Ho, for the Laughy-Man! lying abed, Lying there wagging his cherubin head, Lying there, merry, a bundle of love Sent to our home by the seraphs above! Hey, for the Laughy-Man! Ho, for his smiles! Hail to the angels who taught him such wiles! [Illustration: FOR SALE:--A WARRIOR by Philip V. Mighels.] There were seven kinds of Indians at the back of the largest hotel of the Western town--dirty and dirtier, which is two; young and old, which is four; male and female, making six; and one little clean pappoose. This latter tiny bit of aboriginal humanity was a chubby, round-faced, bright-eyed little tike, with the blackest of hair and the most bronze of complexions. He was playing around alone inside a close high board fence at the rear of the large hotel, his only shirt cut off at the knees, displaying a fat brownish pair of dimpled legs that were warm enough in spite of the fact of their bareness in the chilling air. Presently around the corner came a trotting, smiling Chinaman, a vender of vegetables. A long slender pole, carved flat and tapering toward the ends, was balanced on his shoulder, and from either end, suspended by a bridle composed of four strings, hung a huge bamboo basket. As he halted within the gate of the high board fence he lightly swung the receptacles to earth, rested his polished pole conveniently near, lifted a mat containing the day's supplies for the cook within, and carried it off to the kitchen. Now it not very strangely befell that the vender of vegetables lingered a time in the kitchen, for that exceedingly tempting and savory seat of government was under the personal direction of another little yellow man, who called his countryman "Wong," and gave him to drink of tea. While the two engaged each other with inharmonious gutturals, a dusky cranium and equally dusky countenance came poking out from another door. Its owner was the negro porter, a grinning fellow, whose mania for jokes of the "practical" description was developed to a degree positively unhealthy. No sooner had he made himself certain that the yard was free of observers, and occupied alone by the wee pappoose, than he stealthily slipped from his place, and grabbed the scared little fellow by the tail of his wholly inadequate shirt. [Illustration]