Authors who have added the vice of elocution to the weakness of dialect verse-making, are often at a loss for a sympathetic audience. Whilst it is true that literary people are apt to bear with a good deal of patience the mutually offered inflictions incident to meeting one another, they draw the line at dialect recitations; and, as a rule, stubbornly refuse to be bored with a fantastic rendition of "When Johnny got spanked by a mule," or "Livery-stable Bob," or "Samantha's Courtin'," or "Over the Ridge to the Pest-house," no matter how dear a friend may offer the scourge. Circumstances alter cases, however, and although neither Carleton, nor Riley, nor yet Burdette, nor Bill Nye (those really irresistible and wholly delightful humorists), had come to Hotel Helicon, there was a certain relief for those of the guests who had not joined the luckless pedestrians, in hearing Miss Amelia Lotus Nebeker recite a long poem written in New Jersey patois. Miss Nebeker was very hard of hearing, almost stone deaf, indeed, which affliction lent a pathetic effect even to her humor. She was rather stout, decidedly short, and had a way of making wry faces with a view to adding comicality to certain turns of her New Jersey phraseology, and yet she was somewhat of a bore at times. Possibly she wished to read too often and sometimes upon very unsuitable occasions. It was Mrs. Bridges who once said that, if the minister at a funeral should ask some one to say a few appropriate words, Miss Nebeker, if present, would immediately clear her throat and begin reciting "A Jerseyman's Jewsharp." "And if she once got started you'd never be able to stop her, for she's as deaf as an adder." It was during the rainstorm, while those of the guests who had not gone to the hermit's hut with Cattleton, were in the cool and spacious parlor of the hotel, that something was said about Charles Dickens reading from his own works. Strangely enough, although the remark was uttered in a low key and at some distance from Miss Nebeker, she responded at once with an offer to give them a new rendering of _The Jerseyman's Jewsharp_. Lucas, the historian, objected vigorously, but she insisted upon interpreting his words and gestures as emphatic applause of her proposition. She arose while he was saying: "Oh now, that's too much, we're tired of the jangling of that old harp; give us a rest!"