Yes, it was Eva.  I had forgotten all she had told me about Ned, or rather she had not told me as much as he did.  She sobbed on his shoulder, did she?  His shoulder! disgusting!  She dote on him! he comfort her!  It was horrible!  A sudden idea struck me.  “Did you kiss her, Ned?” I asked gruffly.

“You are asking a d——­d impertinent question, old fellow, and of course I sha’n’t answer you;” and he tried to make his drunken face look grave.

I should have liked to throw him out of the window, but the question was, as he said, hardly one to be asked; and then, if she allowed it, what right had I—­It was enough.  It might be pleasant to have an affectionate wife, but no drinking gambler like Ned Hardcash should ever be able to say or remember that he had kissed the mistress of The Beauties.

I was sad at heart:  hope now failed me.  Poor little Eva!  I must bury her image with the “wild rose,” with “my star,” with the “sympathizing friend.”  All, all are emptiness—­are names, are dreams.  The poets were old-fogy chaps:  they never saw the women of to-day, and well for them they did not.

I am still unmated:  I bear the loneliness that awaits all great excellence.  The sun has no companion in glory; the moon shines alone; there was but one phoenix; the white elephant is solitary.  So it must be with me.  I am not misanthropic:  I have learned to bear my superiority with philosophy.  I was groomsman at Eva’s wedding the other day, and gave her a handsome present, as it was expected I should.  I still like my fellow-beings, and fulfill the duties of life to the best of my abilities.  I flirt, I dance, walk, drive, pursue my usual occupations, give bachelor-parties at The Beauties, and have grown contented from habit, but I am a confirmed old—­or shall I say young?—­bachelor.

ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

MUNICH AS A PEST-CITY.

From a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, Munich has had the reputation of being an exceptionally unhealthy place.  All ancient towns have their legends of desolating plagues, the record of an ignorant defiance of sanitary laws, but such stories are especially numerous in the traditions of Munich, and are connected with circumstances which show that epidemic diseases were formerly extremely frequent and virulent in that City.

The absurd festival of the “Metzger-Sprung” (Butchers’ Leap), which takes place annually on the Monday before Ash-Wednesday, when butcher-boys attain to the second grade of their apprenticeship by dressing themselves in long robes trimmed with calves’ tails, and springing into the old fountain in the Marien-Platz in the face of an admiring crowd, is held in commemoration of a similar frolic contrived several hundred years ago by lads of the same trade during the prevalence of a horrible epidemic, for the purpose of tempting the frightened citizens out of their gloomy houses into fresh air and merriment,