P.C.—­(Reads.) “As she stooped to take up the tart a veal sandwich came whizzing down, and cuffed one of her ears.  Next a wheaten loaf made her dodge nimbly, and then a broad ham fell flat-footed at her toes.  A sack of flour burst in the middle of the street; a side of bacon impaled itself on an iron hitching-post.  Pretty soon a chain of sausages fell in a circle around her, flattening out as if a road-roller had passed over them.  Then there was a lull—­nothing came down but dried fish, cold puddings and flannel under-clothing; but presently her wishes began to take effect again, and a quarter of beef descended with terrific momentum upon the top of the little orphan’s head.”

S.E.—­How did the editor of The Reasonable Virtues like that quarter of beef?

P.C.—­Oh, he swallowed it like a little man, and stuck in a few dressed pigs of his own.  I’ve left them out, because I don’t want outsiders altering the Little Story. (Reads.)

“One would have thought that ought to suffice; but not so.  Bedding, shoes, firkins of butter, mighty cheeses, ropes of onions, quantities of loose jam, kegs of oysters, titanic fowls, crates of crockery and glassware, assorted house-keeping things, cooking ranges, and tons of coal poured down in broad cataracts from a bounteous heaven, piling themselves above that infant to a depth of twenty feet.  The weather was more than two hours in clearing up; and as late as half-past three a ponderous hogshead of sugar struck at the corner of Clay and Kearney Streets, with an impact that shook the peninsula like an earthquake and stopped every clock in town.

“At daybreak the good merchants arrived upon the scene with shovels and wheelbarrows, and before the sun of the new year was an hour old, they had provided for all of these provisions—­had stowed them away in their cellars, and nicely arranged them on their shelves, ready for sale to the deserving poor.”

S.E.—­And the little girl—­what became of her?

P.C.—­You musn’t get ahead of the Little Story. (Reads.)

“When they had got down to the wicked little orphan who had not been content with her lot some one brought a broom, and she was carefully swept and smoothed out.  Then they lifted her tenderly, and carried her to the coroner.  That functionary was standing in the door of his office, and with a deprecatory wave of his hand, he said to the man who was bearing her: 

“’There, go away, my good fellow; there was a man here three times yesterday trying to sell me just such a map.’”

THE PARENTICIDE CLUB

MY FAVORITE MURDER

Having murdered my mother under circumstances of singular atrocity, I was arrested and put upon my trial, which lasted seven years.  In charging the jury, the judge of the Court of Acquittal remarked that it was one of the most ghastly crimes that he had ever been called upon to explain away.