middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and
punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was
saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood."--_Exchange_.

I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve
my health, and so I went down to Tennessee and got a berth on the
_Morning-Glory and Johnson County Warwhoop_ as associate editor.
When I went on duty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in
a three-legged chair with his feet on a pine table. There was
another pine table in the room and another afflicted chair, and
both were half buried under newspapers and scraps and sheets of
manuscript. There was a wooden box of sand, sprinkled with
cigar-stubs and "old soldiers," and a stove with a door hanging by
its upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed black cloth
frock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small and
neatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal ring, a
standing collar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief
with the ends hanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was
smoking a cigar, and trying to think of a word, and in pawing his
hair he had rumpled his locks a good deal. He was scowling
fearfully, and I judged that he was concocting a particularly
knotty editorial. He told me to take the exchanges and skim through
them and write up the "Spirit of the Tennessee Press," condensing
into the article all of their contents that seemed of interest.

I wrote as follows:

"SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS

"The editors of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ evidently labor
under a misapprehension with regard to the Ballyhack railroad. It
is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one
side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important
points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to
slight it. The gentlemen of the _Earthquake_ will, of course,
take pleasure in making the correction.

"John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville
_Thunderbolt and Battle-Cry of Freedom_, arrived in the city
yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House.

"We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs _Morning
Howl_ has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of
Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have
discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no
doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election ret