The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1877-01-05
JOHN AUSTIN,S CHRISTMAS.

The advertisement read as follows:
WANTED-A shipping clerk, to receive
freight and load vessels references required.
Apply between 10 and IL at -.
The man who cut this from a news
paper on the morning of the oath of
December was an idiot at the age of so
to have said i: "There are no Brothers
Cheerybles nowadays. The very last of
those good souls died wher was boy.
AS to the Cheeryble fortune, what was
left of it--very little, in fact, for the
brothers were not thrifty-went to dis
tapt relatives who are reported to me to
have been of a singularly miserly and
uncharitable disposition. Wanted O.
shipping clerk" Here John Austin put
the scrap of paper into a lank wallet,
and tried quite decidedly to prevent it
from blooming and Towering there.
Somehow or other every advertisement
he had put in his pocket--and they had
been innumerable = regularly passed
through some horticultural forcing pro-
cess before they shriveled up and went
into impalpable fragments. "Like air
plants, the man added, drawing their
nourishment from nothing in particular,
and blossoming quite in vacuo."
Though John had decided tendency
toward gushing, even allowing that It
was simply internal, it nevertheless was
to De deprecated. A good deal of mis-
cry and trouble had hardened the man
externally. Like water in the rock, his
fancies trickled feebly inside of him, in
o decidedly useless kind of way, but
were fortunately 80 unobtrusive as
scarcely to be ever visible. Very posi-
bly, had some utilitarian hydraulic NOR
alist bored into John Austin, and laid
on the pipes and mains, with the most
laudable desire of benefting parched
and thirsty public, it would all have re-
suited in most miserable failure.
GA shipping clerk I" the man said as
he took from off the shelf fragment of
bread. GA windy berth on the wharves
and what under the heavens do 1 know
about it What do know, is that my
crust here is old, hard, and stale, and
not in large quantity, and that 1 have
precisely % cents left, or three Scent
loaves of bread, just sufficient to carry
me over until Monday next; three
whole days, when, if l do not earn O
dollar, this room of mine will have to be
vacated. If snow would only fall, 1
might pick up some trifle that way by
shoveling it off the sidewalks. In fact,
/ may be at this moment Just skirmish-
ing with that terrible wolf, starvation.
His lone howl may be supposed to be
reverberating in my ears, and ought
not to be eating this bit of bread with
singular zest and appetite, but should
shed tears over it, ouly that Jat 80 the
lachrymal ducts, if not dried up, are
supposed to be frozen over. A shipping
clerk Probability of chances against
me, $4,000 to one. Nothing in the
least prepossessing about me-neither
mirth, sprightliness, nor good looks.
But yet," here John Austin picked a
crumb from off his sleeve, "there was
once young man, it was in Venice,
who unloaded ship coming from Crete
or Gambia, and out of coarse package
of cast-off clothing there tumbled a
round, white pearl, which flashed dainty
sphere of lustrous opalescence in the
gutter. 1t was within an ace of falling
plump into the canal. That evening,
when the galleon was unloaded, the
young man carried the pearl to his mas
ter, who, of course, embraced his ship
ping clerk for JOY. That old bale OF
goods, it seemed, by some strange luck
contained treasures which had belonged
to the commander of the Dardanelles,
Moldovangi Bassa by name, who, OF
course, under the circumstances, was an
accredited foe of the republic, and his
goods and chattels were, therefore, con
fiscable as lawful prizes. do not think
the Council of Ten or the DoQe were
particularly informed about it. When
the package was opened, riches untold
we're discovered, untarnisned gems blaz-
ing amid mass of filthy rags. Zone