hem with shuffling gait. Bowing to the Holy Father, he
is about to pass on, when Judge SWEENEY stops him with--

"You must be very careful with your friend, BUMSTEAD, this evening, JOHN
MCLAUGHLIN, and see that he don't fall and break his neck."

"Never you worry about Mr. BUMSTEAD, Judge," growls OLD MORTARITY. "He
can walk further off the perpendicklar without tumbling than any
gentleman I ever see."

"Of course I can, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN," says Mr. BUMSTEAD, checking another
unseemly laugh of Mr. SMYTHE'S with a dreadful frown. "I often practice
walking sideways, for the purpose of developing the muscles on that
side. The left side is always the weaker, and the hip a trifle lower, if
one does not counteract the difference by walking sideways
occasionally."

A great deal of unnecessary coughing, which follows this physiological
exposition, causes Mr. BUMSTEAD to breathe hard at them all for a
moment, and tread with great malignity upon Mr. SMYTHE'S nearest corn.

While yet the sexton is groaning, OLD MORTARITY whispers to the
Ritualistic organist that he will be ready for him at the appointed hour
to-night, and shuffles away. After which Mr. BUMSTEAD, with the I hollow
straw sticking out fiercely from his ear, privately offers to see Father
DEAN home if he feels at all dizzy; and, being courteously refused,
retires down the turnpike toward his own lodgings with military
precision of step.

When night falls upon the earth like a drop of ink upon the word Sun,
and the stars glitter like the points of so many poised gold pens all
ready to write the softer word Moon above the blot, the organist of St.
Cow's sits in his own room, where his fire keeps-up a kind of aspenish
twilight, and executes upon his accordeon a series of wild and mutilated
airs. The moistened towel which he often wears when at home is turbaned
upon his head, causing him to present a somewhat Turkish appearance; and
as, when turning a particularly complicated corner in an air, it is his
artistic habit to hold his tongue between his teeth, twist his head in
sympathy with the elaborate fingering, and involuntarily lift one foot
higher and higher from the floor as some skittish note frantically
dodges to evade him, his general musical aspect at his own hearth is
that of a partially Oriental gentleman, agonizingly laboring to cast
from him some furious animal full of strange sounds. Thus engaging in
desperate single combat with what, for making a ferociou