nk,
"We can carry conveniently coat, shoes, and hat,
Since we'll always have with us the elephant's trunk."

* * * * *

Many boys and girls have seen the famous actor Joe Jefferson in his
great play _Rip Van Winkle_, that delightful story of the Catskill
fairies, and in it that weird scene where he partakes of the spirits
that the elves give him, making him sleep for twenty years. Well, there
is a good story told about Jefferson in that particular scene. Once
being near some good fishing-grounds, he spent the day drawing in the
gamy trout, and was thoroughly tired when the curtain rolled up for the
evening performance. Things moved smoothly enough until he is supposed
to fall asleep. Now that sleep in fiction lasts twenty years, but on the
stage about two minutes. This time, however, the two minutes were
lengthened out into ten, much to the amusement of the audience and
provocation of the stage-manager. Jefferson had really fallen asleep,
and his snores, it is said, were quite audible beyond the footlight.
Several remarks were fired at him by the audience, and, finally, the
stage-manager had to go beneath the stage and open a trap near where
Jefferson was lying to try and wake him up.

He called and called, but it was no use, and in desperation he succeeded
in jabbing a pin into him, which made Jefferson jump up with a sharp
cry, and quickly realize where he was.

"A PIECE OF WORK."

BY JAMES BARNES.

The train-despatcher's window at the Jimtown crossing commanded a good
view of the yards. It was a wet night, with a penetrating drizzle so
fine that it almost led one to believe that the earth was steaming from
the heat of the forenoon. The ray of light that shot over the
train-despatcher's shoulder as he looked out into the darkness showed,
however, that it was rain drifting downwards in the minutest drops.

It was almost time for the night despatcher, Rollins, to put in an
appearance, and Mr. Mingle looked at his watch and drummed with his
fingers on the pane of glass.

The light of the switchmen's lanterns occasionally gleamed from the
shining slippery rails. A noisy little engine that had been drilling
freight cars about the yard stopped on the siding just beneath the
window, and commenced to roar angrily with a burst of feathery vapor.
The despatcher watched the fireman open the door of the furnace and
stand for an instant silhouetted against the red glare that w