was bewildered, nonplussed He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in anything. He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last-a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps. fíe took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to him:

· See, genteelmen!—Mummy! Mummy!"

The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever.

66

Ah,-Ferguson,-what did I understand you to say the gentleman's name was?"

"Name?-he got no name! Mummy!-'Gyptian mummy!" "Yes, yes. Born here?”

"No. 'Gyptian mummy."

"Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?"

Foreign

"No!—not Frenchman, not Roman!-born in Egypta!" "Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. locality, likely. Mummy, - mummy. How calm he is, how selfpossessed! Is-ah!—is he dead?"

"O, sacre bleu! been dead three thousan' year!"

The doctor turned on him savagely:

"Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this? Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn! Trying to impose your vile second-hand carcasses on us! Thunder and lightning! I've a notion to-to- If you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out!-or, by George, we'll brain you!”

We made it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman. How. ever, he has paid us back, partly, without knowing it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored, as well as he could, to describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant. He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The observation was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say.

Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting, longsuffering subject we have had yet. We shall be sorry to part with him. We have enjoyed his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed with doubts.

MARK TWAIN.

THE BOYS.

[This selection is a poem addressed to the class of 1829, in Harvard College, some thirty years after their graduation. The author, who retains, in a high de gree, the freshness and joyousness of youth, addresses his classmates as "boys."]

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the almanac's cheat and the catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! we're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-young jackanapes!-show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"-Yes! white if you please;

Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!

Look close, you will see not a sign of a flake!

We want some new garlands for those we have shed,
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old;

That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;"
It's a neat little fiction-of course it's all fudge.

That fellow's the "Speaker," the one on the right;

"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night?

That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff;

There's the "Reverend "-what's his name?-don't make me

laugh.

That boy with the grave mathematical look

Made believe he had written a wonderful book,

And the Royal Society thought it was true!

So they chose him right in,—a good joke it was too!

There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him the "Justice," but now he's the "Squire.”

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith;
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,—
Just read on his medal, “My country," "of thee!"

You hear that boy laughing? You think he's all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!

Yes, we're boys,—always playing with tongue or with pen;
And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE Boys!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

Mate eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword,

His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His days are marching on.

I have read the fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal : Let the Hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat;
O, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Chris was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

JULIA WARD HOWE

THE MARINER'S DREAM.

[This favorite poem should be read in a simple unaffected manner until the sixth verse, when the voice should be more animated and impassioned, rising to a high pitch; toward the end it should sink into a low, mournful tone.]

In slumbers of midnight the sailor-boy lay;

His hammock swung loose at the sport of the wind;
But watch-worn and weary, his cares flew away,
And visions of happiness danced o'er his mind.

He dreamt of his home, of his dear native bowers,
And pleasures that waited on life's merry morn;
While memory stood sideways haif covered with flowers,
And restored every rose, but secreted its thorn.

Then Fancy her magical pinions spread wide,
And bade the young dreamer in ecstasy rise;
Now far, far behind him the green waters glide,
And the cot of his forefathers blesses his eyes.

The jessamine clambers in flowers o'er the thatch,
And the swallow chirps sweet from her nest in the wall;
All trembling with transport he raises the latch,

And the voices of loved ones reply to his call.

A father bends o'er him with looks of delight;
His cheek is impearled with a mother's warm tear;

And the lips of the boy in a love-kiss unite

With the lips of the maid whom his bosom holds dear.

The heart of the sleeper beats high in his breast;

Joy quickens his pulses,—his hardships seem o'er; And a murmur of happiness steals through his rest,— “O God! thou hast blest me,-I ask for no more.”

Ah! whence is that flame which now bursts on his eye? Ah! what is that sound which now 'larms on his ear? 'Tis the lightning's red gleam, painting hell on the sky! 'T is the crashing of thunders, the groan of the sphere!

He springs from his hammock, he flies to the deck;
Amazement confronts him with images dire;
Wild winds and mad waves drive the vessel a wreck;
The masts fly in splinters; the shrouds are on fire.

Like mountains the billows tremendously swell;

In vain the lost wretch calls on mercy to save;

Unseen hands of spirits are ringing his knell,

And the death-angel flaps his broad wings o'er the wave!

O sailor-boy, woe to thy dream of delight!

In darkness dissolves the gay frost-work of bliss. Where now is the picture that fancy touched bright,-Thy parents' fond pressure, and love's honeyed kiss?

O sailor boy! sailor-boy! never again

Shall home, love, or kin red thy wishes repay; Unblessed and unhonored, down deep in the main, Full many a fathom, thy frame shall decay.

No tomb shall e'er plead to remembrance for thee,
Or redeem form or fame from the merciless surge,
But the white foam of waves shall thy winding-sheet be,
And winds in the midnight of winter thy dirge!

On a bed of green sea-flowers thy limbs shall be laid,—
Around thy white bones the red coral shall grow: