Pear-tree' round the corner. Dum vivimus vivamus is my motto, and you don't know what that means, Master Franklin, for a pot now. Come, I say, mate, are you game to stand a quartern for a fellow this morning-yuck?" and, as the man said the words, he raised his head again; and then little Benjamin (for the boy's eyes had got used to the dusk of the place by this time) could see that the drunkard's clothes hung in tatters all about him, while his dark, unshaven beard contrasted with his blanched face as strongly as the black muzzle of a bull-dog.

"I ask your pardon, Master Franklin, for making so free," the sot added, in a wheedling tone; "but, you see, I had a little drop too much last night," the man went on, "and I sha'n't be quite right till I get just a thimbleful or so of the neat article inside of me."

"I'd as lief pay for a quartern of poison for you, Adam," said Uncle Benjamin, mournfully.

"You would, would you?" roared the other, springing up like a wild beast from his lair, and clutching the broken back of the chair on which he had been sitting; and he was preparing to strike his visitor down with it, but he staggered back lumpishly against the wall.

The boy flew to his uncle's side, and whispered, "Oh, come away, pray do, uncle! I have seen enough here!"

The uncle, however, swept past the youth, and going toward the dram-drinker, said kindly, "Adam! Adam! think of the man you once were."

The drunkard's head dropped upon his bosom, and the next minute he fell to whining and weeping like a child. Presently he hiccoughed out through his sobs, "I do think of it-yuck!-and then I want drink to drown the cursed thoughts.

Come, now, old friend,” and he vainly tried to lay his hand on Uncle Benjamin's shoulder, "send the youngster there for just a noggin-only one, now-from The Pear-tree,' and then I shall be all right again."

as

The friend shook his head as he replied, "You won't, Adam; you'll be all wrong again wrong as ever, man. Isn't it this drink that has beggared you, and despoiled you of your fortune, and of every friend too-but myself? and yet you are so mad for it still that you crave for more."

"I do I do thirst for it; my tongue's like a bit of red-hot iron in my mouth now with the parching heat that's on me. I tell you it's the only thing that can put an end to care, and (singing) drown it in the bo-wo-wole.

"Chorus-We'll drown it-yuck!-in the bowo-wole. Ha! you should have seen Adam lasht night. Blessh you, I was as jolly as a shand-boy the d'light of the whole tap-room. I tipped 'em some of my best songs-vain songs as you call 'em and you know I always could sing a good song if I liked, Master Franklin. Come, I'll give you a stave now if you'll only send yuck!-for that little drop of jacky. The youngster here, I dare say, would like to hear me wouldn't you, my dear ?" (but as there was no answer, he added), "What! you won't send for the gin? Well, then, leave it alone, you stingy old psalm-singing humbug; I wouldn't be beholden to you for it now if you were to press it on But never mind! never mind! never mind! May-may-what the deuce is that shentiment ?" (and he rubbed his hair round and round till it was like a mop): "tut! tut! and it's such a favorite shentiment of mine, too, after a song. Well, all I know is, it's something about, may something or other-yuck!-never shorten friend

me.

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ship. But never mind! never mind! Lawyer Muspratt is going to sell that little reversion Ï'm entitled to on my maiden aunt's death; it's the only thing I've got left now-but never mind ! never mind! and then won't Adam Tonks and the boys at The Pear-tree' have a night of it! Yes,dum vivimus vivamus' is my motto-yuck!

-if I die for it."

The man was silent for a minute or two, and then he said, as if waking up from a dream,

"I wonder who ever it was saw me down the cellar steps last night. But never mind! never mind! who's afraid?—not Adam Tonks, not he. Come, friend Franklin-for you have been a right good friend to me often, that you have, old cock -if you won't send for that drop of jacky out of your own pocket, will you lend me half a dollar to get it myself-yuck? I'll give it you back again when the reversion's shold. Oh, honor bright!-yuck!-honor bright, friend!”

"If it was for food, Adam, you should have it and welcome," was the plain answer.

"Food be cursed!" shouted the madman, again roused to a fury; "there's that bit of stinking salt fish I've had for the last week as a relish, just to pick a bit; there, you can carry it home with you-you can, you Methodistical old hunks; take it with you;" and, with a violent effort, the man flung the piece of dried haddock toward Uncle Benjamin; but so wide of the mark, and with such a sweep of the arm, that it struck the wall against which the drunkard himself kept swaying. Whereupon the godfather, in obedience to the boy's repeated entreaty, took his departure.

RATIONAL ANIMAL No. 3.

The couple were soon in one of the most fash

ute little Ben stood in the middle of a grand saloon, wheeling round and round as he gazed with uplifted eyes, first at the huge mirrors reaching from the ceiling to the floor, then at the pictures that covered the other parts of the walls, and then taken with the marble busts and figures that were ranged in different corners of the room. "The chairs are all gold and satin, I declare; and the tables and cabinets of different-colored woods, worked into the most beautiful patterns; and the chandeliers, too, just like clusters of jewels," thought the astonished lad to himself.

"Who are we going to see here, uncle?" he said, in a whisper to the old man, as he twitched his uncle timidly by the skirt.

Presently the door of an anteroom was flung open, and a voice drawled out, "Kem in, Franklin, kem in; I don't mind you. I've only got my knight of the goose and kebbage here, and you would hardly believe the trouble I have with these varlets: half my time is taken up with them, I give you my wad, Franklin, and that merely to prevent them turning me out aw-aw-perfect skeyarecrow. A man of your fine kimmon sense knows as well as any body, Franklin, that appearance is every thing to a man who-aw-aw, the wald is keyind enough to regeyard as aw-awan arbiter elegeyantiarum, I believe I may say, Franklin, eh? for, thank the powers, the coarsestminded inimy I have in the wald couldn't say that Tam Skeffington isn't, and always has been, the best-dressed man in all Boston. I know well enough, Franklin, that with persons of your persuasion (by-the-by, can I offer you a kip of chocolate, or a gless of Tokay? oh, don't say No), with persons of your persuasion dress is utterly ignored-ut-ttarly. But, deah me! with a man in my station-looked up to, as I said befar, as

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being something like aw-aw-an arbiter elegeyantiarum in matters of the tilette-only think, now, the kimmotion there'd be among the superiah clesses of this city if Tam Skeffington was to make his appearance in the streets-you'll pardon me, Friend Franklin, I know you will-in a coat like your own, for exemple!" and the arbiter elegantiarum was so tickled with the mere straw of the joke that he dabbed the patches on his face with a handkerchief that was like a handful of foam, as he tittered behind it as softly as summer waves ripple over the sands.

Presently he gasped out, between the intervals of his simpering, "By-the-by, now, Franklin, do permit me, there's a good fellah, just to behold myself for one minute in that duffle dressing-gown you've kem out in to-day, and to see how you'd look in this new plum-colored piece of magnificence of mine. I'm sure you'll obleege me, Franklin, for I give you my wad the double sight would throw me into an ecstasy of reptchah.

The motive of Uncle Benjamin for bringing his godson to the house was too strong to make him object to an exchange of costume that, under any other circumstances, he would assuredly have refused; so, to the intense delight of the fine gentleman, and even the attendant tailor, the old Puritan proceeded to disrobe himself of his own coat of humble gray, and to incase his body in the gaudy velvet apparel of the beau.

And when the temporary exchange of garments had been duly effected, and the elegant Mr. Tam Skeffington beheld himself in the cheval glass attired in the quaint garb of the Puritan, and old Benjamin Franklin tricked out in the florid costume of the exquisite, the sight was more than the delicate nerves of the dandy could bear; for he had to retire to the sofa, and bury his head for