ptation, and I hurled
it down the aisle, scattering pork, pickles, doughnuts, and so forth
in its wake, and ending with a loud bang against the platform. Of
course I was the suspect, and cutting off prayer abruptly, down he
rushed, and banged my head till I saw more stars than ever shone in
heaven.

My academy "_alma mater_" has graduated but few who have--

"Climbed fame's ladder so high
From the round at the top they have stepped to the sky,"

and it is sad to recall that many of the most gifted, acquired
in college secret societies the alcohol habit, and now sleep in
drunkards' graves.

Brilliant Charlie, my chum, who mastered languages and sciences as
easy as "rolling off a log." I saw him last summer, a wreck--wine and
bad women did it. The idolized son of pious parents, whose youth was
surrounded at home with the halo of Bible and prayer; but like Esau,
he "sold his birthright for a mess of pottage" and afterwards "found
no space for repentance, though he sought it earnestly and with many
tears."

It seems but yesterday that he and I were enjoying a game of
"pickknife," lacerating the top of a new desk, when in rushed the
"D.D." with his feet encased in the thinnest of slippers and with
which he gave me a kick which broke his toe, then clasping it in his
hand, danced on one leg, whooping unconsciously cuss word ejaculations
till we shrieked with laughter; then he bumped our heads together
until my big brother shook the dominie-pedagogue as a dog would a rat,
and threatened that if he ever struck my head again he would drown him
in the horsepond.

Dear, good brother, he always was, and is now my guardian angel,
although now he comes from heaven to shield me, for I am the last on
earth of my father's family.

Alas, how many of those academy classmates, each of whom was then the
soul of honor and the heart of truth, drowned their intellects in the
flowing bowl. _Eheu, Eheu, fugaces anni labuntur!_ But surely it was
only this morning oh, beautiful, star-eyed Harry, that you and I,
wearied with the frantic vain attempts of the unmathematical professor
to elucidate by appalling triangles and hieroglyphics on the
blackboard the perplexities of cube root, ousted each other from the
seat, sprawling upon the floor, and were chased by the LL.D. out of
doors, never to return until we apologized and promised "to do so no
more."

Although I had been as "prone to mischief" as the sparks to fly
upward--ringing th