Mr. BUMSTEAD’S arms were folded tightly across his manly breast, and the fine head with the straw hat upon it tilted heavily towards his bosom.

“I see’t now,” said he softly; “bone han’le ’n ferule.  I r’member threshing ’m with it.  I can r’memb’r carry’ng—­” Here Mr. Bumstead burst into tears, and made a frenzied dash at the lock of hair which he again mistook for a fly.

“To sum up all,” concluded Mr. Tracey CLEWS, shaking him violently by the shoulder, that he might remain awake long enough to hear it,—­“to sum up all, I am satisfied, from the familiar knowledge of this mystery I have already gained, that the end will have something to do with exercise in the Open Air!  You’ll have to go outdoors for something important.  And now good night.”

“Goornight, sir.”

Retiring softly to his own room, under the same roof, the author of “The Amateur Detective” smiled at himself before the mirror with marked complacency.  “You’re a long-headed one, my dead-beat friend,” he said, archly, “and your great American Novel is likely to be a respectable success.”

There sounded a crash upon a floor, somewhere in the house, and he held his breath to listen.  It was the Ritualistic organist going to bed.

(To be Continued.)

[Footnote 1:  The few remaining chapters with which it is proposed to conclude this Adaptation of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” should not be construed as involving presumptuous attempt to divine that full solution of the latter which the pen of its lamented author was not permitted to reach.  No further correspondence with the tenor of the unfinished English story is intended than the Adapter will endeavor to justify to his own conscience, and that of his reader, by at least one unmistakable foreshadowing circumstance of the original publication, which, strangely enough, has been wholly overlooked, thus far, by those speculating upon the fate of the missing hero.]

[Footnote 2:  See Chapter III., The Mystery of Edwin Drood.]

* * * * *

An Old Saw with a Modern Instance.

The Farthing Candle of New York journalism appears to be trying to find what political party he can best bully into offering the largest reward for his conscientious support.  As a looker on, PUNCHINELLO would suggest to the political parties, as applicable in this case, the following quotation from VIRGIL: 

——­“timeo Dana-os et dona ferentes.”

* * * * *

SOME TRAITS OF THE CHINESE.

[Illustration:  ‘O’]

Of all human races, next to the monkies, the Mongolians are the most imitative.  They are only a little lower than the monkies in this respect, and we have seen some trained ones that could successfully compete with the Simians on their own ground.

A Chinaman employed in the North Adams shoe factory, for instance, was asked to imitate exactly a boot of a particular style, which was shown to him.  After a few trials, he imitated the boot so perfectly, that a customer who came in took him to be the fellow of it, and was not undeceived until he went to try him on.  No wonder that the regular Crispins are jealous of a foreign cordwainer who can do this.