II. 



THE ' DEVIL-ON- TffKHE -STICKS.' 



THERE is an old saying that f Fools build Houses for 

 wise men to live in/ a proverb which, whether appli- 

 cable or not to Farms as well as Houses, probably 

 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 experimen- 

 talist in Brick-and-mortar, with a shake of the head 

 not unworthy of the Elizabethan statesman (whose 

 posthumous fame 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 door- way : he does not 

 doubt or deny it, not he ! it is not to disprove its 



