"Well, sir," was the frank answer, "I can't deny that there are points
about you to make a plain man like myself thoughtful. There's that about
your hair, sir, with the middle-parting on top and the side-parting
behind, to give a plain person the impression that your brain must be
slightly turned, and that, by rights, your face ought to be where your
neck is. Neither can I deny, sir, that the curling of your whiskers the
wrong way, and their peculiarity in remaining entirely still while your
mouth is going, are circumstances calculated to excite the liveliest
apprehensions of those who wish you well."

"The peculiarities you notice," returned the gentleman, "may either
exist solely in your own imagination, or they may be the result of my
own ill-health. My name is TRACEY CLEWS, and I desire to spend a few
weeks in the country for physical recuperation. Have you any idea where
a dead-beat,[1] like myself, could find inexpensive lodgings in
Bumsteadville?"

The host hastily remarked, that his own bill for those pork and beans
was fifty cents; and upon being paid, coldly added that a Mrs. SMYTHE,
wife of the sexton of Saint Cow's Ritualistic Church, took hash-eaters
for the summer. As the gentleman preferred a high-church private
boarding-house to an unsectarian first class hotel, all he had to do was
to go out on the road again, and keep inquiring until he found the
place.

Donning his Panama hat, and carrying a stout cane, Mr. CLEWS was quickly
upon the turnpike; and, his course taking him near the pauper
burial-ground, he presently perceived an extremely disagreeable child
throwing stones at pigeons in a field, and generally hitting the