landscape," I said; for you know, even if you must come down, it is better to roll down an inclined plane than to drop over a precipice; and I thought, since I saw that descent was inevitable, I would at least engineer the party gently through aesthetics to puns. So I said, "How pretty cows look in a landscape, so calm and reflective, and sheep harmoniously happy in the summer-tide." "Yes," said the Anakim, who is New Hampshire born; "but you ought to see the New Hampshire sheep, if you want the real article." "I don't," I responded. "I only want the picture." "Ever notice the difference between Vermont and New Hampshire sheep?" struck up Halicarnassus, who must always put in his oar. "No," I said, "and I don't believe there is any." "Pooh! Tell New Hampshire sheep as far off as you can see 'em," he persisted, "by their short legs and long noses. Short legs to bring 'em near the grass, and long noses to poke under the rocks and get it." "Yes, my boy, yes," said the Anakim pleasantly. "I O U 1" "He hath made everything beautiful in his time," murmured Grande, partly because, gazing at the distant prospect, she thought so, and partly as a praiseworthy attempt, in her turn, to pluck us out of the slough into which we had fallen. "I have heard," said Halicarnassus, who is always lugging in little scraps of information apropos to everything,--"I have been told that Dr. Alexander was so great an admirer of the Proverbs of Solomon, that he used to read them over every three months." "I beg your pardon," I interposed, glad of the opportunity to correct and humiliate him, "but that was not one of the Proverbs of Solomon." "Who said it was?" asked the Grand Mogul, savagely. "Nobody; but you thought it was when she said it," answered his antagonist, coolly. "And whose proverb is it, my Lady Superior?" "It is in Ecclesiastes," I said. "Well, Ecclesiastes is next door to Solomon. It's all one." Halicarnassus can creep through the smallest knot-hole of any man of his size it has ever been my lot to meet, provided there is anything on the other side he wishes to get at. If there is not, and especially if anything is there which he wishes to shun, a four hundred and fifty pounder cannot crash a hole large enough for you to push him through. By such a pitiful chink as that did his Infallible Highness wriggle himself out of the range of my guns, and pursue his line of remark. "But I really cannot say that I have been able to detect the excessive superiority of Solomon's proverbs. If it were not for the name of it, I think Sancho Panza's much better."