day-break, consuming the midnight oil, and absorbed in the composition of the really unparalleled paragraph, which follows:

"So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don't crow, another time, before you're out of the woods! Does your mother know you're out? Oh, no, no!—so go home at once, now, John, to your odious old woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl,-go! You wont? Oh, poh, poh, John, don't do so! You've got to go, you know! So go at once, and don't go slow; for nobody owns you here, you know. Oh, John, John, if you don't go you're no homo-no! You're only a fowl, an owl;

a cow, a sow; a doll, a poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-tonobody, log, dog, hog, or frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, now-cool! Do be cool, you fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don't frown so- -don't! Don't hollo, nor howl, nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how you do look! Told you so, you know-but stop rolling your goose of an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!"

Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly, composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS. to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home, retired, with ineffable dignity, to bed.

up."

"So"

Meantime the devil to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs to his case," in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a commencement at "setting" the MS. " In the first place, of course,- -as the opening word was he made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph with a capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw himself upon the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity—but who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles, that he had been only thumping them to no purpose, against the bottom of an empty box. Not a single little-o was in the little-o hole; and, glancing fearfully at the capital-O partition, he found that, to his extreme terror, in a precisely similar predicament. Awe-stricken, his first impulse was to rush to the foreman. "Sir!" said he, gasping for breath, "I can't never set up nothing without no o's.

"What do you mean by that?" growled the foreman, who was in a very ill-humor at being kept up so late.

"Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a little un!"

"What-what the d-1 has become of all that were in the case ?"

"I don't know, sir," said the boy, "but one of them ere G'zette devils is bin prowling bout here all night, and I spect he's gone and cabbaged em every one."

"Dod rot him! I haven't a doubt of it," replied the foreman, getting purple with rage-" but I tell you what you do, Bob, that's a good boy-you go over the first chance you get and hook every one of their i's and (d-n them!) their izzards."

"Jist so," replied Bob, with a wink and a frown—“I'll be into em, I'll let em know a thing or two; but in de meantime, that ere paragrab? Mus go in to-night, you know else there'll be the d-l to pay, and—”

"And not a bit of pitch hot," interrupted the foreman, with a deep sigh and an emphasis on the "bit." "Is it a very long paragraph, Bob?"

"Shouldn't call it a wery long paragrab," said Bob.

“Ah, well, then! do the best you can with it! we must get to press," said the foreman, who was over head and ears in work; "just stick in some other letter for o, nobody's going to read the fellow's trash, any how."

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Wery well," replied Bob, "here goes it !" and off he hurried to his case; muttering as he went-" Considdeble vell, them ere expressions, perticcler for a man as doesen't swar. So I's to gouge out all their eyes, eh? and d- -n all their gizzards! Vell! this here's the chap as is jist able for to do it." The fact is, that although Bob was but twelve years old and four feet high, he was equal to any amount of fight, in a small way.

The exigency here described is by no means of rare occurrence in printing-offices; and I cannot tell how to account for it, but the fact is indisputable, that when the exigency does occur, it almost always happens that x is adopted as a substitute for the letter deficient. The true reason, perhaps, is that x is rather the most superabundant letter in the cases, or at least was so in old

times-long enough to render the substitution in question an habitual thing with printers. As for Bob, he would have considered it heretical to employ any other character, in a case of this kind, than the x to which he had been accustomed.

"I shell have to x this ere paragrab," said he to himself, as he read it over in astonishment, "but it's jest about the awfulest o-wy paragrab I ever did see:" so x it he did, unflinchingly, and to press it went x-ed.

Next morning the population of Nopolis were taken all aback by reading, in "The Tea-pot," the following extraordinary leader:

“Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw! Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn't crxw, anxther time, befxre yxu're xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther know yxu're xut? Xh, nx, nx! sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur xdixus xld wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl,-gx! Yxu wxnt? Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxnt dx sx ! Yxu’ve gxt tx gx, yxu knxw! sx gx at xnce, and dxn't gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here, yxu knxw. Xh, Jxhn, Jxhn, if yxu don't gx yxu're nx hxmx-nx! Yxu're xnly a fxwl, an xwl; a cxw, a sxw; a dxll, a pxll; a pxxr xld gxxd-fxr-nxthing-tx-nxbxdy lxg, dxg, hxg, xr frxg, cxme xut xf a Cxncxrd bxg. Cxxl, nxw-cxxl! Dx be cxxl, yxu fxxl! Nxne xf yxur crxwing, xld cxck! Dxn't frxwn sx-dxn't! Dxn't hxllx, nxr hxwl, nxr grxwl, nxr bxw-wxw-wxw! Gxxd Lxrd, Jxhn, hxw yxu de lxxk! Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw, but stxp rxlling yxur gxxse xf an xld pxll abxut sx, and gx and drawn yxur sxrrxws in a bxwl!"

The uproar occasioned by this mystical and cabalistical article, is not to be conceived. The first definite idea entertained by the populace was, that some diabolical treason lay concealed in the hieroglyphics; and there was a general rush to Bullet-head's residence, for the purpose of riding him on a rail; but that gentleman was nowhere to be found. He had vanished, no one could tell how; and not even the ghost of him has ever been seen since.

Unable to discover its legitimate object, the popular fury at length subsided; leaving behind it, by way of sediment, quite a medley of opinion about this unhappy affair.

VOL. IV.-12

One gentleman thought the whole an X-ellent joke.

Another said that, indeed, Bullet-head had shown much X-uberance of fancy.

A third admitted him X-entric, but no more.

A fourth could only suppose it the Yankee's design to X-press, in a general way, his X-asperation.

66

Say, rather, to set an X-ample to posterity," suggested a fifth.

That Bullet-head had been driven to an extremity, was clear to all; and in fact, since that editor could not be found, there was some talk about lynching the other one.

The more common conclusion, however, was, that the affair was, simply, X-traordinary and in-X-plicable. Even the town mathematician confessed that he could make nothing of so dark a problem. X, everybody knew, was an unknown quantity; but in this case (as he properly observed), there was an unknown quantity of X.

The opinion of Bob, the devil (who kept dark "about his having X-ed the paragrab"), did not meet with so much attention as I think it deserved, although it was very openly and very fearlessly expressed. He said that, for his part, he had no doubt about the matter at all, that it was a clear case, that Mr. Bullethead never could be persvaded fur to drink like other folks, but vas continually a-svigging o' that ere blessed XXX ale, and, as a naiteral consekvence, it just puffed him up savage, and made him X (cross) in the X-treme'

DIDDLING

CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE EXACT SCIENCES.

Hey, diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle.

SINCE the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote a Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been much admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a great man in a small way. The other gave name to the most important of the Exact Sciences, and was a great man in a great way-I may say, indeed, in the very greatest of ways.

Diddling—or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle —is sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing diddling, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however, at a tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by defining-not the thing, diddling, in itself-but man, as an animal that diddles. Had Plato but hit upon this, he would have been spared the affront of the picked chicken.

Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken, which was clearly a "biped without feathers," was not, according to his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any similar query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of picked chickens to get over that.

What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling is, in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats and pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a man diddles. To diddle is his destiny. "Man was

made to mourn," says the poet. But not so:-he was made to diddle. This is his aim-his object-his end. And for this reason when a man's diddled we say he's “ done."