“You remember the lesson that was learnt by the man who wrote to correct something a newspaper had written about him, said Heywood. The editor called me a swindler, a liar, and a politician,' said he, relating his experience, 'and like a fool 1 wrote to contradict it. I was a fool: for what did the fellow do in the very next issue but prove every statement that he had made!'” “Oh, isn't it lucky that I didn't write to that paper?” cried Dorothy. But when we began to talk of the imaginary sufferings of Robinson Crusoe, and to try to imagine what were the real sufferings of Selkirk, Friswell laughed, saying,-- “I'm pretty sure that what the bonnie Scots body suffered from most poignantly was the island not having any of his countrymen at hand, so that they could start a Burns Club or a Caledonian Society, as the six representatives of Scotland are about to do in our town of Yardley, which has hitherto been free from anything of that sort. Did you ever hear the story of Andrew Gareloch and Alec MacClackan?” We assured him that we had never heard a word of it. He told it to us, and this is what it amounted to:--Messrs. Andrew Gareloch and Alec MacClackan were merchants of Shanghai who were unfortunate enough to be wrecked on their voyage home. They were the sole survivors of the ship's company, and the desert island on which they found themselves was in the Pacific, only a few miles in circumference. In the lagoon were plenty of fish and on the ridge of the slope were plenty of cocoa-nuts. After a good meal they determined to name the place. They called it St. Andrew Lang Syne Island, and became as festive and brotherly--they pronounced it “britherly”--as was possible over cocoa-nut milk: it was a long time since either of them had tasted milk of any sort. The second day they founded a local Benevolent Society of St. Andrew, and held the inaugural dinner; the third day they founded a Burns Club, with a supper; the fourth day they starts a Scots Association, with a series of monthly reunions for the discussion of the Minstrelsy of the Border; the fifth day they laid out golf links with the finest bunkers in the world, and instituted a club lunch (strictly nonalcoholic); the sixth day they formed a Curling Club--the lagoon would make a braw rink, they said, if it only froze; and if it didn't freeze, well, they could still have an annual Curlers' Supper; the Seventh Day they _kept_. On the evening of the same day a vessel was sighted bearing up for the island; but of course neither of the men would hoist a signal on the Seventh Day, and they watched the craft run past the island; though they were amazed to see that she had only courses and a foresail set, in spite of the fact that the breeze was a light one. The next morning, when they were sitting at breakfast, discussing whether they should lay the foundation stone--with a commemorative lunch--of a Free Kirk, a Wee Free Kirk, a U.P.