ooo-ooo-sp't! "I leave for New York again to-morrow; but shall be off
and on again in Bumsteadville until midsummer, when I go to Egypt,
Illinois, to be an engineer on a railroad. The stamps left me by my
father are all in the stock of that road, and the Mr. BUMSTEAD whom you
saw to-night is my uncle and guardian."

"Mr. SIMPSON informs me that you are destined to assume the expenses of
Miss POTTS, when you're old enough," remarks MONTGOMERY, his eyes
shining quite greenly in the moonlight.

"Well, perhaps you'd like to make something out of it," says EDWIN,
whose orbs have assumed a yellowish glitter. "Perhaps you Southern
Confederacies didn't get quite enough of it at Gettysburgh and Five
Forks."

"We had the exquisite pleasure of killing a few thousand Yankee
free-lovers," intimates MONTGOMERY, with a hollow laugh.

"Ah, yes, I remember--at Andersonville," suggests EDWIN DROOD, beginning
to roll back his sleeves.

"This is your magnanimity to the conquered, is it!" exclaims MONTGOMERY,
scornfully. "I don't pretend to have your advantages, Mr. DROOD, and
I've scarcely had any more education than an American Humorist; but
where I come from, if a carpet-bagger should talk as you do, the cost of
his funeral would be but a trifle."

"I can prepare you, at shortest notice, for something very neat and
tasteful in the silver-trimmed rosewood line, with plated handles,
dark-complexioned Ku-klux," returns Mr. DROOD, preparing to pull off his