Suddenly she found herself surrounded by a party of bandits, (she thought she was in Greece, but she was only in the 19th Ward.)

They seized her.

“Not a word,” said the leader.  “Your money or your life.”

Now G.F.F.F.S. had lots of life and very little money, so she could hardly determine whether to give up some of her life or all of her money.

“Illustrious banditti,” said she, “the auriferous contents of my reticulated depository are notable for minuteness.  Be conservators of my pullulating existence.”

“I say, TOM,” said the leader, “what’s her little game?”

“It sounds like Irish,” said TOM.

“Hand over your stamps,” said the leader.

G.F.F.F.S. slowly drew out her net purse, when suddenly the robbers fled.  G.F.F.F.S. felt that her hero had come, and, like all the ARAMINTAS in the novels, she fainted and was caught in the arms of—­

CHAPTER III.

The author tried to persuade the editor to allow him to write “to be continued” after the last thrilling chapter, but the editor was inexorable, hence this chapter, “in the arms of”—­a little red-headed policeman.

G.F.F.F.S. smiled gently, but, as soon as she had opened her eyes, and had cast them on the red head, freckled face, pug-nose, and little eyes of MIKE MCFLYNN, she sprang to her feet.  It was better than forty gallons of hartshorn.  She had wasted a faint.

“Perdidi animi deliquium,” said she.

“Mother of MOSES, but you was heavy!” said MCFLYNN.

But she did not wait, and a pair of number eight shoes might have been seen by an inquisitive reporter, cutting around the corners and stamping up seven flights of stairs.

MORAL.

When the paternal turnip solemnly points to 10-1/2, G.F.F.F.S. puts her number eights on the mantel, looks reflectively at a sore-eyed kitten, and falls into polysyllables.

* * * * *

HOMODEIFICATION.

Late advices from China convey the intelligence that the American-Chinese General WARD, who died in the service of the Celestial empire, has been postmortuarily brevetted to the rank of a “major god,” and is now regularly worshipped as such by JOHN PIGTAIL.

Possibly the antithesis to this may turn up on the cards, here.  In the course of events the bronze idol to which our PHILLIPSES and SUMNERS used to bend the knee, has been prostrated from his pedestal by the Fifteenth Amendment.  Coolie labor, with its possible abuses, may engage the attention of the philanthropists, next, and we may yet behold JOHN PIGTAIL on a pedestal, in the character of an American “major god.”

* * * * *

“LUCUS A NON,” ETC.

In the culinary department of a newspaper we find a recipe for making “bird’s nest pudding,” which would surely make the pigtail of a JOHN Chinaman stick straight up on end.  The component parts of the pudding are apples, sugar, milk, five eggs, and vanilla.  Perhaps the inventor of the pudding once found a bird’s nest with five eggs in it, and has thus essayed to immortalize the interesting fact.