First, I read a page of a Patent Office Report I go armed with.

This the Echo, with very little hesitation, repeated in duplicate as usual.  From one side of the rock in English, and from the other in fair French.

I saw at once that old EK was pretty well filled.

Next I sang “Listen to the Mocking Bird,” which it repeated very creditably indeed, dropping but two notes on the third verse.  This it made up for, I am bound to admit, by throwing in some original variations in the chorus.

But I hadn’t played from my sleeve yet, so I recited HAMLET’S Soliloquy.

From the wooded slope on our right came the familiar “To be” of BOOTH, while from the sloping woods on our left proceeded a finely rendered imitation of the Teutonic FECHTER, in the same.

This staggered me!

I had one more jack in my cuff, however.  I pulled out a copy of the Tribune and read a few paragraphs of GREELEY’S “What do I know about Farming.”

That settled him!

He never got to the first semi-colon.  It knocked the breath right out of him!

The poor old fossil had to quit.  He changed his repeater to a leaver. 
But then you see he had held the office a good while.

He hasn’t left the business to any one, either.

In future no one will go fooling round there except the fishermen.  The sign is down.

In my next I will finish the Lake trip, and give you some account of the celebrated “Roger’s Slide.”

SAGINAW DODD.

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

RAMBLINGS.

BY MOSE SKINNER.

POPULARITY.

Next to talk, popularity is the cheapest thing I know of.  It is achieved by three classes—­those who have brains, those who have money, and those who have neither.  The first earn it; the second buy it; and the third stumble into it, perhaps by waving their hat at an engineer just in time to prevent the train from dashing over a precipice, or by chopping off somebody’s head with a meat axe and burning the remains up afterwards, in which case the next day’s paper gives a faithful account of their pedigree, and their photograph can be purchased at any respectable news-dealers, at a price within reach of all.

The most common-place sayings of popular men are handed down to posterity, and a casual remark about the weather is often framed and hung up in the spare-bedroom.

It behooves every public man to keep a sentence or two on hand, with a view to embalming them for future reference.  I wish to state, in confidence, that if any prominent man who can’t think of anything that sounds well, will address me, I will furnish him at the low price of one dollar a sentence.  My stock is entirely fresh and original, and embraces such gems as—­“Don’t give up the ship,” “Such is Life,” “How’s this for high?” “I die happy,” “A stitch in time saves nine,” &c., &c.