"Stuff!" cried the official; "this license is for a _blind_ man, and you seem to enjoy excellent sight." Our hero, in despair, ran to the oculist's house, intending to seek compensation for the doubtful benefit conferred on him; but the man of science had gone on a tour through Germany, and the aggrieved patient found himself compelled to adopt the hard alternative of _working_ for his support, and abandoning the easy life of a professed beggar. Some years since there appeared on the boards of a Parisian theatre an excellent and much-applauded comic actor named Samuel. Like many a wiser man before him, he fell deeply in love with a beautiful girl, and wrote to offer her his hand, heart, and his yearly salary of 8000 francs. A flat refusal was returned. Poor Samuel rivaled his comrade, the head tragedian of the company, in his dolorous expressions of despair; but when, after a time, his excitement cooled down, he dispatched a friend, a trusty envoy, with a commission to try and soften the hard-hearted beauty. Alas, it was in vain! "She does not like you," said the candid embassador; "she says you are ugly; that your eyes frighten her; and, besides, she is about to be married to a young man whom she loves." Fresh exclamations of despair from Samuel. "Come," said his friend, after musing for a while, "if this marriage be, as I suspect, all a sham, you may have her yet." "Explain yourself?" "You know that, not to mince the matter, you have a frightful squint?" "I know it." "Science will remove that defect by an easy and almost painless operation." No sooner said than done. Samuel underwent the operation for strabismus, and it succeeded perfectly. His eyes were now straight and handsome; but the marriage, after all, was no sham--the lady became another's, and poor Samuel was forced to seek for consolation in the exercise of his profession. He was to appear in his best character: the curtain rose, and loud hissing saluted him. "Samuel!" "Where is Samuel?" "We want Samuel!" was vociferated by pit and gallery. When silence was partly restored, the actor advanced to the footlights and said--"Here I am, gentlemen: I am Samuel!" "Out with the impostor!" was the cry, and such a tumult arose, that the unlucky actor was forced to fly from the stage. He had lost the grotesque expression, the comic mask, which used to set the house in a roar: he could no longer appear in his favorite characters. The operation for strabismus had changed his destiny: he was unfitted for tragedy, and was forced, after a time, to take the most insignificant parts, which barely afforded him a scanty subsistence. "Let _well_ alone" is a wise admonition: "Let _bad_ alone" may sometimes be a wiser. ADDRESS TO GRAY HAIR.