the world for a New York lady to return the slightest acknowledgement
for a seat tendered to her. She takes the seat as if it were her right,
_and gives the gentleman a withering look for his impertinence in being
in it when she entered_."

PUNCHINELLO has been more fortunate. He has been crowded by sitters, and
punched with umbrellas; his eloquent nose has been offended by filthy
straw, full often, in his Avenue travel, until he hopes fervently that
we may have a new method of getting up and down town; it isn't pleasant
to be _knocked_ down; but he has never yet been _withered_.

Oh, no. He does not require a lady to genuflect before him to show her
appreciation of a gentlemanly act. Mr. PUNCHINELLO, being a gentleman of
the old school, and of several colleges and universities, is quite
satisfied by a nod and a smile, or "Thank you." And one or the other he
is pretty certain to receive. He never encounters the withering look
which madam gives to other men to mad 'em. But alas for "our own"
unlucky correspondent!

PUNCHINELLO has often had occasion to confer with the gentlemen who
"blow messages on the hollow wire," as they say out at Fort
Laramie,--but he disclaims ever having been looked upon as a
pick-pocket. Behold his smiling face and say if any telegraph operator
could be so slow as to believe him a fingerer of other men's fobs.

* * * * *

COMMERCIAL CON.

Why does the Ocean Commerce of America remind one of the railings of a