at I hed
no influence with His Majesty. Two-thirds uv em pulled applicashens for
places they wanted from the left breast coat pocket, and insistid on my
takin em, and seem that they was appinted. I told em that I cood do
nuthin for em; but they laft me to skorn. "You are jist the style uv
man," said they, "who hez inflooence with His Eggslency, and yoo must do
it." Hemmed in, there wuz but one way uv escape, and that way I took.
Seezin a carpet sack, wich, by the way, belonged to a delegate (I took
it to give myself the look of a traveler), I rushed to the depot, and
startid home, entirely satisfied that ef Cleveland may be taken as a
sample, the less His Majesty depends on soljers, the better.

PETROLEUM V. NASBY, P.M. (wich is Postmaster), and likewise late
Chaplain to the expedishn.

P.S.--I opened the carpet sack on the train, spectin to find a clean
shirt in it, at least. It contained, to my disgust, an address to be
read before the Cleveland Convention, a set uv resolutions, a speech,
and a petition uv the proprietor thereof for a collectorship, signed by
eight hundred names, and a copy uv the Indiana State Directory for 1864.
The names wuz in one hand-writin, and wuz arranged alphabetically.

PETROLEUM V. NASBY.

FAMILIAR AUTHORS AT WORK

BY HAYDEN CARRUTH

MISS TRIPP

Miss Tripp for years has lived alone,
Without display or fuss or pother.
The house she dwells in is her own--
She got it from her dying father.

Miss T. delights in all good works,
She goes to church three times on Sunday,
Her daily duty never shirks,
Nor keeps her goodness for this one day.

She loves to bake and knit and sew,
For wider fields she doesn't hanker;
Yet for the things they have I know
A-many poor folk have to thank her.

The simple life she truly leads,
She loves her small domestic labors;
In spring she plants her garden seeds
And shares the product with her neighbors.

By _Books and Authors_ now I see
In literature she's made a foray:
"The Yellow Shadow"--said to be
"A crackerjack detective-story."

CAPTAIN BROWN

Bluff Captain Brown is somewhat queer,
But of the sea he's very knowing.
I scarcely meet him once a year--
He's off in search of whales a-blowing.

For fifty years--perhaps for more--
He's sailed about upon the ocean.
He thinks that if he lived ashore