II. 



THE "DEVIL-ON-T/mE'.E'-STICKS." 



THERE is an old saying that "Fools build Houses for 

 wise men to live in" a proverb which, whether 

 applicable or not to Farms as well as Houses, prob- 

 ably receives about as fair an average of direct 

 verification in the course of each man's individual 

 experience, as any other of those mysterious morsels 

 of traditional truth which are handed down from 

 each generation to its successor, like faery money, 

 Gold in the giver's, Dust in the receiver's hand. 

 The young experimentalist in Brick-and-mortar, with 

 a shake of the head not unworthy of the Elizabethan 

 statesman, (whose posthumous fome has owed so 

 much to that outward symptom of plethoric wisdom,) 

 admits the general and antecedent truth of the 

 motto which might be scrolled up over so many a 

 splendid doorway ; he does not doubt or deny it, 

 not he ! It is not to disprove its general, but to parry 



