his having brought his corkscrew with him. He pleaded "the force of habit."

"The force!" said Mrs. Sniff. "Don't let us have you talking about force, for gracious' sake. There! Do stand still where you are, with your back against the wall."

He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in which he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (language can say no meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door with the back of his head agin' the wall, as if he was waiting for somebody to come and measure his height for the army.

"I should not enter, ladies," said our missis, "on the revolting disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hopes that they will cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the power you wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to the constitutional motto which I see before me"-it was behind her, but the words sounded better SO May Albion Never Learn!'"

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Here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried, "Hear! Hear! Hear!" Hear! Hear!" Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got himself frowned down by every brow. "The baseness of the French," pursued our missis, "as displayed in the fawning nature of their refreshmenting, equals, if not surpasses, anythink as we ever heard of the baseness of the celebrated Bonaparte.'

Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to saying, "We thought as much!" Miss Whiff and Miss Piff seeming to object to my droring mine along with theirs, I drored another to aggravate 'em.

"Shall I be believed," says our missis, with flashing eyes, "when I tell you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that treacherous shore

Here Sniff, either bursting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a low voice: "Feet. Plural, you know."

The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for a cove so groveling. In the midst of a silence rendered more impressive by the turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded, our missis went on:

"Shall I be believed when I tell you that no sooner had I landed," this word with a killing look at Sniff, "on that treacherous shore than I was ushered into a refreshment room where

there were I do not exaggerate — actually eatable things to

eat?"

A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the honor of jining, but also of lengthening it out.

"Where there were," our missis added, "not only eatable things to eat, but also drinkable things to drink!"

A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff trembling with indignation, called out, "Name!"

"I will name," said our missis. "There was roast fowls, hot and cold; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; there was hot soup with (again I ask shall I be credited?) nothing bitter in it, and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there was mark me! - fresh pastry, and that of a light construction; there was a luscious show of fruit; there was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every size, and adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply to brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help themselves."

Our missis' lips so quivered that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them.

"This," proceeds our missis, "was my first unconstitutional experience. Well would it have been if it had been my last and worst. But no. As I proceeded further into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. I need not explain to this assembly the ingredients and formation of the British refreshment sangwich?"

Universal laughter-except from Sniff, who, as sangwich cutter, shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin' the wall.

"Well!" said our missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a fresh, crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal French refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision."

A cry of "Shame!" from all-except Sniff, who rubbed his stomach with a soothing hand.

"I need not," said our missis, "explain to this assembly

the usual formation and fitting of the British refreshment

room?"

No, no, and laughter. Sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits agin' the wall.

"Well," said our missis, "what would you say to a general decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and tastefulness positively addressing the public, and making the beast thinking itself worth the pains?"

Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Sniff looking as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everybody else looking as if they'd rather not.

"Three times," said our missis, working herself into a truly terrimenjious state-"three times did I see these shameful things, only between the coast and Paris, and not counting either at Hazebroucke, at Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me what would you call a person who should propose in England that there should be kept, say at our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each within a passenger's power to take away, to empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred miles further on?"

There was disagreement what such a person should be called. Whether revolutionist, atheist, Bright (I said him), or un-English. Miss Piff screeched her shrill opinion last in the words: "A malignant maniac ! "

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"I adopt," says our missis, "the brand set upon such a person by the righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff. A malignant maniac. Know, then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of France, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked action on this same part of my journey."

I noticed that Sniff was a rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniff had got her eye upon him. But I did not take more particular notice, owing to the excited state in which the young ladies was, and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with a howl.

"On my experience south of Paris," said our missis, in a deep tone, "I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task! But fancy this. Fancy a guard coming round, with

the train at full speed, to inquire how many for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward the numbers of diners. Fancy every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party. Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head cook, concerned for the honor of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and cap. Fancy the beast traveling six hundred miles on end, very fast and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be done for it!"

A spirited chorus of "The beast!"

I noticed that Sniff was agin a rubbing his stomach with a soothing hand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I didn't take particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimulate public feeling. It being a lark besides.

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Putting everything together," said our missis, "French refreshmenting comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total! First eatable things to eat and drinkable things to drink."

A groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. "Second: convenience, and even elegance."

Another groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. "Third: moderate charges.'

This time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies. "Fourth and here," says our missis, "I claim your angriest sympathy attention, common civility, nay, even politeness ! " Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together. "And I cannot in conclusion," says our missis, with her spitefulest sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what I have related) than assuring you that they wouldn't bear our constitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction for a single month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put another system in our places as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, for I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice."

The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his head. It was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep' her eye upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. Our missis followed them both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department.

You come into the down refreshment room at the Junction making believe you don't know me, and I'll pint you out with

my right thumb over my shoulder which is our missis, and which is Miss Whiff, and which is Miss Piff, and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won't get a chance to see Sniff, because he disappeared that night. Whether he perished, tore to pieces, I cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains to bear witness to the servility of his disposition.

SOMETHING.

BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

[HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, Danish story-teller, was born in Odense, April 2, 1805. Of so poor a family that he had to go out begging, he was intended for a tailor, but strove hard to be an actor; he was finally sent to a grammar school at state expense. He had a passion for travel, and his first book was a thumb-nail travel sketch; it was followed by "The Improvisator," "O. T.,” and "Only a Fiddler," prose romances. He wrote other books of travel, many poems, and some dramas; but his title to remembrance is his mass of fairy tales, in which a vividly realizing imagination is accompanied by great humor, satire, fine spiritual perception, and acutely practical sense.]

"I WANT to be something!" said the eldest of five brothers. "I want to do something in the world. I don't care how humble my position may be in society, if I only effect some good, for that will really be something. I'll make bricks, for they are quite indispensable things, and then I shall truly have done something.

"But that something will not be enough!" quoth the second brother. "What you intend doing is just as much as nothing It is journeyman's work, and can be done by a machine. No, I would rather be a bricklayer at once, for that is something real; and that's what I will be. That brings rank: as a bricklayer one belongs to a guild, and is a citizen, and has one's own flag and one's own house of call. Yes, and if all goes well, I will keep journeymen. I shall become a master bricklayer, and my wife will be a master's wife - that is what I call something."

"That's nothing at all!" said the third. "That is beyond the pale of the guild, and there are many of those in a town that stand far above the mere master artisan. You may be an

honest man; but as a 'master' you will after all only belong to those who are ranked among common men. I know something better than that. I will be an architect, and will thus enter