aving its interest as one of a series. The Doctor and
myself lay in the bed, and a lieutenant, a friend of his, slept on
the sofa. At night, I placed my match-box, a Scotch one, of the
Macpherson-plaid pattern, which I bought years ago, on the bureau, just
where I could put my hand upon it. I was the last of the three to rise
in the morning, and on looking for my pretty match-box, I found it was
gone. This was rather awkward,--not on account of the loss, but of the
unavoidable fact that one of my fellow-lodgers must have taken it. I
must try to find out what it meant.

"By the way, Doctor, have you seen anything of a little plaid-pattern
matchbox?"

The Doctor put his hand to his pocket, and, to his own huge surprise and
my great gratification, pulled out _two_ matchboxes exactly alike, both
printed with the Macpherson plaid. One was his, the other mine, which he
had seen lying round, and naturally took for his own, thrusting it into
his pocket, where it found its twin-brother from the same workshop. In
memory of which event we exchanged boxes, like two Homeric heroes.

This curious coincidence illustrates well enough some supposed cases of
_plagiarism_, of which I will mention one where my name figured. When a
little poem called "The Two Streams" was first printed, a writer in the
New York "Evening Post" virtually accused the author of it of borrowing
the thought from a baccalaureate sermon of President Hopkins, of
Williamstown, and printed a quotation from that discourse, which, as I
thought, a thief or catchpoll might well consider as establishing a
fair presumption that it was so borrowed. I was at the same time wholly
unconscious of ever having met with the discourse or the sentence which
the verses were most like, nor do I believe I ever had seen or heard
either. Some time after this, happening to meet my eloquent cousin,
Wendell Phillips, I mentioned the fact to him, and he told me that _he_
had once used the special image said to be borrowed, in a discourse
delivered at Williamstown. On relating this to my friend Mr. Buchanan
Read, he informed me that _he_, too, had used the image, perhaps
referring to his poem called "The Twins." He thought Tennyson had used
it also. The parting of the streams on the Alps is poetically elaborated
in a passage attributed to "M. Loisne," printed in the Boston "Evening
Transcript" for October 23d, 1859. Captain, afterwards Sir Francis Head,
speaks of the showers parting on the C