comes one!' And then, just as I'd give a jump, he'd say, 'No, it isn't; it's a porpoise.' I thought from the first, and I think now, that it would have been a great deal better for us if that boy hadn't been along. That night there was a good deal of motion to the ship, and she swung about and rose up and down more than she had done since we'd been left in her. There must be a big sea running on top,' said William Anderson, ‘and if we were up there we'd be tossed about dreadful. Now the motion down here is just as easy as a cradle, and, what's more, we can't be sunk very deep; for if we were, there wouldn't be any motion at all.' About noon the next day we felt a sudden tremble and shake run through the whole ship, and far down under us we heard a rumbling and grinding, that nearly scared me out of my wits. I first thought we'd struck bottom, but William he said that couldn't be, for it was just as light in the cabin as it had been, and if we'd gone down it would have grown much darker, of course. The rumbling stopped after a little while, and then it seemed to grow lighter instead of darker; and Sam, who was looking up at the stern windows over our heads, he sung out, 'Sky!' And, sure enough, we could see the blue sky, as clear as daylight, through those windows! And then the ship, she turned herself on the slant, pretty much as she had been when her forward compartment first took in water, and we found ourselves standing on the cabin floor instead of the bulkhead. I was near one of the open staterooms, and as I looked in, there was the sunlight coming through the wet glass in the window, and more cheerful than anything I ever saw before in this world. William Anderson he just made one jump, and, unscrewing one of the stateroom windows, he jerked it open. We had thought the air inside was good enough to last some time longer; but when that window was open and the fresh air came rushing in, it was a different sort of thing, I can tell you. William put his head out, and looked up and down and all around. 'She's nearly all out of water!' he shouted, and we can open the cabin door.' Then we all three rushed at those stairs, which were nearly right side up now, and we had the cabin door open in no time. When we looked out, we saw that the ship was truly floating pretty much as she had been when the captain and crew left her, though we all agreed that her deck didn't slant as much forward as it did then. Do you know what's happened?'

sung out William Anderson, after he'd stood still for a minute, to look around and think. 'That bobbing up and down that the vessel got last night shook up and settled down the pig-iron inside of her, and the iron plates in the bow, that were smashed and loosened by the collision, have given way under the weight, and the whole cargo of pig-iron has burst through and gone to the bottom. Then, of course, up we came ! Didn't I tell you something would happen to make us all right?'

"Well, I won't make this story any longer than I can help. The next day after that, we were taken off by a sugar-ship bound north, and we were caried safe back to Ulford, where we found our captain and the crew, who had been picked up by a ship after they'd been three or four days in their boats. This • ship had sailed our way to find us, which, of course, she couldn't do, as at that time we were under water and out of sight.

"And now, sir," said the brother-in-law of J. George Watts to the Shipwreck Clerk, "to which of your classes does this wreck of mine belong?"

"Gents," said the Shipwreck Clerk, rising from his seat, "it's four o'clock, and at that hour this office closes."

Qu.-How fast duz sound travel?

Ans. This depends a good deal upon the natur ov the noize yu are talking about. The sound ov a dinner horn, for instance, travels a half a mile in a seckoned, while an invitashun tew git up in the morning I hav known to be 3 quarters ov an hour going up two pair ov stairs, and then not hav strength enuff left tew be heard.

JOSH BILLINGS.

EXPERIENCE OF THE MCWILLIAMSES WITH MEMBRANEOUS CROUP.

BY MARK TWAIN.

[As related to the author by Mr. McWilliams, a pleasant New York gentleman whom the said author met by chance on a journey.]

WELL, to go back to where I was before I digressed, to explain to you how that frightful and incurable disease, membraneous croup, was ravaging the town and driving all mothers mad with terror. I called Mrs. McWilliams's attention to little Penelope and said:

"Darling, I wouldn't let that child be chewing that pine stick, if I were you."

"Precious, where is the harm in it?" said she, but at the same time preparing to take away the stick-for women cannot receive even the most palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it; that is, married women.

I replied:

"Love, it is notorious that pine is the least nutritious wood that a child can eat."

My wife's hand paused in the act of taking the stick, and returned itself to her lap. She bridled perceptibly, and said:

"Hubby, you know better than that. You know you do! Doctors all say that the turpentine in pine wood is good for weak back and the kidneys."

"Ah-I was under a misapprehension. I did not know that the child's kidneys and spine were affected, and that the family physician had recommended-"

"Who said the child's spine and kidneys were affected?" "My love, you intimated it.”

"The idea! I never intimated anything of the kind."

Why, my dear, it hasn't been two minutes since you said—” "Bother what I said! I don't care what I did say.

There

isn't any harm in the child's chewing a bit of pine stick if she wants to, and you know it perfectly well. And she shall chew it, too.

So there, now!"

"Say no more, my dear. I now see the force of your reasoning, and I will go and order two or three cords of the best pine wood to-day. No child of mine shall want while I—”

“O, please go along to your office and let me have some peace. A body can never make the simplest remark but you must take it up and go to arguing and arguing and arguing, till you don't know what you are talking about, and you never do!"

in

"Very well, it shall be as you say. But there is a want of logic your last remark which-"

However, she was gone with a flourish before I could finish, and had taken the child with her. That night at dinner she confronted me with a face as white as a sheet:

"O, Mortimer, there's another!

taken."

"Membraneous croup?"

"Membraneous croup."

"Is there any hope for him?"

Little Georgie Gordon is

"None in the wide world. O, what is to become of us!" By and by a nurse brought in our Penelope to say good-night and offer the customary prayer at the mother's knee. In the midst of "Now I lay me down to sleep," she gave a slight cough' My wife fell back like one stricken with death. But the next moment she was up and brimming with the activities which terror inspires.

She commanded that the child's crib be removed from the nursery to our bedroom; and she went along to see the order executed. She took me with her, of course. We got matters arranged with speed. A cot bed was put up in my wife's dressing-room for the nurse. But now Mrs. McWilliams said we were too far away from the other baby, and what if he were to have the symptoms in the night-and she blanched again, poor thing. We then restored the crib and the nurse to the nursery, and put up a bed for ourselves in a room adjoining.

Presently, however, Mrs. McWilliams said, "Suppose the baby should catch it from Penelope?" This thought struck a new panic to her heart, and the tribe of us could not get the crib out of the nursery again fast enough to satisfy my wife, though she assisted in her own person and wellnigh pulled the crib to pieces in her frantic hurry.

We moved down-stairs; but there was no place there to stow

the nurse, and Mrs. McWilliams said the nurse's experience would be an inestimable help. So we returned, bag and baggage, to our own bedroom once more, and felt a great gladness, like storm-buffeted birds that have found their nest again.

Mrs. McWilliams sped to the nursery to see how things were going on there. She was back in a moment with a new dread. She said:

"What can make Baby sleep so?"

I said:

66

Why, my darling, Baby always sleeps like a graven image.' "I know, I know. But there's something peculiar about his sleep, now. He seems to-to-he seems to breathe so regularly. O, this is dreadful!"

"But, my dear, he always breathes regularly."

"Oh, I know it, but there's something frightful about it now. His nurse is too young and inexperienced. Maria shall stay there with her, and be on hand if anything happens."

"That is a good idea, but who will help you?"

"You can help me all I want. I wouldn't allow anybody to do anything but myself, any how, at such a time as this."

I said I would feel mean to lie abed and sleep, and leave her to watch and toil over our little patient all the weary night. But she reconciled me to it. So old Maria departed and took up her ancient quarters in the nursery.

Penelope coughed twice in her sleep.

"Oh, why don't that doctor come! Mortimer, this room is too warm. This room is certainly too warm. Turn off the register —quick!”

I shut it off, glancing at the thermometer at the same time, and wondering to myself if 70 was too warm for a sick child.

The coachman arrived from down-town now, with the news that our physician was ill and confined to his bed. Mrs. McWilliams turned a dead eye upon me, and said in a dead voice:

"There is a Providence in it. It is foreordained. He never was sick before. Never. We have not been living as we ought to live, Mortimer. Time and time again I have told you so. Now Our child will never get well. Be thankful

you see the result.

if you can forgive yourself; I never can forgive myself."

I said, without intent to hurt, but with heedless choice of