coat.

"Who would have believed," soliloquizes MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON, "that even
a scalawag Northern spoon-thief, like our scurrilous contemporary, would
get so mad at being reminded that he must be married some day!"

"Whoever says that I'm mad," is the answer, "lies deliberately wilfully,
wickedly, with naked intent to defame and malign."

But here a heavy hand suddenly smites EDWIN in the back, almost snapping
his head off, and there stands spectrally between them Mr. BUMSTEAD, who
has but recently found his way out of the back-yard in Gospeler's Gulch,
by removing at least two yards of picket fence from the wrong place, and
wears upon his head a gingham sun-bonnet, which, in his hurried
departure through the hall of the Gospeler's house, he has mistaken for
his own hat. Sustaining himself against the fierce evening breeze by
holding firmly to both shoulders of his nephew, this striking apparition
regards the two young men with as much austerity as is consistent with
the flapping of the cape of his sun-bonnet.

"Gentlelemons," he says, with painful syllabic distinctness, "can I
believe my ears? Are you already making journalists of yourselves?"

They hang their heads in shame under the merciless but just accusation.
"Here you are," continues BUMSTEAD, "a quartette of young fellows who
should all be friends. NEDS, NEDS! I am ashamed of you! MONTGOMERIES,
you should not let your angry passions rise; for your little hands were
never made to bark and bite." After this, Mr. BUMSTEAD seems lost for a
moment, and reclines upon his nephew, with his eyes closed in
meditation. "But let's all five of us go up to my room," he finally