But for my part,' says he, 'I want either the fried
oyster or the kind that grow in pie crust, like they have 'em at the
restaurants.' Actually said that.

"Well, he driveled along for a while, talking the awfulest bosh; and
pretty soon he asked me if I was fond of mock-turtle soup. Said
that the commission had discovered the feasibility of adding the
mock-turtle to the food-animals of our rivers. He allowed that he had
understood that they could be cultivated best by spawning calves'
heads on forcemeat balls, and that they were in season for the table
during the same months of the year that gravy is. And he said that a
strenuous effort ought to be made to have our rivers swarming with
this delicious fish.

"And then he talked a whole lot of delirious slush of that kind, and
about improving the tadpole crop, and so on, until I--Wh-wh-what d'you
say? Want me to take my legs off that table and quit? You don't want
to hear any more news about the fisheries? Oh, all right; there's
plenty of other papers that'll be glad to get the intelligence. Next
time you want my views about pisciculture you'll have to send for me."

Then the professor aimed again at the spittoon, missed it, rubbed the
ragged crown of his forlorn hat with his shining elbow, buttoned up
his coat over a shirt-bosom which last saw the washerwoman during the
presidency of General Harrison, and sauntered out and down stairs. The
impression that he left was that he would be more available to the
Fish Commission as bait than in any other capacity.

Upon another occasion a more forlorn and dismal vagabond, a cripple,
too, sauntered into Brown's grocery-store, where a crowd was sitting
around the stove discussing politics. Taking position upon a nail-keg,
he remarked,

"Mr. Brown, you don't want to buy a first-rate wooden leg, do you?
I've got one that I've been wearing for two or three years, and I want
to sell it. I'm hard up for money; and although I'm attached to that
leg, I'm willing to part with it so's I kin get the necessaries of
life. Legs are all well enough; they are handy to have around the
house, and all that; but a man must attend to his stomach if he has
to walk about on the small of his back. Now, I'm going to make you an
offer. That leg is Fairchild's patent; steel springs, India-rubber
joints, elastic toes and everything, and it's in better order now than
it was when I bought it. It'd be a comfort to any man. It's the most
luxurious leg I