it was Tom, she watched the bottle clandestinely. She found that the medicine did really diminish, but it did not occur to her that the boy was mending the health of a crack in the sitting-room floor with it.

One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack, when his aunt's yellow cat came along, purring, eyeing the teaspoon avariciously, and begging for a taste. Tom said :

"Don't ask for it unless you want it, Peter."

But Peter signified that he did want it.

"You better make sure."

Peter was sure.

"Now you've asked for it, and I'll give it to you, because there ain't anything mean about me; but if you find you don't like it, you mustn't blame anybody but your own self."

Peter was agreeable. So Tom pried his mouth open and poured down the Pain-killer. Peter sprang a couple of yards in the air, and then delivered a war-whoop and set off round and round the room, banging against furniture, upsetting flower-pots and making general havoc. Next he rose on his hind feet and pranced around, in a frenzy of enjoyment, with his head over his shoulder and his voice proclaiming his unappeasable happiness. Then he went tearing around the house again, spreading chaos and destruction in his path. Aunt Polly entered in time to see him throw a few double summersets, deliver a final mighty hurrah, and sail through the open window, carrying the rest of the flowerpots with him. The old lady stood petrified with astonishment, peering over her glasses; Tom lay on the floor expiring with laughter.

"Tom, what on earth ails that cat?"

"I don't know, aunt," gasped the boy.

"Why, I never see anything like it. What did make him act so?" "'Deed I don't know, Aunt Polly: cats always act so when they're having a good time."

"They do, do they?" There was something in the tone that made Tom apprehensive.

"Yes'm. That is, I believe they do."

"You do?"

“Yes'm.”

The old lady was bending down, Tom watching with interest emphasized by anxiety. Too late he divined her "drift." The

handle of the tell-tale teaspoon was visible under the bed-valance. Aunt Polly took it, held it up. Tom winced, and dropped his eyes. Aunt Polly raised him by the usual handle-his ear-and cracked his head soundly with her thimble.

"Now, sir, what do you want to treat that poor dumb beast so, for?"

"I done it out of pity for him-because he hadn't any aunt." "Hadn't any aunt !—you numscull. What has that got to do with it?"

"Heaps. Because if he'd a had one she'd a burst him out herself! She'd a roasted his bowels out of him 'thout any more feeling than if he was a human!"

"Aunt Polly felt a sudden pang of remorse. This was putting the thing in a new light; what was cruelty to a cat might be cruelty to a boy, too. She began to soften; she felt sorry. Her eyes watered a little, and she put her hand on Tom's head and said gently:

"I was meaning for the best, Tom. And, Tom, it did do you good."

Tom looked up in her face with just a perceptible twinkle peeping through his gravity:

"I know you was meaning for the best, aunty, and so was I with Peter. It done him good, too. I never see him get around so since "

"O, go 'long with you, Tom, before you aggravate me again. And you try and see if you can't be a good boy, for once, and you needn't take any more medicine."

FABLES OF THE HODJA.

BY SAMUEL S. COX.

NARR-ED-DIN Hodja is an imaginary person. He holds the same rank with the Turks as Esop with the Greeks. It is a fictitious name, under which a large number of anecdotes have been collected and compiled. Narr-ed-din Hodja, as the title (Hodja) implies, is supposed to be a man learned in religion. He is the representative and exemplar of Turkish humor, pure and simple. He is represented as living at Bagdad. All the surroundings attached to his anecdotes are Turkish. He is not supposed, like Æsop, to have written them himself, but he is simply connected, supposititiously, with humorous sayings and doings.

One day Narr-ed-din Hodja is too lazy to preach his usual sermon at the mosque. He simply addresses himself to his congregation, saying:

"Of course ye know, oh, faithful Mussulmans, what I am going to say to you?”

As the Hodja stops, evidently waiting for an answer, the congregation cry out with one voice:

"No, Hodja Effendi, we do not know."

"Then if you do not know, I have nothing to say to you," replies the Hodja, and immediately leaves the pulpit.

Next day he again addresses his congregation, saying: "Know ye, oh faithful Mussulmans, what I am going to say to you?"

Fearing that if, as on the previous day, they say "No," the Hodja would leave them again without a sermon, the congregation this time, replies:

"Yes, Hodja, we do know."

"Then if you do know what I am going to say," quietly says the Hodja, "of course there is no need of my saying it." He again steps down from the pulpit, to the consternation of the congregation.

On the third day, the Hodja again puts the question:

"Know ye, oh faithful Mussulmans, what I am going to say to you?"

The congregation, determined not to be disappointed again, take some council among themselves on the question.

ingly some of them reply:

"No, Hodja, we do not know," while others cry:

Accord

Very well, then," says the Hodja, as there are some of you

who do know, and others who do not know, what I was going to say, let those who do know, tell it to those that do not know;" and he quickly descends from the pulpit.

The moral of this story is not always in the mind of the clergy.

It is this:

If you can find nothing worth saying, do not trespass on the congregation by trying to say it.

*

*

Another story is told of the Hodja. He used to teach in the parish school. He had taught his pupils that, whenever he happened to sneeze, they should all stand up, and, clapping their hands together, should cry out:

"God grant you long life, Hodja!"

This the pupils regularly did whenever the Hodja sneezed. One day the bucket gets loose and falls into the well of the schoolhouse. As the pupils are afraid to go down into the well to fetch up the bucket, Narr-ed-din Hodja undertakes the task.

He accordingly strips, and tying a rope round his waist, asks his pupils to lower him carefully into the well, and pull him up again when he gives the signal. The Hodja goes down, and having caught the bucket, shouts out to his pupils to pull him up again. This they do. The Hodja is nearly out of the well, when he suddenly sneezes! Upon this, his pupil immediately let go the rope, begin to knock their hands together, and shout down

the well:

"God grant you long life, Hodja!"

But the poor Hodja tumbles down to the bottom of the well with a tremendous crash, breaking his head and several of his bones. The moral of this story is too neat for explication.

*

*

*

*

*

A mendicant knocks at the Hodja's door.

*

"What do you want, my friend?" asks the Hodja, putting his head out of an upper floor window.

"Come down, Hodja Effendi, and I will tell you," replies the

mendicant.

The Hodja obeys, and coming down to the door, asks again

of the man what is wanted.

"Alms," is the answer.

"Oh! very well," said the Hodja, " come with me up-stairs." Leading the way, the Hodja conducts the man to the top-most floor of his house. Arrived there, he turns round and remarks: "I am very much distressed, my good friend, but I have no

alms to give you."