bids him follow.

He follows, dizzy with the unlooked-for reception, and, in a bewildered state, is ushered into that sanctum of privacy from which he has been ignominiously debarred all day—his wife's room.

The revulsion of feeling was too much for the poor man. His head began to whirl, and his eyes were blinded. He had a faint perception of his wife speaking to him, and of his being shown something, he didn't know what; of being told to do something, he didn't know what; and standing dazed and helpless until forcibly led from the room, and bidden to "go get his supper and not act like a fool."

The familiar expression and natural manner completely restored his wavering consciousness, and he knowingly made his way to the kitchen and vigorously attacked a largo pork-pie, which he gloriously conquered and felt all the pride of a hero.

The next day, having regained in a measure his usual self-control, he was allowed once more, in consideration of the position he held in the family, to enter that sanctum sanctorum, and gaze upon its inmates. His acute mother-in-law, having extracted a promise of absence for the day, on condition of being allowed to look at his own child a moment, carefully deposits in his trembling hands a small woollen bundle with a tiny speck of a face peering therefrom.

Indescribable emotions rushed through his frame at the first touch of that soft warm roll of flannel, and a torrent of tumultuous joy bubbled up in his heart when he had so far mastered his emotions as to be able to touch with one nervous finger the little soft red cheek, lying so peacefully in his arms. The tiny hands doubled up, so brave looking yet so helpless now, giving promise of the future, brought tears of joy and pride to his eyes, and stooping over the wondrous future man, he pressed a kiss upon its unconscious face.

That kiss awoke the sleeping muse within him. Blissful visions of the future, and ambitious feelings for the present, started into being. His first thought was to do something to please the potent little fellow; but happening to glance at his "everlasting terror," he remembered his promise. A brilliant idea striking him at that moment, he apostrophized the infant in the touching words:—

By by, baby bunting,
Daddy's gone a-hunting,
To get a little rabbit skin
To wrap the baby bunting in.

One more kiss, and with a little sigh he lays the precious burden down, and departs to spend the day in the woods, according to promise, so as not to be bothering around under foot, and getting in everybody's way when he ain't wanted.

As he cannot entirely control circumstances, he is determined to make the best of them, and he mentally blesses the happy thought, or rather inspiration, that suggested the soft rabbit skin as a bed for the baby, and resolves that it alone shall be the object of his day's search.

POLISHING THE POLICE.

oubtless there is much room for improvement in the deportment and speech of our very efficient Municipal Police. Citizens have frequently to apply to them for information, and it sometimes happens that the answer is couched in language that may be Polish, so far as the querist knows, though, in fact, there is no polish about it. It is more likely to be COPTIC, as the policeman of the period likes to call himself a "COP." If there is a street sensation in progress, and you ask a contemplative policeman the cause of it, matters are not made perfectly clear to you when he replies that it is "only a put-up job to screen a fence" or words to that affect. If you ask him to explain things more fully he will probably say, "Shoo! fly," or "you know how it is yourself," or recommend you to "scratch gravel." Such expressions as these are very embarrassing to strangers, and even to citizens whose pathways have not led them through the brambly tracts of police philology.

In view of these facts, the public have reason to be thankful to Justice DOWLING for the reproof administered by him, a few days since, to a policeman who made use of slang in addressing the bench. The reprehended officer of the law spoke about a prisoner being "turned over," when he should have said "discharged." This gave Mr. DOWLING occasion to pass some severe remarks with regard to the use of slang terms generally, by policemen, and to caution them against addressing persons in any such jargon. The lesson was a timely one, and we hope that it may prove effective, since we frequently hear perplexed inquirers complaining that their education has been neglected so far as slang is concerned, and lamenting that, when young, they had not devoted themselves rather to the study of the Thieves' Dictionary than to that of the polite but comparatively useless treatises on their native tongue.

THREE LETTERS.

I was persuaded to send my son to Dr. STUFFEM'S boarding-school, in "the salubrious village of Whelpville" (I quote from the Doctor's circular), "where the moral training of the pupils is under the parental supervision of the Principal." Since the arrival of Master THEOPHILUS, I have just received weekly reports of his progress on printed forms, and I presume it is satisfactory, although I do not precisely understand these weekly missives, which are only a complex arrangement of figures. To-day, however, I am favored with three letters which came in a bulky envelope, and I append them, in the order of their perusal by myself. The first seems to be written by a schoolmate of my son's, and was probably placed in the envelope inadvertently by THEOPHILUS. I do not venture to make any alteration in the orthography of the first and second epistles, as I do not know what dictionary may be authoritative in Whelpville.

"Deer Thee its rainin like blaises and I cant get out since I came heer Ive had bully times and I hope Ill keep sik a good wile our doctur lets me eat donuts but sez I musnt play out in the rain wen its rainin farther told me Id beter rite to sum of my scholmaids and giv me this hole sheet of paper maibe Id get a leter rote before dinner but I cant tell you mutch wile its rainin Thee git sik and you can come heer to git wel our doctur is bully I havent took no stuf but sitrate of magneeshia and I don't mind that litel Billy Sims wot lives down by the postofis has got meesils and you can ketch them from him if he arnt ded and then old Stuffy can rite to your farther to let you come here and tel him weve got a bully doctor Thee if Billy Sims is ded or got wel you mite ketch somthin ells and its prime heer farthers got a gun and I no where the pouder is bring some pecushin caps with you Thee or well hav to tuch her off with a cole if old Beeswax wont let you come you mite send me some caps in a leter don't mash em Thee doctur sais I wil be wel in about a munth if I don't ketch cold but I can easy fall in the pond before the munth is out Thee its hoopincof time and you can easy ketch that you only hav to hold yur breth til you most bust our doctur is bully for hoopincof.

"Thee weve got a barn and theres lots of ha on 2 high plaises were we can clime up there arnt no steps nor lader and we hav to clime up poles its bully Thee theres four cats heer and one lets me nuss her the others is all wild and run under the barn we can hunt them wild ones Ive got 2 long poles to poke under the barn but I wont hunt the cats till you come. I get lots of aigs up on the ha when it arnt rainin I got four yesterda and sukt 2 and took 2 to mother the 2 I sukt was elegant but one of mothers had a litel chiking in it.

"Thee you hav to come heer on the ralerode farther brot me but yore farther needent bring you there arnt no plais for him to sleep but you can sleep with me theres a boy sels candy in the cars and theres penuts on a stand in the deepoe 5 sents gits a pocketful the candy is nasty but its in purty boxes its ten sents theres a old wommen keeps the penut stand but shes got a litel gurl and the gurl gives you most for 5 sents don't let the old wommen wate on you but just ask the prise and then sa sis give us 5 sents worth shes awful spry wen you git the penuts just come out of the big dore of the deepoe and keep strait down the rode til you come to our house you can tel it by the 4 cats if they arnt under the barn but you can ask somebody ware farther lives his name is Mister Gillander but these fools that lives about hear cal him Mr. Glander.

"Thee do come dinners reddy

"Yores afectionate DICK GILLANDER"

My son's letter, or rather the first draft of it, is not much more artistic in appearance than the foregoing. He is evidently in the same class in orthography with his friend, Master Gillander, and I do not doubt that, under careful culture, he may emulate the various virtues of his friend, and become, in time, an accomplished "aig" sucker. Here is his letter in the original:—

"DEER FARTHER:—As this is the da fur composition doctur STUFFEM sed I mite rite you a leter for my composition and I rite these fu lines to let you no that I am wel, but one of the boys is my roomait and is gone home sick but he is beter and has got a good doctur and be wants me to come down to his howse pleas sir send me a dolar it is on a ralerode and the fair is fourty 5 sents. I can go Satterda and come back Mundy and there is a meetin house clost by dicks howse and they go to meetin in a carrige and dick drives

"Yores respectful

"THEOPHILUS"

The third epistle was written on a clean sheet, the date being in the middle of the first page, and the entire production bearing the marks of herculean effort. I infer that this final letter was a "corrected, proof," and had to pass a severe examination. Probably, this was the only one intended for my eye, and I cannot account for the arrival of the three documents, except upon the hypothesis that my boy heedlessly and hurriedly thrust them in one enclosure, and forgot to remove the phonetic specimens before mail time. It ran thus:—

"MY DEAR FATHER: In lieu of the usual essay required of pupils on this day, my preceptor allows me to write a letter to you, which he hopes may serve to evince my progress in the art of composition, the improvement in my penmanship (to which he devotes special attention), and to inform you of my continued health. Indeed, in this delightful locality, nothing else could be expected, as Whelpville, being 796 feet above tide-water, is entirely free from those miasmatic influences which unfortunately affect the sanitary condition of those institutions of learning that are less favorably situated. The only case of sickness that has occurred since my arrival, and for a long time previously, was that of my room-mate and friend, Richard Gillander, whose father has recently purchased an estate in our neighborhood, principally on account of the salubrity of our climate. But Richard had doubtless contracted the disease, which was of an intermittent character, at his former school, which was the Riverbank Classical Academy, at Swamptown. Our kind preceptor allowed Richard to return to his father's house until his health should be entirely restored. He is now decidedly convalescent, and has written me an urgent invitation to visit him on Saturday next. As this invitation is corroborated by a letter from Mr. Gillander to our preceptor, I should be much pleased to accept it, with your approval. If you have no objection to this arrangement, therefore, I will thank you to enclose me one dollar by mail, as the railway fare to Richard's home amounts to nearly this sum.

"Hoping for a favorable reply, and promising myself the pleasure of writing you a full account of this visit one week hence,

"I remain,

My dear parent,

Your dutiful Son,

THEOPHILUS."

This letter breathed such an air of lofty morality that I was quite overcome. I enclosed the required dollar, of course, and wrote a line to Doctor STUFFEM complimenting him upon the manifest improvement in his pupil. I am looking with some anxiety for the promised letter recounting the incidents of the projected visit, and have some misgivings induced by Master DICK'S hints concerning the gun, powderhorn, and percussion-caps. I infer, however, from the last letter, that such a change has been wrought upon THEOPHILUS, that he will probably spend his holiday in reciting moral apothegms to his friend and "room-mait."

SEVERE.

Irascible old Gent (to garrulous barber). "SHOO! SHOO!—WHY DON'T YOU TREAT YOUR TALK
AS YOU DO YOUR HAIR—CUT IT SHORT?"

SARSFIELD YOUNG'S PANORAMA.

PART III.

THE GEYSERS.

A fascinating, achromatic sketch of the Geysers of Iceland, those wonderful hydraulic volcanoes, which would readily he considered objects of the greatest natural grandeur, if the hotels in the neighborhood were only a little better kept and more judiciously advertised. Before these stupendous hot-water works the spectator stands aghast, and boils his egg in fourteen seconds, by a stop-watch.

It would seem as though the poet's invocation,

"Come, gentle spring! ethereal mildness, come,"

were somewhat rudely answered, for the spring comes with a noise like thunder, bringing with it "ethereal mildness" at the rate of ten thousand gallons a minute. It has been calculated that there is thrown out annually water enough to supply all the hot whiskey punches that are required during that time in the State of Maine alone. Old sailors say it reminds them of a whale fastened alongside their ship—it is a Seething Tide.

These vast wreaths, which the painter's art has so beautifully revealed to us at the top of the canvas, are steam. It runs no machinery, bursts no boilers, does nothing, in fact, that is useful, but only hangs round. Yet these volcanoes are full of instruction to those who live by them, impressing upon each and every one the mournful, yet scientific truth, that his life is but a vapor.

A VIEW OF MELROSE, MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASS.

It has been well said, "If you would view fair Melrose, do it by moonlight." Our artist found that the suburban trains had not been arranged with an eye to this effect, and he was reluctantly obliged to give us his impressions of this charming spot by daylight.

This, however, has its advantages.

The elegant private residences, neatly trimmed lawns, graceful shade trees, beautifully dressed women and children, driving or promenading, are all more distinctly brought out.

The male population, for the most part, are brought out a few hours later, by steam and horse cars.

Everything here betokens ease and refinement. Here they refine sugar, in this large brick building.

The school-houses, churches, and town-hall are easily distinguished from each other, being of brick, with a brown belfry. On the extreme left is the town-farm for paupers. We haven't time, so we won't dwell upon this.

THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.

These highly interesting old buildings are presented with extraordinary fidelity. They were taken on the spot. They are three in number, you will observe. I presume you cannot tell me what this is? We paid for it as the Sphinx, and it is pronounced by competent judges an exceedingly flattering portrait. The Pyramids are centuries old. It is understood that Miss Sphinx, out of respect to her sex, is about thirty summers—permanently.

I will not deceive you. These structures are immense tombs full of mummies; all the rooms are taken. From careful observation, it is concluded that, like the