uched the slender chain depending from the
magic collar, than the poor animal's eyes emitted twin tears, which
coursed silently but firmly down his nose, vacating it more in sorrow
than in anger. Then he looked up reproachfully into her face. Those
were his first tears--this was his last look. In two minutes by the
watch he was blind as a mole!

There is but little more to tell. The giant ate himself to death; the
castle mouldered and crumbled into pig-pens; empires rose and fell;
kings ascended their thrones, and got down again; mountains grew grey,
and rivers bald-headed; suits in chancery were brought and decided,
and those from the tailor were paid for; the ages came, like maiden
aunts, uninvited, and lingered till they became a bore--and still
Simprella, with the magician's curse upon her, conducted her sightless
guide through the interminable wilderness!

To all others the labyrinth had yielded up its clue. The hunter
threaded its maze; the woodman plunged confidently into its innermost
depths; the peasant child gathered ferns unscared in its sunless
dells. But often the child abandoned his botany in terror, the woodman
bolted for home, and the hunter's heart went down into his boots, at
the sight of a fair young spectre leading a blind phantom through the
silent glades. I saw them there in 1860, while I was gunning. I shot
them.

SEAFARING.

My envious rivals have always sought to cast discredit upon the
following tale, by affirming that mere unadorned truth does not
constitute a work of literary merit. Be it so: I care not what they
call it. A rose with any other smell would be as sweet.

In the autumn of 1868 I wanted to go from Sacramento, California, to
San Francisco. I at once went to the railway office and bought a
ticket, the clerk telling me that would take me there. But when I
tried it, it wouldn't. Vainly I laid it on the railway and sat down
upon it: it would not move; and every few minutes an engine would come
along and crowd me off the track. I never travelled by so badly
managed a line!

I then resolved to go by way of the river, and took passage on a
steamboat. The engineer of this boat had once been a candidate for the
State Legislature while I was editing a newspaper. Stung to madness by
the arguments I had advanced against his election (which consisted
mainly in relating how that his cousin was hanged for horse-stealing,
and how that his sister had an intolerable squint which a f