ed elbow
at the back of it.

The chambermaid is very versatile, and waits on the table while not
engaged in agitating the overworked mattresses and puny pillows
upstairs. In this way she imparts the odor of fried pork to the pillow
cases and kerosene to the pie.

She has a wild, nervous and apprehensive look in her eye as though she
feared that some Herculean guest might seize her in his great, strong
arms and bear her away to a justice of the peace and marry her. She
certainly cannot fully realize how thoroughly secure she is from such a
calamity. She is just as safe as she was forty years ago, when she
promised her aged mother that she would never elope with anyone.

Still, she is sociable at times and converses freely with me at the
table, as she leans over my shoulder, pensively brushing the crumbs into
my lap with a general utility towel which accompanies her in her various
rambles through the house, and she asks which we would rather have--"tea
or eggs?"

This afternoon we will pay our bill, in accordance with a life-long
custom of ours, and go away to permeate the busy haunts of men. It will
be sad to tear ourselves away from the Fifth Avenue Hotel at this place;
still, there is no great loss without some small gain, and at our next
hotel we may not have to chop our own wood and bring it up-stairs when
we want to rest. The landlord of a hotel who goes away to a political
meeting and leaves his guests to chop their own wood, and then charges
them full price for the rent of a boisterous and tempest-tossed bed,
will never endear himself to those with whom he is thrown in contact.

We leave at 2:30 this afternoon, hoping that the two railroads may
continue to fork here just the same as though we had remained.

BILL NYE'S HORNETS.

Last fall I desired to add to my rare collection a large hornet's nest.
I had an enbalmed tarantula and her porcelain lined nest, and I desired
to add to these the gray and airy home of the hornet. I procured one of
the large size after cold weather and hung it in my cabinet by a string.
I forgot about it until this spring. When warm weather came, something
reminded me of it. I think it was a hornet. He jogged my memory in some
way and called my attention to it. Memory is not located where I thought
it was. It seemed as though whenever he touched me he awakened a
memory--a warm memory with a red place all around it.

Then some more hornets came and began to rake up old pers