packing--by the first
mails which leave the city within an hour and a half, at five and six
o'clock in the morning. And after them come the newsboys, each for his
bundle; and soon the frosty morning air in the gray dawn is alive with
the shouting of the latest news in this and a dozen other papers.

[Illustration: "ANY ANSWERS COME FOR ME?"]

This, I am sure, is too fast a world even for business Tom: so let us
"spirit" ourselves back to our beds in the quiet, slow-moving, earnest
country--Tom and Jonathan and little Nell and I--home, and to sleep--and
don't wake us till dinner-time!

UMBRELLAS.

[Illustration: THE FIRST UMBRELLA.]

About one hundred and thirty years ago, an Englishman named Jonas Hanway,
who had been a great traveller, went out for a walk in the city of
London, carrying an umbrella over his head.

[Illustration: WHAT JONAS SAW ADOWN THE FUTURE.]

Every time he went out for a walk, if it rained or if the sun shone
hotly, he carried this umbrella, and all along the streets, wherever he
appeared, men and boys hooted and laughed; while women and girls, in
doorways and windows, giggled and stared at the strange sight, for this
Jonas Hanway was the first man to commonly carry an umbrella in the city
of London, and everybody, but himself, thought it was a most ridiculous
thing to do.

But he seems to have been a man of strength and courage, and determined
not to give up his umbrella even if all London made fun of him. Perhaps,
in imagination, he saw adown the future, millions of umbrellas--umbrellas
enough to shelter the whole island of England from rain.

Whether he did foresee the innumerable posterity of his umbrella or not,
the "millions" of umbrellas have actually come to pass.

But Jonas Hanway was by no means the first man in the world to carry an
umbrella. As I have already mentioned, he had travelled a great deal, and
had seen umbrellas in China, Japan, in India and Africa, where they had
been in use for so many hundreds of years that nobody knows when the
first one was made. So long ago as Nineveh existed in its splendor,
umbrellas were used, as they are yet to be found sculptured on the ruins
of that magnificent capital of Assyria, as well as on the monuments of
Egypt which are very, very old; and your ancient history will tell you
that the city of Nineveh was founded not long after the flood. Perhaps it
was that great rain, of forty days and forty nights, that put in the
minds