Hallico, ballico, we--wo--wack!"

--which he evidently intends as a kind of Hitalian; for, simultaneously,
he aims a stone at JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, grazes Mr. BUMSTEAD'S whiskers
instead, and in another instant a sound of breaking glass is heard in
the distance.

"Peace, young scorpion!" says Mr. BUMSTEAD, with a commanding gesture.
"JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, let me see you home. The road is too unsteady to-night
for an old man like you. Let me see you home, far as my house, at
least."

"Thank you, sir, I'd make better time alone. When you came up, sir, Old
Mortarity was meditating on this bone-farm," says Mr. MCLAUGHLIN,
pointing with a trowel, which he had drawn from his pocket, into the
pauper burial-ground. "He was thinking of the many laid here when the
Alms-House over yonder used to be open _as_ a Alms-House. I've patched
up all these graves, as well as them in the Ritual churchyard, and know
'em all, sir. Over there, Editor of Country Journal; next, Stockholder
in Erie; next, Gentleman who Undertook to be Guided in His Agriculture
by Mr. GREELEY'S 'What I Know about Farming;' next, Original Projector
of American Punch; next, Proprietor of Rural Newspaper; next, another
Projector of American Punch--indeed, all the rest of that row is
American _Punches_; next, Conductor of Rustic Daily; next, Manager of
Italian Opera; next, Stockholder in Morris and Essex; next, American
Novelist; next, Husband of Literary Woman; next, Pastor of Southern
Church; next, Conductor of Provincial Press.--I know 'em ALL sir," says
Old Mortarity, with exquisite pathos, "and if a flower could spring up
for every tear a friendless old man has dropped upon their neglected
graves, you couldn't see the wooden head-boards for the roses."