blue ribbon have been given to another. What a hard time his servants
have that day. How loudly he roars at them, how willingly would he
kick them! Little recks he that forenoon of his magnificent castle
and his ancestral woods. It may here be mentioned that a very
pleasing opportunity is afforded to malignant people for mortifying
a clever, ambitious man, when any office is vacant to which it is
known he aspires. A judge of the Queen's Bench has died: you, Mr.
Verjuice, know how Mr. Swetter, Q. C., has been rising at the bar;
you know how well he deserves the ermine. Well, walk down to his
chambers; go in and sit down; never mind how busy he is--your time
is of no value--and talk of many different men as extremely suitable
for the vacant seat on the bench, but never in the remotest manner
hint at the claims of Swetter himself. I have often seen the like
done. And you, Mr. Verjuice, may conclude almost with certainty that
in doing all this you are vexing and mortifying a deserving man.
And such a consideration will no doubt be compensation sufficient
to your amiable nature for the fact that every generous muscular
Christian would like to take you by the neck, and swing your sneaking
carcase out of the window.

Even a slight disappointment, speedily to be repaired, has in it
something that jars painfully the mechanism of the mind. You go to
the train, expecting a friend, certainly. He does not come. Now this
worries you, even though you receive at the station a telegraphic
message that he will be by the train which follows in two hours.
Your magazine fails to come by post on the last day of the month;
you have a dull, vague sense of something wanting for an hour or
two, even though you are sure that you will have it next morning.
And indeed a very krge share of the disappointments of civilized
life are associated with the post-office. I do not suppose the