Hereafter I shall have no faith in reports. Last week I heard that Jim Dudley had left the city, and was congratulating myself on at last escaping him. But my congratulations were premature. Last night he called upon me, and kept me in torture for fully two hours; at a time, too, when I should have been asleep. But what cared he for that? The scoundrel! there was no shaking him off. He sticks to a person like mortar to a brick. I had to sit and listen, though I do honestly believe every word the fellow uttered was an unqualified lie; but he swears to its truth, and how can I prove it otherwise. It is better to take it as it comes and ask no questions for conscience’ sake. “I never told you about the sermon I preached over in Misertown one Sunday. I had a time of it thar and no mistake. Hold on a minute and I’ll tell you how it was. “You see, Gil Bizby—that plaguey shirk, I never mention his name but what I feel like trouncin’ of him—but he was a genius though and no foolin’ about it, a natural born inventor, chock full of notions as a toy shop. [Illustration: SOMETHING NEW.] “But somehow or another he never could bring anythin’ to a payin’ focus. Allers whittlin’ and borin’ and plannin’ around though. Wherever you’d meet him he’d be haulin’ out of his pocket some old drawin’, with more wheels and contrivances pictured out on it than you could think of in a twelve hours’ dream. He never could git the cap sheaf onto his endeavor though. Allers somethin’ amiss; a wheel too many, or another one wantin’, or too many cogs to have the thing work just right. “He invented a contrivance for pluckin’ chickens. “That was a rustler. He shoved the fowls through a machine somethin’ like a corn sheller, an gin ’em an electric shock while passin’ along, and shot ’em out of a spout at t’other end of the machine as bare as weavers’ shuttles. He didn’t make anythin’ out of it though. He had to chuck ’em through while alive, you see, and that clashed with the law. When he took the machine down to the city to introduce it to the pultry dealers, the society fellers who look out for the interests of dumb critters got arter him and sewed him up. They put a reef in his jib pooty quick now, I tell you. “They were passin’ along through the market one day, and they saw Gil just a humpin’ himself showin’ off the apparatus to the market men. He was crankin’ and pumpin’ away, like a sailor when there’s fifteen feet of water in the hold and still rizin, and the chickens were a screamin’ and a scootin’ through the contrivance, close as if they were run on a string head ag’inst tail, and just a cloud of feathers hoverin’ around over it. Didn’t they fasten on to that Gil Bizby though? They snatched him up quicker than if he had been hoss-stealin’, and confiscated his plucker, and tucked an alfired heavy fine onto him besides.