For some time indignation chained up my tongue. I experienced a choking sensation as I stared furiously upon my visiter, whose countenance was drawn out into the most hypocritical length. This did not very long continue, for the solemn visage which he had chosen to exhibit at his entrance soon gave place to a most malicious and devilish sneer. “Well,” said he, with an odious chuckle, “my fine fellow, how d’ye like your bargain?” “Avaunt, fiend!” I exclaimed. He certainly manifested no symptoms of departure, but lolling upon my bunk, produced a Havana from his mother-of-pearl cigar-case, and igniting it by means of a Lucifer, commenced to smoke with great _sang froid_. “Pretty pleasant lodgings, those of yours, my old chap, but your wardrobe was horridly low and vulgar. In fact, I was compelled to make a bonfire of all your old clothes, before I could manage to put it into tolerable order.” “You infernal scoundrel!” I roared, goaded to madness by this last insult. “I told you that you should pay for your rascality, and, by heaven, you shall pay for it now!” As I spoke, I rushed upon him and grappled tightly with him. He resisted strenuously, but rage had nerved me with the strength of a dozen men, and seizing him by the throat, we rolled upon the ground together. “Ya—ya—yough! Gollamity, massa, what you do? Want fur choke Sip?—oh, murder! murder!” I looked with bewildered eyes around me. I had upset the table, tumbled from my chair upon the floor, and had grappled poor Scipio by the throat, until his eye-balls protruded an inch from his head. “Hollo!” I cried, “where the devil am I?” “Why, you home, be sure, massa,” replied Scipio, whimpering from the effects of the rough salutation I had bestowed upon him, “and be broad daylight, and you no bin to bed yit.” I looked at the decanter. It was empty. “Oh!” ejaculated I. The odious apparel of the preceding night still decked my person and strewed the room. There was a sickening odor of stale tobacco-smoke hovering through the chamber, and, with a very clear perception that I should require a tumbler of Hock and soda to reinvigorate the inner man, I arrived at the comfortable conclusion that I was still in _propria persona_, the “man who could never dress well.” P. S. I’m off to Paris. Fitzcrocky has Julia’s promise. A pea-green coat with gilt buttons, and a scarlet satin lining has done my business. * * * * * SUMMER’S BACCHANAL. BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR. Fill the cup from some secretest fountain, Under granite ledges, deep and low, Where the crystal vintage of the mountain Runs in foam from dazzling fields of snow! Some lost stream, that in a woodland hollow Coils, to sleep its weariness away, Hid from prying stars, that fain would follow, In the emerald glooms of hemlock spray.