wful black place underground, like Johnny
Wilson when he broke Mrs. Perkins's window. I was scared, I tell you.
But I didn't get anything worse than a whipping, and having my savings
bank taken away from me with all that was left in it, I haven't tried to
be good since, much."

We now got into a Broadway stage going down, and being unable, on
account of the noise, to converse further upon those spiritual conflicts
of Billy's which so much interested me, we amused ourselves with looking
out until just as we reached the Astor House, when he asked me where we
were going.

"Where do you guess?" said I.

He cast a glance through the front window and his face became
irradiated. Oh, there's nothing like the simple, cheap luxury of
pleasing a child, to create sunshine enough for the chasing away of the
bluest adult devils!

"We're going to Barnum's," said Billy, involuntarily clapping his hands.

So we were; and, much as stuck-up people pretend to look down at the
place, I frequently am. Not only so, but I always see that class largely
represented there when I do go. To be sure, they always make believe
that they only come to amuse the children, or because their country
cousins visit them; and never fail to refer to the vulgar set one finds
there, and the fact of the animals smelling like anything but Jockey
Club; yet I notice that after they've been in the hall three minutes
they're as much interested as any of the people they come to poh-poh,
and only put on the high-bred air when they fancy some of their own
class are looking at them. I boldly acknowledge that I go because I like
it. I am especially happy, to be sure, if I have a child along to
go into ecstasies and give me a chance, by asking questions, for the
exhibition of that fund of information which is said to be one of my
chief charms in the social circle, and on several occasions has led
that portion of the public immediately about the Happy Family into the
erroneous impression that I was Mr. Barnum explaining his five hundred
thousand curiosities. On the present occasion we found several visitors
of the better class in the room devoted to the Aquarium. Among these was
a young lady, apparently about nineteen, in a tight-fitting basque of
black velvet, which showed her elegant figure to fine advantage, a skirt
of garnet silk, looped up over a pretty Balmoral, and the daintiest
imaginable pair of kid walking-boots. Her height was a trifle over the
medium, her ey