Among the passengers on a train going West, was a very much over-dressed woman, accompanied by a bright-looking Irish nurse girl, who had charge of a self-willed, tyrannical two-year-old boy, of whom the over-dressed woman was plainly the mother. The mother occupied a seat by herself. The nurse and child were in a seat immediately in front of her. The child gave frequent exhibitions of temper, and kept the car filled with such vicious yells and shrieks, that there was a general feeling of savage indignation among the passengers. Although he time and again spat in his nurse's face, scratched her hands until the blood came, and tore at her hair and bonnet, she bore with him patiently. The indignation of the passengers was made the greater because the child's mother made no effort to correct or quiet him, but, on the contrary, sharply chided the nurse whenever she manifested any firmness. Whatever the boy yelped for, the mother's cry was, uniformly: "Let him have it, Mary." The feelings of the passengers had been wrought up to the boiling point. The remark was made: audibly here and there that "it would be worth paying for to have the young one chucked out of the window." The hopeful's mother was not moved by the very evident annoyance the passengers felt, and at last fixed herself down in her seat for a comfortable nap. The child had just slapped the nurse in her face for the hundredth time, and was preparing for a fresh attack, when a wasp came from somewhere in the car and flew against the window of the nurse's seat. The boy at once made a dive for the wasp as it struggled upward on the glass. The nurse quickly caught his hand, and said to him coaxingly: "Harry, mustn't touch! Bug will bite Harry!" Harry gave a savage yell, and began to kick and slap the nurse. The mother awoke from her nap. She heard her son's screams, and, without lifting her head or opening her eyes, she cried out sharply to the nurse: "Why will you tease that child so, Mary? Let him have it at once!" Mary let go of Harry. She settled back in her seat with an air of resignation; but there was a sparkle in her eye. The boy clutched at the wasp, and finally caught it. The yell that followed caused joy to the entire car, for every eye was on the boy. The mother woke again. "Mary," she cried, "let him have it!" Mary turned calmly in her seat, and with a wicked twinkle in her eye said: "Sure, he's got it, ma'am!" This brought the car down. Every one in it roared. The child's mother rose up in her seat with a jerk. When she learned what the matter was, she pulled her boy over the back of the seat, and awoke some sympathy for him by laying him across her knee and warming him nicely. In ten minutes he was as quiet and meek as a lamb, and he never opened his head again until the train reached its destination. THE PREHENSILE TAILED COENDOU.