And, sure enough, at breakfast the landlady was down in the very sloughs of woe—­entirely brokenhearted.  Everything she looked at reminded her of that poor old negro woman, and so the buckwheat cakes made her sob, the coffee forced a groan, and when the beefsteak came on she fetched a wail that made our hair rise.  Then she got to talking about deceased, and kept up a steady drizzle till both of us were soaked through and through.  Presently she took a fresh breath and said, with a world of sobs: 

“Ah, to think of it, only to think of it!—­the poor old faithful creature.  For she was so faithful.  Would you believe it, she had been a servant in that selfsame house and that selfsame family for twenty seven years come Christmas, and never a cross word and never a lick!  And, oh, to think she should meet such a death at last!—­a-sitting over the red hot stove at three o’clock in the morning and went to sleep and fell on it and was actually roasted!  Not just frizzled up a bit, but literally roasted to a crisp!  Poor faithful creature, how she was cooked!  I am but a poor woman, but even if I have to scrimp to do it, I will put up a tombstone over that lone sufferer’s grave—­and Mr. Riley if you would have the goodness to think up a little epitaph to put on it which would sort of describe the awful way in which she met her—­”

“Put it, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’” said Riley, and never smiled.

A FINE OLD MAN

John Wagner, the oldest man in Buffalo—­one hundred and four years old —­recently walked a mile and a half in two weeks.

He is as cheerful and bright as any of these other old men that charge around so persistently and tiresomely in the newspapers, and in every way as remarkable.

Last November he walked five blocks in a rainstorm, without any shelter but an umbrella, and cast his vote for Grant, remarking that he had voted for forty-seven presidents—­which was a lie.

His “second crop” of rich brown hair arrived from New York yesterday, and he has a new set of teeth coming from Philadelphia.

He is to be married next week to a girl one hundred and two years old, who still takes in washing.

They have been engaged eighty years, but their parents persistently refused their consent until three days ago.

John Wagner is two years older than the Rhode Island veteran, and yet has never tasted a drop of liquor in his life—­unless-unless you count whisky.

Science V.S.  Luck—­[Written about 1867.]