msily flying away over the tops of the
houses, clutching a roll of papers in one claw. And from away down in
the country comes a weird story of two countrymen, walking across a
field, being--to use their own description--"flabbergasted!" at seeing a
great bird flying over their heads, screaming out a lot of aggravating
personal remarks as he passed, and finally dropping, from the end of one
of his pinions, a soiled white kid glove, the loss of which seemed to
cause him great uneasiness; but whether--as I shrewdly suspect--this was
the Dodo, or not, I have never actually discovered.

The people at Suffolk House, including Perkins, maintain a most
mysterious silence on the subject, and will afford me no information
whatever; and the only consolation which I can find, in my endeavors to
ascertain whether these things really happened or not, is the fact
that, on the island of the lake at the Crystal Palace, _all the curious
animals which the Ambassador is said to have turned into stone, are
really there_--you may see them for yourself--and I hope, when next you
go to Sydenham, you will hunt them up. And if so, you will notice--what
struck me as being a very conclusive proof of the truth of the
narrative--that the Palaeotherium's tail really looks as if it were
broken off, about four or five inches from the end; and decidedly as
though he _might_ have worn a false one while he was alive.

THE END.

* * * * * *

A. L. Burt's Catalogue of Books for Young People by Popular Writers,
52-58 Duane Street, New York

BOOKS FOR BOYS.

Joe's Luck: A Boy's Adventures in California. By Horatio Alger, Jr.
12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00.

The story is chock full of stirring incidents, while the amusing
situations are furnished by Joshua Bickford, from Pumpkin Hollow, and
the fellow who modestly styles himself the "Rip-tail Roarer, from Pike
Co., Missouri." Mr. Alger never writes a poor book, and "Joe's Luck"
is certainly one of his best.

Tom the Bootblack; or, The Road to Success. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo,
cloth, illustrated, price $1.00.

A bright, enterprising lad was Tom the Bootblack. He was not at all
ashamed of his humble calling, though always on the lookout to better
himself. The lad started for Cincinnati to look up his heritage. Mr.
Grey, the uncle, did not hesitate to employ a ruffian to kill the lad.
The plan failed, and Gilbert Grey, once Tom the