CARLOTTY PATTI sing; he may have hearn OLE BULL fiddle, and
all the DODWORTHS toot, an' yet he don't know nothin' about
music--the real, ginuine thing--the music of the laughter of
happy, well-fed children! And you may ax the father of sich
children home to dinner, feelin werry sure there'll be no
spoons missin' when he goes away. Sich fathers never drop tin
five-cent pieces into the contribution box, nor palm shoe-pegs
off onto blind hosses for oats, nor skedaddle to British sile
when their country's in danger--nor do anything which is
really mean. I don't mean to intimate that the old bachelor
is up to little games of this sort--not at all--but I repeat,
he's a poor critter. He don't live here; only stays. He
ought to 'pologize on behalf of his parients, for bein' here
at all. The happy marrid man dies in good stile at home,
surrounded by his weeping wife and children. The old bachelor
don't die at all--he sort of rots away, like a pollywog's
tail.
. . . .

My townsmen were sort o' demoralized. There was a evident
desine to ewade the Draft, as I obsarved with sorrer, and
patritism was below Par--and MAR, too. [A jew desprit.] I
hadn't no sooner sot down on the piazzy of the tavoun than I
saw sixteen solitary hossmen, ridin' four abreast, wendin'
their way up the street.

"What's them? Is it cavilry?"

"That," said the landlord, "is the stage. Sixteen able-bodied
citizens has literally bo't the stage line 'tween here and