"Sure, mum, so it would know what time to rise." Her brother Mike has a saloon down on the Bowery. The other day I went in to give him a message from Nora, and found him examining some sort of patent contraption guaranteed, if fastened in the furnace smokepipe, to effect a wonderful saving in the consumption of coal. And just then such a thing was an object in New York, with hard coal soaring out of reach. [Illustration] "And you say that wid wan av these patent dampers in me sthovepipe I'd save half me coal?" Mike was saying as I went in. "That's it. It will do the work every time and save half your coal bill," declared the agent, eagerly. "All right," says Mike, "thin, be jabers, phwat's the matter wid me takin' two and savin' the whole av it?" [Illustration] Riding uptown on the elevated the other night, I noticed a parson sitting on one of the cross-seats, and he was evidently trying to extend sympathy to the cadaverous-looking young man who sat opposite him. "Pardon me, sir," said the churchman; "but you look worn out. You know he who dissipates----" "No, parson, it ain't dissipation. The truth is I'm most dead. I had about forty letters to write this afternoon." "Why didn't you dictate them?" asked the parson. "No typewriter." "What's become of her?" "I married her." "Get another." "Can't." "Why not?" "Costs too much to live now." I can sympathize with that poor fellow. [Illustration] Ah, me! What life was like in those old, old bachelor days, when a million hearts were at my feet. My wife came to me only this morning with an angelic smile on her face and, pointing to a book she held open, she said: [Illustration] "George, dear, I have a little surprise for you. I have been going around among the girls who knew you before we were married and I have put down here the names of all those women you have kissed, and I'm going to ask you to give me a dollar for every kiss." I had to pawn my watch to settle that terrible bill. Talking about old days, when I was in budding manhood I thought I was in budding poethood as well. I wrote a little ballad for a grocery clerk, and he was so effusive he made me blush. But the glad hand he gave me started me on the road to ruin. By some strange freak of fortune, I butted up against a real live versifier who had actually had his lines printed. [Illustration] "Keep at it, my young friend," he said to me. "That's the only way to win. The railroad magnates are the first persons to recognize real genius. Why, before I was seventy years old, I was travelling on a pass!" [Illustration] I steered away, for I reckoned if I'd have to wait till I was three-score-and-ten before passes came my way I wouldn't need 'em then.