The Fiends Delight | Page 9

story came down to my level, I observed in one of the front rooms
a young and lovely female in white, standing at a door trying to get out.
She couldn't, for the door was locked-I saw her through the key-hole.
With a single blow of my heel I opened that door, and opened my arms
at the same time.
"Thank God," cried I, "I have arrived in time. Come to these arms."
The lady in white stopped, drew out an eye-glass, placed it carefully
upon her nose, and taking an inventory of me from head to foot,
replied:
"No thank you; I prefer to come to grief in the regular way."
While the pleasing tones of her voice were still ringing in my ears I
noticed a puff of smoke rising from near my left toe. It came from the
chimney of that house. Johnny.

Johnny is a little four-year-old, of bright, pleasant manners, and
remarkable for intelligence. The other evening his mother took him
upon her lap, and after stroking his curly head awhile, asked him if he
knew who made him. I grieve to state that instead of answering "Dod,"
as might have been expected, Johnny commenced cramming his face
full of ginger-bread, and finally took a fit of coughing that threatened
the dissolution of his frame. Having unloaded his throat and whacked
him on the back, his mother propounded the following supplementary
conundrum:
"Johnny, are you not aware that at your age every little boy is expected
to say something brilliant in reply to my former question? How can you
so dishonour your parents as to neglect this golden opportunity? Think
again."
The little urchin cast his eyes upon the floor and meditated a long time.
Suddenly he raised his face and began to move his lips. There is no
knowing what he might have said, but at that moment his mother noted
the pressing necessity of wringing and mopping his nose, which she
performed with such painful and conscientious singleness of purpose
that Johnny set up a war-whoop like that of a night-blooming tomcat.
It may be objected that this little tale is neither instructive nor amusing.
I have never seen any stories of bright children that were. The Child's
Provider.
Mr. Goboffle had a small child, no wife, a large dog, and a house. As
he was unable to afford the expense of a nurse, he was accustomed to
leave the child in the care of the dog, who was much attached to it,
while absent at a distant restaurant for his meals, taking the precaution
to lock them up together to prevent kidnapping. One day, while at his
dinner, he crowded a large, hard-boiled potato down his neck, and it
conducted him into eternity. His clay was taken to the Coroner's, and
the great world went on, marrying and giving in marriage, lying,
cheating, and praying, as if he had never existed.
Meantime the dog had, after several days of neglect, forced an egress
through a window, and a neighbouring baker received a call from him

daily. Walking gravely in, he would deposit a piece of silver, and
receiving a roll and his change would march off homeward. As this was
a rather unusual proceeding in a cur of his species, the baker one day
followed him, and as the dog leaped joyously into the window of the
deserted house, the man of dough approached and looked in. What was
his surprise to see the dog deposit his bread calmly upon the floor and
fall to tenderly licking the face of a beautiful child!
It is but fair to explain that there was nothing but the face remaining.
But this dog did so love the child! Boys who Began Wrong.
Two little California boys were arrested at Reno for horse thieving.
They had started from Surprise Valley with a cavalcade of thirty
animals, and disposed of them leisurely along their line of march, until
they were picked up at Reno, as above explained. I don't feel quite easy
about those youths-away out there in Nevada without their Testaments!
Where there are no Sunday School books boys are so apt to swear and
chew tobacco and rob sluice-boxes; and once a boy begins to do that
last he might as well sell out; he's bound to end by doing something bad!
I knew a boy once who began by robbing sluice-boxes, and he went
right on from bad to worse, until the last I heard of him he was in the
State Legislature, elected by Democratic votes. You never saw anybody
take on as his poor old mother did when she heard about it.
"Hank," said she to the boy's father, who was forging a bank note in the
chimney corner, "this all comes o' not