"A lady once said to me that she should like to be married, if she could get a good congenial husband, who would make her happy, or at least _try_ to. She was not difficult to please, she said. I said, 'I should like to get married too, if I could get a wife that would try to make me happy.' She said, 'Umph!' and looked as if she meant what she said. She _did_. For when I asked her if she thought she could be persuaded to marry me, she said, she'd rather be excused. I excused her. I've often wondered _why_ I excused her. "A good many things of this kind have happened to me that are doubtful, wonderful, mysterious. What, then, is it that causes doubt and mystery to attend the ways of men? _It is the want of fact._ This is a matter-of-fact world, and in order to act well in it, we must deal in matter-of-fact." * * * * * Some modern author says of gambling, that it is "a magical stream, into which, if a man once steps, and wets the sole of his foot, he must needs keep on until he is overwhelmed." Perhaps some readers of the "Drawer" may have heard of the officer, who, having lost all his money at play, received assistance from a friend, on condition that he would never after touch a pack of cards. A few weeks after, however, he was found in an out-house drawing short and long straws with a brother-gamester for hundreds of pounds! "The most singular species of gambling, however, is one which is said to be practiced among the blacks in Cuba. Many of these stout, hearty, good-humored fellows daily collect about the docks in Havanna, waiting for employment, and gambling in cigars, for they are inveterate smokers. This forms one of their most favorite amusements. Two parties challenge each other, and each lays down, in separate places, three or more cigars, forming a figure resembling a triangle: they then withdraw a few paces, and eagerly watch their respective 'piles.' The owner of the 'pile' _on which a fly first alights_, is entitled to the whole! "It should be added, that a pile smeared any where with molasses, to attract the more ready visit of the flies, was considered in the light of 'loaded dice' among 'professional men' of a kindred stamp." * * * * * Let any man, "in populous city pent," who has left the cares, turmoils, and annoyances of the town for a brief time behind him, with the heated bricks and stifling airs, that make a metropolis almost a burthen in the fierce heats of a summer solstice, say whether or no this passage be not true, both in "letter" and in "spirit:"