the counter, bargaining for a yard of tape or a paper of pins. To catch
him in his idlest mood, you must visit the office of some young lawyer.
Still, however, Time does contrive to do a little business among us, and
should not be denied the credit of it. During the past season, he has
worked pretty diligently upon the railroad, and promises to start the
cars by the middle of next summer. Then we may fly from Essex Street to
State Street, and be back again before Time misses us. In conjunction
with our worthy mayor (with whose ancestor, the Lord Mayor of London,
Time was well acquainted more than two hundred years ago) he has laid
the corner-stone of a new city hall, the granite front of which is
already an ornament to Court Street. But besides these public affairs,
Time busies himself a good deal in private. Just at this season of the
year, he is engaged in collecting bills, and may be seen at almost any
hour peregrinating from street to street, and knocking at half the doors
in town, with a great bundle of these infernal documents. On such
errands he appears in the likeness of an undersized, portly old
gentleman, with gray hair, a bluff red face, and a loud tone of voice;
and many people mistake him for the penny-post.

Never does a marriage take place, but Time is present among the wedding-
guests; for marriage is an affair in which Time takes more interest than
in almost any other. He generally gives away the bride, and leads the
bridegroom by the hand to the threshold of the bridal chamber. Although
Time pretends to be very merry on these occasions, yet, if you watch him
well, you may often detect a sigh. Whenever a babe is born into this
weary world, Time is in attendance, and receives the wailing infant in
his arms. Arid the poor babe shudders instinctively at his embrace, and
sets up a feeble cry.

Then again, from the birth-chamber, he must hurry to the bedside of some