use to him, I dare say, poor man, than all the rest put together--the AEs
of the Romans,--that is, the God of Copper-money--a very powerful
household god he is to this day!"

My mother looked musingly at her frock, as if she were taking my father's
proposition into serious consideration.

"So perhaps," resumed my father, "and not unconformably with sacred
records, from one great parent horde came all those various tribes,
carrying with them the name of their beloved Asia; and whether they
wandered north, south, or west, exalting their own emphatic designation
of 'Children of the Land of Light' into the title of gods. And to think"
(added Mr. Caxton pathetically, gazing upon that speck on the globe on
which his forefinger rested),--"to think how little they changed for the
better when they got to the Don, or entangled their rafts amidst the
icebergs of the Baltic,--so comfortably off as they were here, if they
could but have stayed quiet."

"And why the deuce could not they?" asked Mr. Squills. "Pressure of
population, and not enough to live upon, I suppose," said my father.

PISISTRATUS (sulkily).--"More probably they did away with the Corn Laws,
sir."

"/Papae!/" quoth my father, "that throws a new light on the subject."

PISISTRATUS (full of his grievances, and not caring three straws about
the origin of the Scandinavians).--"I know that if we are to lose L500
every year on a farm which we hold rent-free, and which the best judges
allow to be a perfect model for the whole country, we had better make