ent--to--the--pump?"

"Johnson, my lord," the witness ventured to correct him, in a low tone.

"It makes no difference," responded the judge, irate, "whether it is
Bunsen or Jillson. The question is, Did--Jillson--go--to--the--pump?"

Whom the gods destroy they first deprive of their five senses. Four, at
least, of the poor man's had departed some time since. The fifth
followed. "Johnson went, my lord," he replied, doggedly. Having found
one point upon which his mind was clear, he clung to it with the
tenacity of despair.

"Johnson! who's _Johnson_?" gasped the bewildered judge, over whose face
a net of perplexed lines spread itself upon the introduction of this new
character. In the confusion of denials and explanations that followed,
we descended from our perch, and stole away; nor are we at all sure, to
this day, as to whether Johnson did or did not really go to the pump.

ST. PAUL'S.

Imagine our surprise, one day, when admiring a pretty ribbon upon a
friend, to be told that it came from St. Paul's Churchyard. Hardly the
place for ribbons, one would think; but the narrow street which
encircles the cathedral in the form of a bow and its string goes by this
name, and contains, besides the bookstores and publishing houses, some
fine "silk mercers'" establishments.

The gray surface of the grand edifice is streaked with black, as though
time had beaten it with stripes, and a pall of smoke and dust covers the
statues in the court before it. Consecrated ground this is, indeed. From
the earliest times of the Christian religion, through all the bigotry
and fanaticism of the ages that followed, down to the present time, the
word of God has been proclaimed here--in weakness often, in bitterness
many times that belied the spirit of its message; by a priesthood more
corrupt than the people; by noble men, beyond the age in which they
lived, and whom the flames of martyrdom could not appall. Under
Diocletian the first church was destroyed. It was rebuilt, and destroyed
again by the Saxons. Twice has it been levelled to the ground by fire.
But neither sword nor flame could subdue it, and firm as a rock it
stands to-day, as it has stood for nearly two hundred years, and as it
seems likely to stand for ages to come. The sacred stillness that
invests the place was rudely broken, the morning of our visit, by the
blows from the hammers of the workmen, resounding through the dome like
a discharge of artillery. A great stage, an