Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the
PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of
Congress at Washington.

* * * * *

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD.

AN ADAPTATION.

BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.

CHAPTER XX.

AN ESCAPE.

The bewildered Flowerpot had no sooner gained her own room, enjoyed her
agitated expression of face in the mirror, and tried four differently
colored ribbon-bows upon her collar in succession, than the thought of
becoming Mr. BUMSTEAD'S bride lost the charm of its first wild novelty,
and became utterly ridiculous. He was a man of commanding stature, which
his linen "duster" made appear still more long; the dark circles around
his eyes would disappear in time, and he had an abusive way of referring
to women which made him inexpressibly grand to women as a true
poet-soul; but would it be safe, would it be religiously right, for a
young girl, not yet conscious of her own full power of annual monetary
expenditure, to blindly risk her necessary expenses for life upon one
whom the cost of a single imported bonnet, in the contingency of a
General European War, might plunge into inextricable pecuniary