CAUSES OF SUCCESS. 2$ 



and as I carried away a glorious bouquet of Roses, 

 with their " best respects to the Missus," I felt 

 ashamed to think how little I had done, and how 

 much more such men would do, with my larger 

 leisure and more abundant means. But when I 

 reached the station and entered my carriage, I was 

 roused from my reverie by a loud and prolonged 

 *' Oh !" wdiich greeted me from five of my ac- 

 quaintances, as though I had been an asteroid 

 rocket, which had just burst, and the Roses were 

 my coruscant stars : and I was beginning to regain 

 my self-complacency, and to find solace in the re- 

 mark of one of my neighbors, who, I knew, had 

 glass by the acre and gardeners in troops, that 

 '' they w^ere the first Roses he had seen this 

 year," when I was again discomfited by the inso- 

 lent behavior of the company — on this wise. To 

 an inquiry from what garden the Roses came, I 

 responded, in all truthfulness : '' Chiefly from a 

 bricklayer's." Whereupon an expressive sneer of 

 unbelief disfigured each stolid countenance ; and 

 a solemn silence ensued, which said, nevertheless, 

 as plainly as though it were shouted : " We don't 

 see any wit in lies." I collapsed at once into my 

 corner, sulking behind my big bouquet, and look- 

 ing, I fear, very like the Beast when he first 

 showed himself among the Roses to Beauty ; nor 



