cats four-legged animals? I appeal to the Court's own sense of justice and physical fitness.

"He talks like a book, brother Peter."

"Then here," holding up the fox I had shot, and who was my junior counsel on the argument,-" has not this fox four legs?"

"An't one of them fore legs shot off?" asked Judge Peter, dubitans.

No, your Honor, it is only a little crippled. Now we all know, and there needs no argument to prove, that a dog runs on four feet; and so a cat is like a fox, and a dog is like a fox, and things that are equal to the same are equal to one another; and so a cat is a dog, and a dog is a cat; and so, your Honors, I trust I have established my defence, and that I have not misused words, and that Mr. Locus must pay for the champagne."

"Them's my sentiments, brother Venus. Things what's like is sartenly like, and them what's the same must be the same, nor they can't be no otherwise, as I can fix it.”

"I coincide with the last speaker," pronounced Venus. "Peter, who is chief Justice ?"

"I am.

No; you be. Go ahead. Stick it on." "Respected fellow-citizens, and criminals in general; the judgment o' this expiscious court is that the fines agin Mr. Locus, already expounded, stands good, and he pays the champagne. As for th' rest o' th' company,—extracten the judges, who is not liable to human frailty,-they'll pay a small glass to each o' the judges a piece when they get 'shore, on 'count not making disturbance, so as to give the Court a chance to show the magnitude o' its justice and the power thereof; and the defendant will stand over 'till the next meeten o' th' court. Zoph, be crier. Crier, 'journ the court."

THE islands came in sight again, and ho! land! and Raynor Rock!

Glad enough was I to hear our bow grind the sand near Raynor's hut, on the evening succeeding our court's last night's entertainments. Ned Locus had come in, and Peter Probasco was smoking his usual short pipe, and the boys had some fresh fish and "things accorden." Zoph and I had had a hard pull, and we were bay-salted and shivering, but not so tired as to prevent us from bringing up a good bunch of brant. -More of them, and a few of the black ducks, and sheldrakes, and that goose, anon.

"That's a lie, mister, that story you told t'other night. Have my doubts it's all a lie. I've said it.”—Such was Peter's judgment." Mr. Locus, you dreamt that sometime or other."

"Stick it out, Ned," said I," why the fellow is trying to get angry!" and Ned actually had worked himself into such a state of feeling, that between the excitement of the story, and the soft impeachment of its veracity, and his liquor going down. the wrong way, his face was suffused, and seven or eight

globules of eye-water ran a race for the goal of his pea-jacket upper button.

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My friend," he at last rejoined, "you're mighty civil. Quite complimen.ary, forsooth. Do you suppose that I could undertake to coin a story so minute, and particular, and specific-so coherent and consistent in all its parts, so supported by internal and circumstantial evidence-"

"So ingeniously stolen from Ovid," interrupted I. "Et tu brute,' Cypress !"

"I've

"I make no doubt it's all true, mostly," said Daniel. been by the bridge and seen the place where Mr. Locus sot, when he come out."

"Well, gentlemen, what's the unbelievable part of the story? You don't deny the brook, or doubt its being inhabited by mermaids, do you? Then why shouldn't I be as likely as any body to see one ?"

"Festina lente," cried I.

"Not so fast, I pray thee," said the quiet Oliver. "I admit the brook, but I deny thy eyesight. Thy water-nymph lived but in thy brain, she is the offspring of thy dreams only -none but pagan priests and poets, and dreamy boys, and quaker sea-captains, have seen the creature of fancy, called a mermaid."

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Why, Oliver! you infidel! Do you deny the Oceanides, the Nereides and Naiades, the Limnades and Potamides-" "No such families in the island, d- -d if there is," cried Peter.

"Have you never heard of Galatea and Amphitrite, Melita, and Leucothoe, and Thetis, Calypso, and glorious Arethusa-?"

Peter." Never heerd of such people before."

Oliver." Vile incarnations-the false deities of the old

་་

heathen poets. Too much antiquity hath made thee mad, Ned, or rather, too much deviltry hath made thee a quiz." "He don't quiz me," said Daniel, with a compression of his lips that said I know too much." "I don't know 'bout carnations and deities, or old poets, and I reckon I don't believe iniquity ever made Mr. Ned Locus mad, but what I know I know. Sam Biles is my wife's cousin's aunt's sister's brotherin-law, and he's been a sealer. Sam knows. Seals is nothen but nigger mermaids, as Silas said last night, or night afore. Sam told me he see 'em often together, and the mermaids licked 'em and kicked 'em 'bout jist as they was amind to. They caught one one day, but she played the devil among the sailors, and the captain chucked her overboard.-Shaa! why Jim Smith see a mermaid once down to Gilgoa inlet, riden a sea-horse-don't you b'lieve it—ask Jim."

"Ah! Daniel, Daniel," said Ned, "they're a set of unbelievers-don't try to persuade them."

"Shut up. Shut up, boys. Change the subject. Here; will you smoke?" said Raynor, producing some short stub pipes, and an old segar box stuffed with tobacco.

It has always been our rule that "when we are at Rome, we must do as the Romans do." So, it is to be recorded, that we committed, or rather submitted to, that sin. We smoked. Puff. "What luck on the whole"-puff-"boys"-puffpuff" this fall?"-puff-puff-puff-; and so on. We will not smoke thee, reader. We got fairly into conversation, now, and different speakers sustained the dialogue, half a dozen speaking at once, sometimes, so that I cannot put down a tithe of what was said.

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Middlen, sir, middlen. We've got some. We come 'cross a good school of drums this afternoon. How is times down to York?"

"O, so so. fighting, as usual, about politics, like fools, and

There's nothing new or strange.

People are calling each

other names, which, if rightly applied, ought to be ropes to hang them. Is the bass fishing good, this season?"

"Moderate, moderate. How does the old general stand his hand ?"

Bravely, bravely. They've tried to make him out a ty rant, usurper, cut-throat, fool, and every thing else that is stupid, and base; but 'it's no use.' Do you kill many coot?" "Coots is scace. I see a smart bunch, jest at sundown, into Poor-man's harbor. Do you think the Jackson men will get it next 'lection?"

up

"No doubt; no doubt; not the least doubt. The farmers of the north, and west, are men of sense and spirit, and there's no mistake about the farmers of Queens, and Suffolk, as you yourself well know. But they are doing their d-dest in New-York. They are trying to buy the Irish, and have made such golden overtures to our leading paper as will require uncommon virtue to resist. You must remember to go and vote, boys, for the old man. Every vote counts. He's the hero of New-Orleans, you know-protector of beauty and booty-can you ever forget the time when—”

"You don't catch me voten, I reckon," interrupted long John, bending his crane-like neck, so as to bring his head at right angles with his body. "I never voted but onest, and that was last fall, and I reckon I did a smart deal o' harm then. Mr. Locus fetched me up. It rained a little, and he ris an umberell over my head, as we sot in the wagon, and I an't got over that, neither. Now I expect that umberell must have given me a kind o' chill, or somethen, for I an't been right ever sence."

"It wa'n't the umberell," cried out one of the group; "it