“‘I’ve thought of that, Bunkers, when a man was before me who looked the right sort,--but, Billy, there might be mistakes--perhaps, when you got him out, he couldn’t pay. What then?’ “‘Why, keep puttin new ones to soak every day, till you fish up the right one.’ “‘It won’t do,--my friend--they’d smoke the joke--all the riffraff in town would be pushin’ old gentlemen into the river, and the elderly folks would have to give up travelin’ by the steamboat. We must wait till the real thing happens. The right person will be sure to come along.’ “‘I hope so; and so it happens quick, I don’t much care whether the old man, his little boy, or the rich widder gets the ducking. I’m not proud.’ “‘Then you’ll see me come the nonsense over the old folks--who’s loafer now?--and my dog will bite their cat--who’s ginger pop, and jam spruce beer, at this present writin’, I’d like to know?’ “Thus, wrapped in present dreams and future anticipations--a king that is to be--lives Nicholas Nollikens--the grand exemplar of the corner loungers. Nicholas and his tribe exist but for to-morrow, and rely firmly on that poetic justice, which should reward those who wait patiently until the wheel of fortune turns up a prize.” GEORGE H. DERBY. “Before ‘John Phoenix’ there was scarcely any American humorist--not of the distinctly literary sort--with whom one could smile and keep one’s self respect,” says William Dean Howells, the novelist, in a recent magazine article. This may indeed be true, but there were others in the time of George H. Derby, better known by his _nom de plume_ of John Phoenix, who were of the same school of humorists, yet they were far inferior as wits. Derby, had he lived, would have become perhaps one of the leading humorists of the country. As it was, he was known to the public as a humorous writer for only a few years before his death. George H. Derby was born of poor but well educated parents in Norfolk county, Massachusetts, in 1823. Little is known of his boyhood or early life. He entered the West Point military academy while yet a youth, and graduated from that institution in 1846. The same year he became engaged in the war with Mexico and continued in the field during the larger part of the year following. He was present at the battle of Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo, and was made brevet first lieutenant at the former place. He received a severe wound during the latter engagement. He remained with the regular army at the close of the war, and was sent upon various surveys and expeditions from 1847 to 1852. During the two years following the last named date, Derby was engaged on the improvement of San Diego, California, harbor, and the next year he was on the staff of the commanding general and had charge of the military roads, department of the Pacific. In 1856 he was on the coast survey, and in the two years following was light-house engineer.