_me!_--
'Cause ef my good ole Aunty ever would git sick an' die,
I don't know what she'd do in Heaven--till _I_ come, by an' by:--
Far she's so ust to all my ways, an' ever'thing, you know,
An' no one there like me, to nurse, an' worry over so!--
'Cause all the little childerns there's so straight an' strong an'
fine,
They's nary angel 'bout the place with 'Curv'ture of the Spine!'"

The old Professor's face was in his handkerchief; so was my friend's
in his; and so was mine in mine, as even now my pen drops and I reach
for it again.

I half regret joining the mad party that had gathered an hour later in
the old law-office where these two graceless characters held almost
nightly revel, the instigators and conniving hosts of a reputed
banquet whose _menu's_ range confined itself to herrings, or "blind
robins," dried beef, and cheese, with crackers, gingerbread, and
sometimes pie; the whole washed down with anything but

"----Wines that heaven knows when
Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun,
And kept it through a hundred years of gloom
Still glowing in a heart of ruby."

But the affair was memorable. The old Professor was himself lured into
it, and loudest in his praise of Hedrick's realistic art; and I yet
recall him at the orgie's height, excitedly repulsing the continued
slurs and insinuations of the clammy-handed Sweeney, who, still
contending against the old man's fulsome praise of his more fortunate