius. What does he think of this ring, which is exactly the thing for some particular Occasions in Life? It is made of the metal for which nearly all young couples marry now-a-days, is as endless as their disagreements, and, by the new process, can be stretched to fit the Second wife's hand, also. Or look at this pearl set. Very chaste, really soothing; intended as a present from a Husband after First Quarrel. These cameo ear-rings were never known to fail. Judiciously presented, in a velvet case, they may be depended upon to at once divert a young Wife from Returning to her Mother, as she has threatened. Ah! Mr. DROOD cares for no more jewelry than his watch, chain and seal-ring? To be sure! when Mr. BUMSTEAD was in yesterday for the regular daily new crystal in his own watch—how does he break so many!—he said that his beloved nephews wore only watches and rings, or he would buy paste breastpins for them. Your oroide is now wound up, Mr. DROOD, and set at twenty minutes past Two.

"Dear old JACK!" thinks EDWIN to himself, pocketing his watch as he walks away; "he thinks just twice as much of me as any one else in the world, and I should feel doubly grateful."

As dusk draws on, the young fellow, returning from a long walk, espies an aged Irish lady leaning against a tree on the edge of the turnpike, with a pipe upside-down in her mouth, and her bonnet on wrong-side-afore.

"Are you sick?" he asks kindly.

"Divil a sick, gintlemen," is the answer, with a slight catch of the voice,—"bless the two of yez!"

EDWIN DROOD can scarcely avoid a start, as he thinks to himself, "Good Heaven! how much like JACK!"

"Do you eat cloves, madame?" he asks, respectfully.

"Cloves is it, honey? ah, thin, I do that, whin I'm expectin' company. Odether-nodether, but I've come here the day from New York for nothing. Sure phat's the names of you two darlints?"

"EDWIN," he answers, in some wonder, as he hands her a currency stamp, which, on account of the large hole worn in it, he has been repeatedly unable to pass himself.

"EDDY is it? Och hone, och hone, machree!" exclaims the venerable woman, hanging desolately around the tree by her arms while her bonnet falls over her left ear: "I've heard that name threatened. Och, acushla wirasthu!"

Believing that the matron will be less agitated if left alone, and, probably, able to get a little roadside sleep, EDWIN DROOD passes onward in deep thought. The boarding-house is reached, and he enters.

J. BUMSTEAD'S day of the dinner is also marked by exhilarating experiences. With one coat-tail unwittingly tucked far up his back, so that it seems to be amputated, and his alpaca umbrella under his arm, he enters a grocery-store of the village, and abstractedly asks how strawberries are selling to-day? Upon being reminded that fresh fruit is very scarce in late December, he changes his purpose, and orders two bottles of Bourbon flavoring-extract sent to his address. And now he wishes to know what they are charging for sponges? They tell him that he must seek those articles at the druggist's, and he compromises by requesting that four lemons be forwarded to his residence. Have they any good Canton-flannel, suitable for a person of medium complexion?— No?—Very well, then: send half a pound of cloves to his house before night.

There are Ritualistic services at Saint Cow's, and he renders the organ-accompaniments with such unusual freedom from reminiscences of the bacchanalian repertory, that the Gospeler is impelled to compliment him as they leave the cathedral.

"You're in fine tone to-day, BUMSTEAD. Not quite so much volume to your playing as sometimes, but still the tune could be recognized."

"That, sir," answers the organist, explainingly, "was because I held my right wrist firmly with my left hand, and played mostly with only one finger. The method, I find, secures steadiness of touch and precision in hitting the right key."

"I should think it would, Mr. BUMSTEAD. You seem to be more free than ordinarily from your occasional indisposition."

"I am less nervous, Mr. SIMPSON," is the reply. "I've made up my mind to swear off, sir.—I'll tell you what I'll do, SIMPSON," continues the Ritualistic organist, with sudden confidential affability. "I'll make an agreement with you, that whichever of us catches the other slipping-up first in the New Year, shall be entitled to call for whatever he wants."

"Bless me! I don't understand," ejaculates the Gospeler.

"No matter, sir. No matter!" retorts the mystic of the organ-loft, abruptly returning to his original gloom. "My company awaits me, and I must go."

"Excuse me," cries the Gospeler, turning back a moment; "but what's the matter with your coat?"

The other discovers the condition of his tucked-up coat-tail with some fierceness of aspect, but immediately explains that it must have been caused by his sitting upon a folding-chair just before leaving home.

So, humming a savage tune in make-belief of no embarrassment at all in regard to his recently disordered garment, Mr. BUMSTEAD reaches his boarding-house. At the door he waits long enough to examine his umbrella, with scowling scrutiny, in every rib; and then he enters.

Behind the red window-curtain of the room of the dinner-party shines the light all night, while before it a wailing December gale rises higher and higher. Through leafless branches, under eaves and against chimneys, the savage wings of the storm are beaten, its long fingers caught, and its giant shoulder heaved. Still, while nothing else seems steady, that light behind the red curtain burns unextinguished; the reason being that the window is closed and the wind cannot get at it.

At morning comes a hush on nature; the sun arises with that innocent expression of countenance which causes some persons to fancy that it resembles Mr. GREELEY after shaving; and there is an evident desire on the part of the wind to pretend that it has not been up all night. Fallen chimnies, however, expose the airy fraud, and the clock blown completely out of Saint Cow's steeple reveals what a high time there has been.

Christmas morning though it is, Mr. MCLAUGHLIN is summoned from his family-circle of pigs, to mount the Ritualistic church and see what can be done; and while a small throng of early idlers are staring up at him from Gospeler's Gulch, Mr. BUMSTEAD, with his coat on in the wrong way, and a wet towel on his head, comes tearing in amongst them like a congreve rocket.

"Where's them nephews?—where's MONTGOMERIES?—where's that umbrella?" howls Mr. BUMSTEAD, catching the first man he sees by the throat, and driving his hat over his eyes.

"What's the matter, for goodness sake?" calls the Gospeler from the window of his house. "Mr. PENDRAGON has gone away on a walking-match. Is not Mr. DROOD at home with you?"

"Norrabit'v it," pants the organist, releasing his man's throat, but still leaning with heavy affection upon him: "m'nephews wen 'out with 'm —f'r li'lle walk—er mir'night; an' 've norseen'm—since."

There is no more looking up at Saint Cow's steeple with a MCLAUGHLIN on it now. All eyes fix upon the agitated Mr. BUMSTEAD, as he wildly attempts to step over the tall paling of the Gospeler's fence at a stride, and goes crashing headlong through it instead.

(To be Continued.)

[1]

In the original English story there is, considering the bitter time of year given, a truly extraordinary amount of solitary sauntering, social strolling, confidential confabulating, evening-rambling, and general lingering, in the open air. To "adapt" this novel peculiarity to American practice, without some little violation of probability, is what the present conscientious Adapter finds almost the artistic requirement of his task.

ALL HAIL!

The most fearful weapon yet brought into the field of war—if we are to believe newspaper correspondents—is the revolving grape-shot gun known as the "hail-thrower," a piece of ordnance said to be in use by the French and Prussian armies, alike. If half we hear about the "hail-thrower" be true, 'twere better for all concerned to keep out of hail of it. Many a hale fellow well met by that fearful hail storm must go to grass ere the red glare of the war has passed away. "Where do you hail from?" would be a bootless question to put when the "hail-thrower" begins to administer throes to the breaking ranks. Worse than that; it would probably be a headless question.

"THE PERFECT CURE."

A newspaper paragraph states that, in Minnesota, they have a very summary way of restoring the consciousness of pigs that have been smitten by the summery rays of the sun. They simply open piggy's head with a pick-axe or other handy instrument, introduce a handful or two of salt, close up the head again, and piggy is all right. But this, after all, is simply a new application of the old practice of Curing pork with salt.

Con by a Son of a Gun.

Why are the new breech-loaders supplied with needles?
To keep their breeches in repair, of course.

Con by a Carpet-Shaker.

Why is a large carpet like the late rebellion?
Because it took such a lot of tax to put it down.

ADVICE TO PICNIC PARTIES.

t this culminating period of the summer season, it is natural that the civic mind should turn itself to the contemplation of sweet rural things, including shady groves, lunch-baskets, wild flowers, sandwiches, bird songs, and bottled lager-bier.

The skies are at their bluest, now; the woods and fields are at their greenest; flowers are blooming their yellowest, and purplest, and scarletest. All Nature is smiling, in fact, with one large, comprehensive smile, exactly like a first-class PRANG chromo with a fresh coat of varnish upon it.

Things being thus, what can be more charming than a rural excursion to some tangled thicket, the very brambles, and poison-ivy, and possible copperhead snakes of which are points of unspeakable value to a picnic party, because they are sensational, and one cannot have them in the city without rushing into fabulous extra expense. It is good, then, that neighbors should club together for the festive purposes of the picnic, and a few words of advice regarding the arrangement of such parties may be seasonable.

If your excursion includes a steamboat trip, always select a boat that is likely to be crowded to its utmost capacity, more especially one of which a majority of the passengers are babies in arms. There will probably be some roughs on board, who will be certain to get up a row, in which case you can make the babies in arms very effective as "buffers" for warding off blows, while the crowd will save you from being knocked down.

Should there be a bar on board the steamer, it will be the duty of the gentlemen of the party to keep serving the ladies with cool beverages from it at brief intervals during the trip. This will promote cheerfulness, and, at the same time, save for picnic duty proper the contents of the stone jars that are slumbering sweetly among the pork-pies and apple-dumplings by which the lunch-baskets are occupied.

Never take more than one knife and fork with you to a picnic, no matter how large the party may be. The probability is that you may be attacked by a gang of rowdies and it is no part of your business to furnish them with weapons.

Avoid taking up your ground near a swamp or stagnant water of any kind. This is not so much on account of mosquitoes as because of the small saurian reptiles that abound in such places. If your party is a large one, there will certainly be one lady in it, at least, who has had a lizard in her stomach for several years, and the struggles of the confined reptile to join its congeners in the swamp might induce convulsions, and so mar the hilarity of the party.

To provide against an attack by the city brigands who are always prowling in the vicinity of picnic parties, it will be judicious to attend to the following rules:

Select all the fat women of the party, and seat them in a ring outside the rest of the picnickers, and with their faces toward the centre of the circle. In the event of a discharge of missiles this will be found a very effective cordon—quite as effective, in fact, as the feather beds used in the making up of barricades.

Let the babies of the party be so distributed that each, or as many as possible of the gentlemen present, can have one at hand to snatch up and use for a fender should an attack at close quarters be made.

If any dark, designful strangers should intrude themselves upon the party, unbidden, the gentlemen present should by no means exhibit the slightest disposition to resent the intrusion, or to show fight, as the strangers are sure to be professional thieves, and, as such,