The President has to give state dinners and state receptions, but the expenses of these yearly probably do not exceed $7000 or $8000. The Marine Band always supplies the music, and the flowers come from the conservatory. It is seldom necessary to decorate the reception-rooms of the White House, so that these affairs, although of elaborate and ceremonial nature, are still inexpensive. Upon his retirement to private life, the influence that his Presidential office has given him enables him to secure large sums in payment for whatever he may do, such as a lecture, an article in a periodical, or, if he practises law--which most of our ex-Presidents have done--such fees as $10,000 are no uncommon thing. AN EXPLANATION. "I do not smile when I'm in bed," The little baby softly said, "Because my smile's so very wide, 'Tis sure to fall out on one side, And oh, how madly I should scold To find my smile out in the cold!" THE VOYAGE OE THE "RATTLETRAP." BY HAYDEN CARRUTH. I. Perhaps we were pretty big boys--Jack and I. In fact, I'm afraid we were so big that we haven't grown much since, though it was ten years or more ago that it all happened. But Ollie was a boy, anyhow; he couldn't have been more than a dozen years old, and we looked upon him as being a very small boy indeed; though when folks saw us starting off, some of them seemed to think that we were as boyish as he, because, they said, it was such a foolish thing to do; and in some way, I'm sure I don't know how, boys have got the reputation of always doing foolish things. "They're three of a kind," said Grandpa Oldberry, as he watched us weigh anchor. "Their parents oughter be sent fer." Well, it's hard to decide where to begin this true history. We didn't keep any log on this voyage of the Rattletrap. But I'll certainly have to go back of the time when Grandpa Oldberry expressed his opinion; and perhaps I ought to explain how we happened to be in that particular port. As I said, we--Jack and I--were pretty big boys, so big that we were off out West and in business for ourselves, though, after all, that didn't imply that we were very old, because it was a very new country, and everybody was young; after the election the first fall it was found that the man who had been chosen for county judge wasn't quite twenty-one years of age yet, and therefore, of course, couldn't hold office; and we were obliged to wait three weeks till he had had his birthday, and then to have a special election and choose him again. Everybody was young except Grandpa Oldberry, and he really wasn't old.