I soon threw aside No. 2 in disgust, and went on to the others--most of them pictured off with hymeneal designs; plethoric cupids with apostolic necks--flowers the like of which never grew anywhere--birds, intended for doves, supposed to be "billing and cooing," but which, in reality, more resembled a couple of wooden decoy ducks fastened together by the heads with a tenpenny nail--a heart stuck through with an arrow, reminding me of a mud turtle on a fish spear--little boy with a feather duster (supposed to represent Hymen with his torch,) standing by a dry-goods box with a marking brush sticking out at the top of it, (put by courtesy for an altar with a flame on it,) going through some kind of a performance with a young couple (supposed to be lovers intent on wedlock,) who appeared as if they had done something they were ashamed of, and deserved to be spanked and put in the trundle-bed--besides vines and wreaths, bows, arrows, babies, and other articles, the necessity of which to human happiness I have ever been at a loss to discover. Some were complimentary and some abusive--one was from the bar-keeper and hinted at egg-nogg, insinuating that it wasn't paid for--and one I know was from Sandie, for it accused me of taking more than half the bed-clothes on cold nights. But I couldn't find out who wrote the good ones, and couldn't lick anybody for writing the bad ones, as the boys all denied it; and as they cost me three cents each, I've regretted ever since that I didn't sell them to the corner grocery man to wrap round sausages, and invest the money in a flannel nightcap. XXIII. The Kentucky Tavern. The State of Michigan having been the place of my preparation for College, and the Michigan University the scene of my brilliant though premature graduation, I was not wholly unacquainted with occidental geography. As I entered the Institution just mentioned, broke the rules, was tried, convicted, sentenced, punished, fined, suspended, and expelled in an unprecedented short space of time, no one was more fully prepared than I to admit that "this is a great country." I was somewhat familiar with the entire country known as "out west;" had rode over it, walked over it, and been shot through it by steam; had stopped at all sorts of public-houses from the stylish hotel where you can get your liquor in glass tumblers, have stairs to get to your room with, and can repose on a bedstead, to the unostentatious tavern where the whiskey is served out in a tin dipper, and you have to climb into the garret by a ladder, and sleep on a bundle of straw, under the populous protection of a horse-blanket. But I never so thoroughly understood the discomforts of living at a hotel, as when on one occasion I strayed into the state of Kentucky, the land of good horses, poor jackasses, glorious corn-bread, and lazy darkies, and stopped at the best house of entertainment I could discover.