vidence of
contentment, and the gentlemen got down from the positions they had
assumed, and they shook hands and each took a bloody oath that he would
not tell about it, and they repaired to their several homes and used
arnica on the spots where the goat had kicked them.

The only trouble that is liable to arise out of this is that the
postmaster threatens to commence an action against Crossman for
obstructing the mails.

A MEAN TRICK.

Probably the meanest trick that was ever played on a white man was
played in Milwaukee, and the fact that there is no vigilance committee
there is the only reason the perpetrators of the trick are alive. A
business man had just purchased a new stiff hat, and he went into a
saloon with half a dozen of his friends to fit the hat on his head. They
all took beer, and passed the hat around so all could see it. One of the
meanest men that ever held a county office went to the bar tender and
had a thin slice of Limburger cheese cut off, and when the party were
looking at the frescoed ceiling through beer glasses this wicked person
slipped the cheese under the sweat leather of the hat, and the man put
it on and walked out.

The man who owned the hat is one of your nervous people, who is always
complaining of being sick, and who feels as though some dreadful disease
is going to take possession of him and carry him off. He went back to
his place of business, took off his hat and laid it on the table, and
proceeded to answer some letters. He thought he detected a smell, and,
when his partner asked him if he didn't feel sick, he said he believed
he did. The man turned pale and said he guessed he would go home. He met
a man on the sidewalk who said the air was full of miasma, and in the
street car a man who sat next to him moved away to the end of the car,
and asked him if he had just come from Chicago. The man with the hat
said he had not, when the stranger said they were having a great deal of
smallpox there, and he guessed he would get out and walk, and he pulled
the bell and jumped off. The cold perspiration broke out on the forehead
of the man with the new hat, and he took it off to wipe his forehead,
when the whole piece of cheese seemed to roll over and breathe, and the
man got the full benefit of it, and came near fainting away.

He got home and his wife met him and asked him what was the matter? He
said he believed mortification had set in, and she took one whiff as he
took off h