II. 



THE ' DEVIL-ON- THREE-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, pro- 

 bably receives about as fair an average of cErect 

 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, Crold 

 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 fame has owed so frmch 

 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 ! il is not 

 to disprove its general, but to parry its par 



application that he purposes : it is not to inv 



icular 

 lidate 



