but without the faintest notion of your way, the only clear idea you
have on the subject being that somewhere or other there is a stile

which has to be got over; and at the next turn you come upon four
stiles, all leading in different directions!

We had undergone this ordeal two or three times. We had tramped over
fields. We had waded through brooks and scrambled over hedges and

walls. We had had a row as to whose fault it was that we had first
lost our way. We had got thoroughlydisagreeable, footsore, and

weary. But throughout it all the hope of that duck kept us up. A
fairy-like vision, it floated before our tired eyes and drew us

onward. The thought of it was as a trumpet-call to the fainting. We
talked of it and cheered each other with our recollections of it.

"Come along," we said; "the duck will be spoiled."
We felt a strong temptation, at one point, to turn into a village inn

as we passed and have a cheese and a few loaves between us, but we
heroically restrained ourselves: we should enjoy the duck all the

better for being famished.
We fancied we smelled it when we go into the town and did the last

quarter of a mile in three minutes. We rushed upstairs, and washed
ourselves, and changed our clothes, and came down, and pulled our

chairs up to the table, and sat and rubbed our hands while the
landlady removed the covers, when I seized the knife and fork and

started to carve.
It seemed to want a lot of carving. I struggled with it for about

five minutes without making the slightest impression, and then Joe,
who had been eating potatoes, wanted to know if it wouldn't be better

for some one to do the job that understood carving. I took no notice
of his foolish remark, but attacked the bird again; and so vigorously

this time that the animal left the dish and took refuge in the fender.
We soon had it out of that, though, and I was prepared to make another

effort. But Joe was getting unpleasant. He said that if he had
thought we were to have a game of blind hockey with the dinner he

would have got a bit of bread and cheese outside.
I was too exhausted to argue. I laid down the knife and fork with

dignity and took a side seat and Joe went for the wretched creature.
He worked away in silence for awhile, and then he muttered "Damn the

duck" and took his coat off.
We did break the thing up at length with the aid of a chisel, but it

was perfectly impossible to eat it, and we had to make a dinner off
the vegetables and an apple tart. We tried a mouthful of the duck,

but it was like eating India-rubber.
It was a wicked sin to kill that drake. But there! there's no respect

for old institutions in this country.
I started this paper with the idea of writing about eating and

drinking, but I seem to have confined my remarks entirely to eating as
yet. Well, you see, drinking is one of those subjects with which it

is inadvisable to appear too well acquainted. The days are gone by
when it was considered manly to go to bed intoxicated every night, and

a clear head and a firm hand no longer draw down upon their owner the
reproach of effeminacy. On the contrary, in these sadly degenerate

days an evil-smelling breath, a blotchy face, a reeling gait, and a
husky voice are regarded as the hall marks of the cad rather than or

the gentleman.
Even nowadays, though, the thirstiness of mankind is something

supernatural. We are forever drinking on one excuse or another. A
man never feels comfortable unless he has a glass before him. We

drink before meals, and with meals, and after meals. We drink when we
meet a friend, also when we part from a friend. We drink when we are

talking, when we are reading, and when we are thinking. We drink one
another's healths and spoil our own. We drink the queen, and the

army, and the ladies, and everybody else that is drinkable; and I
believe if the supply ran short we should drink our mothers-in-law.

By the way, we never eat anybody's health, always drink it. Why
should we not stand up now and then and eat a tart to somebody's

success?
To me, I confess the constant necessity of drinking under which the

majority of men labor is quite unaccountable. I can understand people
drinking to drown care or to drive away maddening thoughts well

enough. I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak
themselves in drink--oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of

course--very shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the
graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp

cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into
the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a

brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin.
But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their

ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means.
Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from

year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in
sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children

scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse,
and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the

house around is a bedlam of riot and stench.
Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them,

devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay
and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel

blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy
fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand.

But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of
light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to

the hour when they lounge back into it again they never live one
moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know

not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship,
longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when their

baby eyes first look out upon their sordid world to the day when, with
an oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled out of

sight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill to
a single thought, never start to a single hope. In the name of the

God of mercy; let them pour the maddening liquor down their throats
and feel for one brief moment that they live!

Ah! we may talk sentiment as much as we like, but the stomach is the
real seat of happiness in this world. The kitchen is the chief temple

wherein we worship, its roaring fire is our vestal flame, and the cook
is our great high-priest. He is a mightymagician and a kindly one.

He soothes away all sorrow and care. He drives forth all enmity,
gladdens all love. Our God is great and the cook is his prophet. Let

us eat, drink, and be merry.
ON FURNISHED APARTMENTS.

"Oh, you have some rooms to let."
"Mother!"

"Well, what is it?"
"'Ere's a gentleman about the rooms."

"Ask 'im in. I'll be up in a minute."
"Will yer step inside, sir? Mother'll be up in a minute."

So you step inside and after a minute "mother" comes slowly up the
kitchen stairs, untying her apron as she comes and calling down

instructions to some one below about the potatoes.
"Good-morning, sir," says "mother," with a washed-out smile. "Will

you step this way, please?"
"Oh, it's hardly worth while my coming up," you say. "What sort of

rooms are they, and how much?"
"Well," says the landlady, "if you'll step upstairs I'll show them to

you."
So with a protesting murmur, meant to imply that any waste of time

complained of hereafter must not be laid to your charge, you follow
"mother" upstairs.

At the first landing you run up against a pail and a broom, whereupon
"mother" expatiates upon the unreliability of servant-girls, and bawls

over the balusters for Sarah to come and take them away at once. When
you get outside the rooms she pauses, with her hand upon the door, to

explain to you that they are rather untidy just at present, as the