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Who

picions of this young person. can say that, overcome by remorse, he may not have seized the time of his father's absence to replace the money?" To my amazement up gets a little old man from the corner. Well, you are a low cuss," said he; and, taking up a basket beside him, hobbled out of the room. You may be sure I said some pretty sharp things to him, for I was out of humor to begin with, and it is one thing to be insulted by a stout young man, and quite another to be abused by a wretched old cripple. However, he went away, and I supposed, for my part, that I was done with the whole business.

An hour later, however, I heard a rough knock at my door, and, opening it hastily, saw my red-headed young man with the cripple.

"Now," said the former, catching me by the collar, and pulling me into the room among my patients, "I want to know, my man, if this doctor said that it was likely I was the thief, after all?" "That's what he said," replied the cripple; "just about that, sir."

I do not desire to dwell on the after conduct of this hot-headed young man. It was the more disgraceful, as I of fered but little resistance, and endured a beating such as I would have hesitated to inflict upon a dog. Nor was this all; he warned me that, if I dared to remain in the city after a week, he would shoot me. In the East I should have thought but little of such a threat, but here it was only too likely to be practically carried out. Accordingly, with much grief and reluctance, I collected my whole fortune, which now amounted to at least seven thousand dollars, and turned my back upon this ungrateful town. I am sorry to say that I also left behind me the last of my good luck, as hereafter I was to encounter only one calamity after another.

Travelling slowly eastward, my spirits began at last to rise to their usual level, and when I arrived in Boston I set myself to thinking how best I could contrive to enjoy life, and at the same time to increase my means.

On former occasions I was a moneyless adventurer; now I possessed sufficient capital, and was able and ready to embark in whatever promised the best returns with the smallest personal risk. Several schemes presented themselves as worthy the application of industry and talent, but none of them altogether suited my tastes. I thought at times of travelling as a Physiological Lecturer, combining with it the business of a practitioner. Scare the audience at night with an enumeration of symptoms which belong to ten out of every dozen of healthy people, and then doctor such of them as are gulls enough to consult me next day. The bigger the fright, the better the pay. I was a little timid, however, about facing large audiences, as a man will be naturally if he has lived a life of adventure, so that, upon due consideration, I gave up the idea altogether.

The patent-medicine business also looked well enough, but it is somewhat overdone at all times, and requires a heavy outlay, with the possible result of ill-success. Indeed, I believe fifty quack remedies fail for one that succeeds; and millions must have been wasted in placards, bills, and advertisements, which never returned half their value to the speculator. If I live, I think I shall beguile my time with writing the lives of the principal quacks who have met with

success.

They are few in number, after all, as any one must know who recalls the countless remedies which are puffed awhile on the fences, and disappear to be heard of no more.

Lastly, I inclined for a while to undertake a private insane asylum, which appeared to me to offer facilities for money-making; as to which, however, I may have been deceived by the writings of certain popular novelists. I went so far, I may say, as actually to visit Concord for the purpose of finding a pleasant locality and a suitable atmosphere; but, upon due reflection, abandoned my plan as involving too much personal labor to suit one of my easy frame of mind.

Tired at last of idleness and of lounging on the Common, I engaged in two or three little ventures of a semi-professional character, such as an exhibition of laughing-gas; advertising to cure cancer; send ten stamps by mail to J. B., and receive an infallible receipt, etc. I did not find, however, that these little enterprises prospered well in New England, and I had recalled to me very forcibly a story which my grandfather was fond of relating to me in my boyhood. It briefly narrated how certain very knowing flies went to get molasses, and how it ended by the molasses getting them. This, indeed, was precisely what happened to me in all my little efforts to better myself in the Northern States, until at length my misfortunes climaxed in total and unexpected ruin.

The event which deprived me of the hard-won earnings of years of ingenious industry was brought about by the baseness of a man who was concerned with me in purchasing drugs for exportation to the Confederate States. Unluckily, I was obliged to employ as my agent a long-legged seacaptain from Maine. With his aid, I invested in this enterprise about six thousand dollars, which I reasonably hoped to quadruple. Our arrangements were cleverly made to run the blockade at Charleston, and we were to sail on a certain Thursday morning in September, 1863. I sent my clothes on board, and went down the evening before to go on board, but found that the little schooner had been hauled out from the pier. The captain, who met me at this time, endeavored to get a boat in order to ferry us to the ship, but the night was stormy, and we were obliged to return to our lodgings. Early next day I dressed and went to the captain's room, which proved to be empty. I was instantly filled with doubt, and ran frantically to the foot of Long Wharf, where, to my horror, I could see no signs of schooner or captain. Neither have I ever again set eyes on them from that time to this.

I immediately lodged information with the police as to the unpatriotic designs of the rascal who had swindled me, but whether or not justice ever overtook him I am unable to say.

It was, as I perceived, such utterly spilt milk as to be little worth lamenting; and I therefore set to work with my accustomed energy to utilize on my own behalf the resources of my medical education, which so often before had saved me from want. The war, then raging at its height, appeared to me to offer numerous opportunities to men of talent. The path which I chose myself was apparently a humble one, but it enabled me to make very agreeable use of my professional knowledge, and afforded rapid and secure returns, without any other investment than a little knowledge cautiously employed. In the first place, I deposited my small remnant of property in a safe bank, and then proceeded to Providence, where, as I had heard, patriotic persons were giving very large bounties in order, I suppose, to insure to the government the services of better men than themselves. On my arrival I lost no time in offering myself as a substitute, and was readily accepted, and very soon mustered into the Twentieth Rhode Island. Three months were passed in camp, during which period I received bounties to the extent of six hundred and fifty dollars, with which I tranquilly deserted about two hours before the regiment left for the field. With the product of my industry I returned to Boston, and deposited all but enough to carry me to New York, where within a month I enlisted twice, earning on each occasion four hundred dollars.

My next essay was in Philadelphia, which I approached, even after some years of absence, with a good deal of doubt. It was an ill-omened place for me; for although I got nearly seven hundred dollars by entering the service as a substitute for an editor, whose pen, I presume, was mightier than his sword,—I was disagreeably surprised by being hastily forwarded to the front

under a foxy young lieutenant, who brutally shot down a poor devil in the streets of Baltimore for attempting to desert. At this point I began to make use of my medical skill, for I did not in the least degree fancy being shot, either because of deserting or of not deserting. It happened, therefore, that a day or two later, while in Washington, I was seized in the street with a fit, which perfectly imposed upon the officer in charge, and caused him to leave me at the Douglas Hospital. Here I found it necessary to perform fits about twice a week; and as there were several real epileptics in the wards I had a capital chance of studying their symptoms, which finally I learned to imitate with the utmost cleverness.

I soon got to know three or four men, who, like myself, were personally averse to bullets, and who were simulating other forms of disease with more or less success. One of them suffered with rheumatism of the back, and walked about bent like an old man; another, who had been to the front, was palsied in the left arm; and a third kept open an ulcer on the leg, by rubbing in a little antimonial ointment, which I sold him at five dollars a box, and bought at fifty cents.

A change in the hospital staff brought all of us to grief. The new surgeon was a quiet, gentlemanly person, with pleasant blue eyes and clearly cut features, and a way of looking you through without saying much. I felt so safe myself that I watched his procedures with just that kind of enjoyment which one clever man takes in seeing another at work.

The first inspection settled two of us. "Another back case," said the ward surgeon to his senior.

"His discharge, sir?" "Yes, I said that. Who's next?" "Thank you, sir," groaned the man with the back. "How soon, sir, do you think it will be?"

"Ah, not less than a month," replied the surgeon, and passed on.

Now as it was unpleasant to be bent like a letter V, and as the patient presumed that his discharge was secure, he naturally took to himself a little relaxation in the way of becoming straighter. Unluckily, those nice blue eyes were everywhere at all hours; and, one fine morning, Smithson was appalled at finding himself in a detachment bound for the field, and bearing on his descriptive list an ill-natured endorsement about his malady.

The surgeon came next on O'Callahan. "Where 's your cap, my man?” "On my head, yer honor," said the other, insolently. "I've a paralytics in my arm."

66

Humph!" cried the surgeon. "You have another hand.”

"An' it's not rigulation to saloot with yer left," said the Irishman, with a grin, while the patients around us began to laugh.

"How did it happen?" said the surgeon.

"I was shot in the shoulder," answered the patient, "about three months ago, sir. I have n't stirred it since."

The surgeon looked at the scar.

"So recently ?" said he. "The scar looks older; and, by the way, doctor," to his junior, "it could not have gone Bring the battery,

near the nerves.

orderly."

In a few moments the surgeon was testing, one after another, the various muscles. At last he stopped. "Send this man away with the next detach

66

Yes, sir; run over by a howitzer; ain't never been straight since."

"A howitzer !" says the surgeon. "Lean forward, my man, so as to touch the floor, - So. That will do." Then, turning to his aid, he said, "Prepare this man's discharge papers."

a rascal, and a disgrace to these good fellows who have been among the bullets."

The man muttered something, I did not hear what.

"Put this man in the guard-house," cried the surgeon; and so passed on, without smile or frown.

As to the ulcer case, to my amusement he was put in bed, and his leg locked up in a wooden splint, which effectually prevented him from touching the part diseased. It healed in ten days, and he too went as food for powder.

As for myself, he asked me a few questions, and, requesting to be sent for during my next fit, left me alone.

I was of course on my guard, and took care to have my attacks only in his absence, or to have them over before he arrived.

At length, one morning, in spite of my care, he chanced to be in the ward, when I fell at the door. I was carried in and laid on a bed, apparently in strong convulsions. Presently I felt a finger on my eyelid, and as it was raised, saw the surgeon standing beside me. To escape his scrutiny, I became more violent in my motions. He stopped a moment, and looked at me steadily. "Poor fellow!" said he, to my great relief, as I felt at once that I had successfully deceived him. Then he turned to the ward doctor and remarked: "Take care he does not hurt his head against the bed; and, by the by, doctor, do you remember the test we applied in Smith's case? Just tickle the soles of his feet, and see if it will cause those backward spasms of the head."

The aid obeyed him, and, very naturally, I jerked my head backwards as hard as I could.

"That will answer," said the surgeon, to my horror. "A clever rogue. Send him to the guard-house when he gets over it."

"Happy had I been if my ill-luck had ended here; but, as I crossed the yard, an officer stopped me. To my disgust it was the captain of my old Rhode Island company.

Mifflin for a year, and kept at hard labor, handling and carrying shot, policing the ground, picking up cigar-stumps, and other like unpleasant occupations.

Upon my release, I went at once to Boston, where I had about two thousand dollars in bank. I spent nearly all of the latter sum before I could prevail upon myself to settle down to some mode of making a livelihood; and I was about to engage in business as a vender of lottery policies, when I first began to feel a strange sense of lassitude, which soon increased so as quite to disable me from work of any kind. Month after month passed away, while my money lessened, and this terrible sense of weariness still went on from bad to worse. At last one day, after nearly a year had elapsed, I perceived on my face a large brown patch of color, in consequence of which I went in some alarm to consult a well-known physician. He asked me a multitude of tiresome questions, and at last wrote off a prescription, which I immediately read. It was a preparation of iron.

"What do you think," said I, "is the matter with me, doctor?"

"I am afraid," said he, "that you have a very serious trouble,— what we call Addison's disease."

"What's that?" said I.

"I do not think you would comprehend it," he replied. "It is an affection of the supra-renal capsules.

I dimly remembered that there were such organs, and that nobody knew what they were meant for. It seemed the doctors had found a use for them at last.

"Is it a dangerous disease?" I said. "I fear so," he answered.

"Don't you know," I asked, "what's the truth about it?"

To cut short a long story; I was tried, convicted, and forced to refund the Rhode Island bounty, for by ill luck they found my bank-book among my papers. I was finally sent to Fort

malady."

"Nonsense," said I, "I don't believe it," for I thought it was only a doctor's trick, and one I had tried often enough myself.

"Thank you," said he, "you are a

very ill man, and a fool besides. Good morning." He forgot to ask for a fee, and I remembered not to offer one.

Several months went by; my money was gone; my clothes were ragged, and, like my body, nearly worn out; and I am an inmate of a hospital. To-day I feel weaker than when I first began to write. How it will end I do not know. If I die, the doctor will get this pleasant history; and if I live, I shall burn it, and, as soon as I get a little money, I will set out to look for my little sister, about whom I dreamed last night.

What I dreamed was not very agreeable. I thought I was walking up one of the vilest streets near my old office, when a girl spoke to me, - a shameless, worn creature, with great sad eyes, not so wicked as the rest of her face. Suddenly she screamed aloud, “Brother! Brother!" and then, remembering what she had been, with her round, girlish, innocent face, and fair hair, — and seeing what she was, I awoke, and cursed myself in the darkness for the evil I had done in the days of my youth.

MANY

ANY years ago

now more than two hundred and fifty-some one in England wrote a short poem bearing the above emphatic title, which deservedly holds a place in the collections of old English poetry at the present day. It is a striking production, familiar, no doubt, to most lovers of ancient verse, and, although numbering only about a dozen stanzas, has outlasted many a ponderous folio.

I say, indefinitely enough, that this little poem was written by some one, and strange as it may appear, the name of that one is still in doubt. Its authorship was attributed, by Bishop Percy and others, to Sir Walter Raleigh, and sometimes with the fanciful addition, that he wrote it the night before his execution. The piece, however, was extant many years before the world was disgraced by that deed of wickedness.

After a while it began to be questioned whether the verses were really written by Sir Walter. Some oldpoetry mouser appears to have lighted on an ancient folio volume, the work of Joshua Sylvester, and found among its contents a poem called "The Soul's Errand," which, it would seem, was thought to be the same that had been

credited to Sir Walter Raleigh under the title of "The Lie."

Joshua Sylvester was in his day a writer of some note. Colley Cibber, in his "Lives of the Poets," is quite lavish in his praise, and says his brethren in the sacred art called him the "Silvertongued." The same phrase has been applied to others.

In his "Specimens of Early English Poets," Ellis "restores" the poem, with the title of "The Soul's Errand," to Sylvester, as its "ancient proprietor, till a more authorized claimant shall be produced."

Chambers, in his "Cyclopædia of English Literature," prints the poem, with the title of "The Soul's Errand," and he also gives it to Sylvester, "as the now generally received author of an impressive piece, long ascribed to Raleigh."

Sir Egerton Brydges, in his "Censura Literaria," doubts Percy's right to credit Sir Walter with the poem of "The Lie," of which he says there is a "parody" in the folio edition of Sylvester's works, where it is entitled "The Soul's Errand."

The veteran J. Payne Collier, the emendator of Shakespeare, has recently put forth a work, in four volumes, en