started for the clerk's office,
below, to have some explanation. As John and the officer reached the
rotunda, a gentleman steps up behind John, and gives his nose a
first-rate _lug_. They clinched, the bystanders and servants interposed,
and John and his assailant were parted, and by this time the nose puller
discovered he had the wrong man by the nose!

"Is your name Thomas Johns?" says the nose puller.

"Blast you, no!"

"Who pays this bill for the carriage, if your name ain't Johns?" says a
man with a bill for the carriage hire.

"I allers heard as ow you Yan-gees were inquisitive, and sharp after the
dollars, and I'm 'anged if you ain't awful. My name's John Thomas, from
Lun'un, bound back again in the next steamer. Now who's got any thing
against _me_?"

Thomas Johns came in at this climax, an explanation ensued, John was
relieved of his embarrassment, and all were finally satisfied, except
John Thomas, who, venting a few bottles of his spleen on every body and
all things--Americans especially--took to his bed and beer, and snorted
for a week.

The Yankee in a Boarding School.

"Well, squire, as I wer' tellin' on ye, when I went around pedlin'
notions, I met many queer folks; some on 'em so darn'd preoud and sassy,
they wouldn't let a feller look at 'em; a-n-d 'd shut their doors and
gates, _bang_ into a feller's face, jest as ef a Yankee pedler was a
pizen sarpint! Then there waa-s t'other kind o' human critters, so pesky
poor, or 'nation stingy, they'd pinch a fourpence till it'd squeal like
a stuck pig. Ye-e-s, I do _swow_, I've met some critters so dog-ratted
mean, that ef you had sot a steel trap onder their beds, a-n-d baited it
with three cents, yeou'd a cotch ther con-feoun-ded souls afore
mornin'!"

"Massy sakes!" responded the squire.

"Fact! by ginger!" echoed the ex-pedler.

"Well, go on, Ab," said the squire, giving his pipe another 'charge,'
and lighting up for the yarn Absalom Slamm had promised the gals, soon
as the quilt was out and refreshments were handed around.

"Go on, Ab--let's hear abeout that scrape yeou had with the school marm
and her gals."

"Wall, I _will_, squire; gals, spread yeourselves areound and squat;
take care o' yeour corset strings, and keep deth-ly still. Wall; neow,
yeou all sot? Hain't none o' ye been in the pedlin' business, I guess;
wall, no matter, tho' it's dread-ful pleasant sometimes: then again at
others, 'taint."

"Go on, Ab, go on," said