Mr. Short had spent several anxious and sleepless nights. In his waking dreams had passed and repassed in grim procession every article of furniture the house contained, from the mantel-clock to the scrubbing-pail. Ghosts of clamorous cartmen mustered around his pillow, and horrid noises, like the shrieking of broken furniture, blew aside his curtains. A dozen times, in his excited fancy, he packed and re-packed every thing upon the cart. The beds were to be piled thus—the bureaus stood up end-wise in this manner—the looking-glasses, the clock, the carpets, the stoves, the crockery, were all disposed of, at last, and poor Mr. Short, like another great man who don’t know how to pack big boxes, breathed freer and deeper. But then, what was to be done with all the minor utensils, the household “traps,” as they are not inappropriately styled! Where should ride the flat-irons, the preserve-jars, the centre-table ornaments, the lamp-shades, the——he had another idea! He would have a big box, and stow them all safely away in it. Mr. Short was getting to be decidedly a man of mechanical ideas! So the box was ordered and sent home—a gigantic thing, reaching from the door-step to the middle of the street. It was a public wonder. Little niggers played hide and seek around the corners; newsboys cracked jokes against its barn-like sides, and beggars with six children made shelter beneath its shade. Men stared and wondered as they hurried by, and women pointed at it with their parasols, and examined it all round, as if they mistook it for a house to rest, and were curious to see how many rooms there were in the third story. At last every thing was gone except the big box. Mr. Short had persuaded Mrs. Short to ride out on the Avenue with Lieutenant Long, so as to be out of the way of the racket, and had undertaken to do every thing himself. He had indeed performed wonders. He seemed to have become possessed of a real household inspiration. Like Gen. Taylor at Buena Vista, he was here and there and every where at once, reinforcing every body all round. Up stairs, down cellar, in the box, each hand filled with movables, and a looking-glass, perhaps, under each arm, Mr. Short that day performed prodigies of skill and valor, and actually went far in retrieving the reputation of the family. At the last moment, however, when he was congratulating himself on his brilliant and somewhat unexpected exploits, and, hammer in hand, was preparing to nail down the box, down ran Bridget with the startling announcement, “Oh, Mr. Short—you like to have forgot the cradle!” “Good God! so I did! Bring it down in an instant.”