out with
their 'spring hats' and carmen with their spring-carts; when the snow has
left us, and the city-trees are _about_ leave-ing; how innumerous kites
begin to thicken in the air? Yonder a big unwieldy fellow rises with calm
dignity, trailing his long tail with great propriety behind him; here a
little bustling creature ducks and dives, coquetting first on this side,
then on that; until finally turning two or three somersets, it almost
reaches the earth; but soon rises at a tangent, and sails far up into the
bright blue firmament. Look! the air is full of them! It is a charming
amusement, this kite-flying of the boys. We greatly affect it, even now,
although we are 'out of our 'teens!' There is something ethereal in it;
some thing that lifts up the young admiration

'To that blue vault and sapphire wall
That overhangs and circles all,'

and the mysterious realm that lies beyond its visible confines. . . . WE
select from the '_Random Reminiscences of a Retired Merchant_' a single
passage; the entire article being quite too short for any other department
of our work: 'There once flourished in one of our commercial cities a
little French merchant, who was very well known to every man and boy by
the fact of his being always followed by a curly-haired yellow dog with
his tail 'cut a little too short by a d----d sight!' During the last war,
our little Frenchman was doing a very thriving business in the dry-goods
line, and was supposed to be a little sharper at a bargain than any of his
fellow-tradesmen. There also flourished at the same time, in the same
city, an importing merchant of Yankee origin, who was noted as a
long-headed, close-fisted dealer. It is well known that during the war
English goods were sold at enormous prices. The Yankee merchant was in
that line of trade; and a few days before the arrival in this country of
the news of peace, he received private advices from the Continent which
led him to anticipate it. As he had a large supply of English goods on
hand at the time, the prices of which would of course instantly fall, he
set about disposing of them as soon as possible to his less informed and
unsuspecting customers. The little Frenchman was one of his victims. After
much haggling, and the offer of a long credit, the importer effected a
bill of sale of goods to him, to the amount of something like twenty
thousand dollars, taking his notes on long time in payment. These he
considered perfectly good,