Year: 1878




lt that 1t might be a


convenience to some of


readers to revive the story as
narrated by Dickens. We summa-
rizs 1t wholly from memory, and
our brief sketch will doubtless
prove faulty in some respects, but
the thread of the romance runs
about as follows:


CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.


1t was mostly gotten up by the
coal scuttle, though the andlrons
were suspected of having 'and in
1t, and the tea-kettle, with its long
nose and its well-known propensity
for putting people into hot water
Tor putting hot water into people,
which Is much the same.) was not
above suspicion. You see, q crick-
ct had taken lodgings in the
hearth, being desirous of securing
a strictly semi-tropic climate, and
he amused himself during his odd
moments by executing snatches of
melody with his hind legs. The
scuttle, which had no ear for music,
and besides, was suffering from
q stomach overloaded with bitumi-
nous coal intimated that the crick-
cts music was so much like bore
that he was willing to hold up his
bale and swear that he could not
tell the difference between the two.
This, taken in connection with the
fact that only a few
minutes previously the ket-
tie had thrown out an
ill-natured intimation that
the pot was black, precipitated a
general family disturbance which
made it very sultry for the andi-
rons. The kettle, by this time,
grown little lunatic about the lid,
perpetrated this piece of doggerel:
It's q weary world we live in, little
satisfaction givln, He'll is gone and
SO is heaven; everything's at six
and seven; and those Goals below,
dod rot'em, warming up my copper
bottom, and [ feel the steam ris-
ing, which, perhaps is not surpris-
ing, so 1 guess pll have to go flying
up the chimney, o!


At this point the Cricket sawed
off another tune with his fiddle
stick leg by way of an interlude.


And this brings US to the intro
duction of Mr.. and Mrs. Peerybin-
gle, the hero and heroine of this ro-
nance. The gentleman in question
was about seven feet two in
height, and had a contract from
Government for carrying the mails.
He and his wife were pretty
good deal as most young couples
do. They had, beside, baby
two months and three days
old, which had been vaccinated
shortly before the event of which
we write. One day Peerybingle
drove home with his omnibus, hav-
ing only one passenger aboard.
Peery bingle left the passenger out
side in the cold while he went into
the house and hugged his (Peery-
bingle's) wife and talked nonsense.
By-and-by he invited the stranger
in and the stranger proved to be a
little deaf in his right ear.


Gruf and Tackleton was man
% mean that one name would not
begin te express all his meanness
and he consequently had two. A
great many men since his day have
found it convenient to have two
or three, or five or six names,
but no two at the same time. Gruff
and Tackleton was in love with an
estimable young lady named May
Fielding, whom he hoped and con-
fidently expected to make Mrs.
Gruff and Tackleton, and he had
ordered a great cake by Peerybin-
gle, the bus driver, to comm emo
rate the event. The cake and the
semi-deaf stranger came in on the
same stage, which is circum-
stance that the shrewd reader will
make note of for future reference.


May Fielding was not particular
ly anxious to marry old Gruff and
TackletoD, but she thought he
would do for second best, her
other lover having gone off
some years previously to the
Sandwich Islands and not
since reported. Having given up
her former beau for good, suppos-
ing him to have died or married q
half-nude Kanaka, Miss Fielding
concluded that Gruff and Tackle.
ton would be better than no hus-
band and hence her consent to take
hand at the nuptials.


Before the day appointed for the
Interesting event to take place,
Gruff and Tackleton, who, like
most mean people, always kept
his weather eye open, discovered
that the semi-deaf stranger who
had arrived in company with the
Wedding cake, was something of an
iinposition-probably sewing
machine agent ora spiritualist ex.
poser in disguise and he
called Peerybingle's attention
to this fact. The two put up little
job on the ancient stranger and
watched him one evening in his
perambulations about the prem
ises. What did they discover
The old stranger transformed into
young stranger with two as
sound ears as ever grew
on mans head, ar
rayed in all the fiamboyant
upholstery of a young
lover, and walking arm in
arm with Mrs. Peerybingle At
this point in the narrative the iip
is up, and, if Peerybingle had been |
like most men he would have rared |
around and cussed and carried on
and shot somebody and spoiled the
story. He just sat up all night |
however, and, in the course of his
meditations, concluded to pack up
his trunk and leave.


BY some hocus- -pocus he was pre-
vented from doing this rash act.
until after the wedding of Gruff
and Tackleton to his inamorata
should have taken place. In that
hrfaf intaryal tho uhoIo ,,..-1