men, talking about balls and theatres, and afternoon rides, and midnight
merry-makings; he recommends such and such a fashionable tailor, and
sneers at every garment of six months' antiquity; and, generally, before
parting, he invites his friends to drink champagne,--a wine in which
Time delights, on account of its rapid effervescence. And Time treads
lightly beside the fair girls, whispering to them (the old deceiver!)
that they are the sweetest angels he ever was acquainted with. He tells
them that they have nothing to do but dance and sing, and twine roses in
their hair, and gather a train of lovers, and that the world will always
be like an illuminated ball-room. And Time goes to the Commercial News-
Room, and visits the insurance-offices, and stands at the corner of
Essex and St. Peter's Streets, talking with the merchants.

However, Time seldom has occasion to mention the gentleman's name, so
that it is no great matter how he spells or pronounces it about the
arrival of ships, the rise and fall of stocks, the price of cotton and
breadstuffs, the prospects of the whaling-business, and the cod-fishery,
and all other news of the day. And the young gentlemen, and the pretty
girls, and the merchants, and all others with whom he makes
acquaintance, are apt to think that there is nobody like Time,
and that Time is all in all.

But Time is not near so good a fellow as they take him for. He is
continually on the watch for mischief, and often seizes a sly
opportunity to lay his cane over the shoulders of some middle-aged
gentleman; and lo and behold! the poor man's back is bent, his hair
turns gray, and his face looks like a shrivelled apple. This is what is
meant by being "time-stricken." It is the worst feature in Time's
character, that he always inflicts the greatest injuries on his oldest
friends. Yet, shamefully as he treats them, they evince no desire to