e_ for home
once more. When the young ladies were safely in, Ned and Charley met in
their room, and each caught the other looking at him stealthily. Both
smiled.

"Did I give you time, Charley?" asked Ned; "we came back rather soon."

"Oh, yes; plenty of time."

"Did you--aw, did you pop?

"Y-yes. Did you?"

"Well--yes."

"And you were--"

"Rejected, by Jove!"

"So was I!"

The day following this disastrous picnic the baggage of Mr. Edwin
Salsbury and Mr. Charles Burnham was sent to the depot at Wikhasset
Station, and they presented themselves at the hotel-office with a
request for their bill. As Jerry Swayne deposited their key upon its
hook, he drew forth a small tri-cornered billet from the pigeon-hole
beneath, and presented it.

"Left for you this morning, gentlemen."

It was directed to both, and Charley read it over Ned's shoulder. It ran
thus:

"DEAR BOYS: The next time you divert yourselves by throwing dice
for two young ladies, we pray you not to do so in the presence of a
valet who is upon terms of intimacy with the maid of one of them.

"With many sincere thanks for the amusement
you have given us--often when you least suspected
it--we bid you a lasting adieu, and remain, with
the best wishes,

"HATTIE CHAPMAN,
"LAURA THURSTON.

"_Brant House_,
"_Wednesday."_

"It is all the fault of that, aw--that confounded Thomas!" said Ned.

So Thomas was discharged.

[4] _Atlantic Monthly, June_, 1863.

THE TACHYPOMP.[5]

A MATHEMATICAL DEMONSTRATION.

BY E.P. MITCHELL.

There was nothing mysterious about Professor Surd's dislike for me. I
was the only poor mathematician in an exceptionally mathematical class.
The old gentleman sought the lecture-room every morning with eagerness,
and left it reluctantly. For was it not a thing of joy to find seventy
young men who, individually and collectively, preferred _x_ to XX; who
had rather differentiate than dissipate; and for whom the limbs of the
heavenly bodies had more attractions than those of earthly stars upon
the spectacular stage?

So affairs went on swimmingly between the Professor of Mathematics and
the Junior Class at Polyp University. In every man of the seventy the
sage saw the logarithm of a possible La Place, of a Sturm, or of a
Newton. It was a delightful task for him to lead them through the
pleasant valleys of conic sections, and b