OO .TOCK's TiAKP:. 



Straying- into the one liiunhle hotel of the t<nvn I ex- 

 plored its domain. In the bar-room ^vere pictures on the 

 ^Vidl— faithful representations of l)attles of the Revolution, 

 the Rebellion and the next war,— masses of men stabbino- 

 and "jabbinii-" each oilier with l)ayonets, falling over from 

 tlie unpietured fire of invisible guns, and posing iu death 

 as naturally as if they received on the spot the services of 

 the most accomplished undertaker with ice-chest, embalm 

 ing process and chaplets of victory kept in stock for battle 

 subjects. There were also horse pictures— racehorses, 

 with legs thrust forth before and behind at angles suggest- 

 ing the circus gymnast, leaving the brave steed suspended 

 in mid air like Mahomet's coffin, but performing, by sug- 

 gestion, prodigies of motion which made one ache to 

 wager something on the result of the race,— until the 

 wonder grew, the longer one stared, that they didn't all 

 disappear from the picture, amid the hurrahs of the win- 

 ners of the contest. 



The parlor (for so the tin sign on the door declared it to 

 be) contained a melodeou. I sat down to it, tenderly 

 touched the keys and gently pressed the pedals. It was a 

 consumptive, asthmatic affair, and its vocal chords were iu 

 a state of chronic inflammation or else of partial paralysis. 

 It responded, however, in no far-gone invalid tones, and, 

 reassiu-ed, I proceeded to question the possibilities of the 

 thing— extorting patriotic sounds more terrible than an 

 army with breech-loaders, light-fantastic-toe sounds which 

 would have made "the Devil on two sticks" dance, 

 (whether Avith dismay, or with delight that a new tempta- 



