must see you alone,” he said, in a piping whisper. "I have not been safe these twenty years to bear findin' out now quietly. I—”

"Your secret is safe for to-day. But it is my business to see that justice is done."

They had time for nothing more. Len turned with the paper, and he and the Judge bustled out. What with their shiny black clothes, and the old man's portentous chain and seals, and Len's easy swagger and cheap perfume, they seemed quite to absorb the air when they were in the room, and to leave it vacant when they went out, with only Sim gathered up into the corner by the fireplace, looking as limp and imbecile as a child's rag-doll. Leonard, glancing back at him, nodded kindly. It flashed on him how paltry and meagre the little silversmith's aims and life were, compared with his own, rounded and impelled as he felt them to be by education and heroic impulses. Then, as he walked with the Judge down the village street in the brilliant early sunshine, he forgot poor Sim in thinking how, when this money and firm footing were assured to him, he would show to these poor villagers what a truly noble life was, - how fixed in purpose and generous in extent, The soft, straightforward, brown eyes of little Hetty Barr rose before him then, and made his blood tingle hotly. They walked out into a quiet field where there was nothing to disturb them, except a few red and brown sleepy cows wading through a pool below, or standing knee-deep in the uncut grass; and then Atwater suddenly jerked out the paper. Leonard watched him eagerly. “Well, sir ?”

"None."

"Well, well. Leave the paper with me. I'll look it over again, and see if nothing can be done. I will take a saunter down the Race now. I remember it when I was a boy, and I'd like to stretch my legs a bit."

Bedillion, understanding himself dismissed, bowed, coloring a little. The boy had not meant to be intrusive, and resented the snubbing, boy-like.

“And, Bedleon, Bedillion, — how do you call yourself?-send that fellow, Wicks, down here to me, when you go back. I want a word or two with him."

The old man, after Len's retreat, improvised a line and hook, dug for worms, and fished for minnows quietly, until he heard the queer, jerking step of the little silversmith coming up behind him. Then he thrust the hook and line in his trousers - pocket, washed his fingers clear of bait, and, turning, bowed to him gravely.

The little brown-coated man, standing on the edge of the creek, with his hands clasped behind him, balancing himself in his usual fashion on his heels and toes, roused the look of curious wonder on the Judge's face again. He drew out the deed which Leonard had just given to him, and unfolded it, still peering at Wicks from under his glasses as he did so.

"You 've played out this farce as a good actor, Mr. Bedleon," he said. "I never knew a cleverer stroke of work, unless it was the finding of it out," with a chuckle.

Sim was in no mood for chuckling; the gray, glassy eyes flashed. "You've found out my secret. What are ye goin' to do with it."

"I'll tell you, -I'll tell you. Patience. You never saw your uncle, old Billy Furness? That was my first clew. Billy and I ran together as boys, — and a stirring team we were! When I saw you, there 's Furness's ghost or his

"Perhaps. He makes over the whole property? No reservation?" glancing over it, hastily.

like a flash! Here was young Bedleon's Spanish hero under his nose, blacking his boots for him. I never turned up such a joke in my life. Never. I've a

His bringin' up suits money; mine don't. But there 's another reason now why I'll give it. Ef he had it, he 'd ask the girl he loves to marry him, and they would be happy together. I'd like them to owe that to me, - unbeknownst."

"That can hardly be," turning his eyes from Sim's face to the paper. "The wording of Kearns's will will force you to attest this instrument in Pennsylvania, this State. If you insist upon your gift, it will be impossible to make the transfer and keep your secret. I want you to take to-day to consider the matter."

"That is not needed," in his slow, monotonous way. "The money must go to Leonard, cost what it will. Mebbe the boy 'll not resent it on me; though he'd rather keep the brother he 's fancied than hev ten times the money I kin give. But he must marry. Len must hev wife and children of his own."

"I intended," said the Judge, folding up the paper and returning it to his pocket, "to tell the fellow the truth this evening. Barker, your squire, has asked us there to supper; and there will be your leading men there too, as I suppose you call them. I mean to clear up the matter there. Stop! it's my business, Bedleon, to see justice done to both of your father's sons, and justice don't lie altogether in the dividing of money. But I want you to consider the matter over, as I said; and if you persist in it, let me know your decision before dark."

"'S ye please, Judge. There's a chore to be done in the matter yet. But, day or nightfall, my mind 's made up."

"I'll stop before I go to Barker's with the deed. Take your time. II wish you saw Bedillion with my eyes."

But Sim had turned hastily away.

I

TAKE it to be a matter generally admitted by all who have tried on the mask of comic journalism, that it is no velvet one, but rather suggestive than otherwise of that iron visor behind which a certain mysterious character in history was compelled, for so many years, to put the best face he could upon circumstances. Great assiduity is a thing almost incompatible with humorous writing. The strain of always try ing to be witty and epigrammatic on the surface, without losing grasp for a moment of the weightier considerations involved, is one against which few minds could contend successfully for long, continuous periods; and hence the desultory mode of working so generally characteristic of writers who make a specialty of this kind of literature. Contributors to comic papers may be divid

the brilliant ones,

ed into two classes, and the reliable ones; and it is very rare to find in one person a combination of the characteristics belonging to these respectively. Of all the writers with whom I have travelled, from time to time, along the highways and by-ways of comic literature, I have known but two or three really sparkling ones whose aid could be relied upon, to a certainty, for any given day or week. The electric sparks thrown out by some of them, when in full glow, seemed to fall back upon them in ashes, and smother their too sudden fires. A thorough Bohemian, for the most part, is the very brilliant contributor, a bird difficult to catch and not always available when caught, seeing that, in nine cases out of ten, his habits are no more under his control than his moods. And herein

lies one of the chief impediments to making a real success of a comic periodical. The reliable contributor, whose principal value lies in his punctuality, is usually what may be termed an even writer, seldom rising to the pitch of brilliancy, nor often sinking below the level of respectable burlesque; so that, however valuable he may be as a "standby," he is unequal, at his very best, to establishing an unmistakable prestige for the paper that takes him for better or for worse, whichever of the two it may be. Were it only possible to treat these two types of contributors as the juggler does a couple of rabbits,-roll them both into one, and then divide them by dozens, the thing would be complete. Then might the editor of the comic paper not always remind one of the famous "down-town" merchant described in the advertising columns of the serious journals as the hero of "many sleepless nights," and the expectant watcher of the times might reasonably hope for the coming of a successful American "Punch," —a thing so long in petto that it ought to be very good when it comes at last.

It has been frequently suggested, that the most feasible plan for the permanent establishment of a comic paper would be to engage all the world as leading contributor to it, and, if possible, all the world's wife and interesting family as well. There is a certain fascinating massiveness in this idea, it must be admitted; but, as the writer of one of a bushel of old letters now before me says, in reference to a prolix conundrum offered by him, “Will it wash?" To this I reply, without hesitation, that it will not. There is no doubt that useful suggestions are sometimes forwarded to editors of comic papers from the outside world, but experience compels me to state that the hints for squibs, caricatures, and articles generally, whether political or social in their bearing, thus tendered, are, in the great majority of cases, utterly worthless and impracticable. I have somewhere read or heard of a story told by the late John Leech, who used to be

occasionally favored with such hints from anonymous sources, and who once had a communication from a person desirous to map out his idea for a scorching political cartoon. The leading object in the picture was to be a railway train coming along at a smashing pace, freighted with certain political characters, and the artist was to draw another train rushing from the opposite direction, but (now mark you this well) not yet in sight! I will venture to assert that every person who has essayed the task of editing a comic paper has been pelted, from all quarters of the country, with scores, nay, hundreds, of suggestions equally impracticable with the above. Among the curiosities of this branch of literature which I received in other times and retained for future reference, many are of a strictly esoteric and personal character. "A Borderer" — particular selvage of civilization to which he belongs not decipherable on postmark - writes to say that it would be a good thing to extinguish the postmaster of his place, and, to further the abolition of that unhappy provincial, he encloses ten cents, with a copy of verses in which impeachment for having "robbed a trunk" is felicitously set to music by means of rhyme with the disagreeable epithet "skunk." Another person, apparently writing from a place of detention for adults of weak intellects, forwards a number of anagrams,

one upon the name of Florence Nightingale, and another upon that of General Lafayette. The same writer suggests a host of distinguished persons upon whose names the editor would do well to immolate himself anagrammatically. Kossuth figures among these, as likewise does a local citizen whose name is given as Pericles W. Beazley, and who, according to the suggester, is a personage so filling to the eyes of the world that a favorable twist upon his name would at least double the circulation of the paper in which it might appear. A poetical contributor favors the editor with a parody upon Hood's "Song of the Shirt," feelingly wrought out with a view of influencing

the market-value of a particular sewingmachine, the name of the patentee of which is ingeniously stitched into the wonderful stuff. This troubadour modestly states that he does not look for any pecuniary recompense for his contribution, but he requests that it may be printed with his name to it, in full, and that twenty-four copies of the paper containing it may be forwarded to his address. Another bard sends in a little poem not devoid of merit, although by no means adapted for the requirements of a comic paper. It has an old, familiar air about it, and consultation with sage pundits reveals the fact that it originally appeared in a volume of poems published by a lady about seventy years ago. To secure copyright upon it, as well as to display his acquirements as a linguist, the sender has put the refrain of the song - English in the original — into the French tongue. Wholesale piracy of this kind is very commonly resorted to by persons aspiring to be contributors. Ideas for social caricatures come in, copied, almost literally, from pictures to be found in old volumes of "Punch" and other humorous periodicals, so that it is necessary for the editor to be pretty thoroughly acquainted with what has been done in that branch of literature during past years. I can point out, in volumes that now lie upon my table, sundry scraps-sometimes of prose, but oftener of verse which were frauds upon the editor, being slight variations of productions that had long previously appeared elsewhere as the work of writers more or less known to fame. One of our correspondents is apparently a well-brought-up young man, who disdains the idea of saying the thing that is not. He sends a packet containing fifteen "poems" in manuscript, all of which, he virtuously avows, have already appeared in the columns of the "Granite Playmate,” or a paper exulting in some such name. He has rewritten them, he says, and thinks they would make a great hit if published with illustrative wood-cuts by the artist who does the grotesque head

pieces "with such charming fancy." Then there is the lady correspondent from the fashionable watering-places, who begins her letter coaxingly with "Dear Sir,—You who are supposed to know everything," &c., &c., and encloses a diagram for an elaborate caricature of a flirtation going on between the married Major A- and the Misses B and C, who are scandalizing the chaste bathers on the beach with their "goings-on." To secure attention, her ladyship also sends cartede-visite likenesses of the obnoxious parties, with a request that the artist will be very true to them. A common and very terrible type of the aspiring contributor is the one who forwards by express a great roll of manuscript written upon law paper, which, on being opened, conveys the impression of a five-act tragedy, but proves to be nothing worse than a serial tale of village life, couched in the kind of disrupted English usually attributed to Pennsylvanian Dutchmen. Collateral to this person is the lady who sends in a batch of anecdotes about the negroes on her husband's plantation, all the funny bits of which have circulated for a quarter of a century among the artists in "burnt cork." But it would occupy more space than I may appropriate for this article, to dilate upon the variety of distant correspondents who seem to fancy that the fate of the comic paper addressed is absolutely dependent upon the acceptance of their contributions.

More difficult to deal with than these are the aspirants who call in person to see the editor, and bring their "fireworks" with them. Enter to that arbiter, for instance, an "awful swell," who has written a satire in seven cantos, and wants to read it now, at a sitting. He does not require compensation for his work, which he originally intended to publish in pamphlet form, but would rather see it "set in the coronet of your brilliant and admirable paper." The editor politely shirks the reading, but begs that the manuscript may be left for his perusal. On dipping into it in the still watches of the