This, I am sure, is too fast a world even for business Tom: so let us "spirit" ourselves back to our beds in the quiet, slow-moving, earnest country--Tom and Jonathan and little Nell and I--home, and to sleep--and don't wake us till dinner-time! UMBRELLAS. [Illustration: THE FIRST UMBRELLA.] About one hundred and thirty years ago, an Englishman named Jonas Hanway, who had been a great traveller, went out for a walk in the city of London, carrying an umbrella over his head. [Illustration: WHAT JONAS SAW ADOWN THE FUTURE.] Every time he went out for a walk, if it rained or if the sun shone hotly, he carried this umbrella, and all along the streets, wherever he appeared, men and boys hooted and laughed; while women and girls, in doorways and windows, giggled and stared at the strange sight, for this Jonas Hanway was the first man to commonly carry an umbrella in the city of London, and everybody, but himself, thought it was a most ridiculous thing to do. But he seems to have been a man of strength and courage, and determined not to give up his umbrella even if all London made fun of him. Perhaps, in imagination, he saw adown the future, millions of umbrellas--umbrellas enough to shelter the whole island of England from rain. Whether he did foresee the innumerable posterity of his umbrella or not, the "millions" of umbrellas have actually come to pass. But Jonas Hanway was by no means the first man in the world to carry an umbrella. As I have already mentioned, he had travelled a great deal, and had seen umbrellas in China, Japan, in India and Africa, where they had been in use for so many hundreds of years that nobody knows when the first one was made. So long ago as Nineveh existed in its splendor, umbrellas were used, as they are yet to be found sculptured on the ruins of that magnificent capital of Assyria, as well as on the monuments of Egypt which are very, very old; and your ancient history will tell you that the city of Nineveh was founded not long after the flood. Perhaps it was that great rain, of forty days and forty nights, that put in the minds of Noah, or some of his sons, the idea to build an umbrella! Although here in America the umbrella means nothing but an umbrella, it is quite different in some of the far Eastern countries. In some parts of Asia and Africa no one but a royal personage is allowed to carry an umbrella. In Siam it is a mark of rank. The King's umbrella is composed of one umbrella above another, a series of circles, while that of a nobleman consists of but one circle. In Burmah it is much the same as in Siam while the Burmese King has an umbrella-title that is very comical: "Lord of the twenty-four umbrellas." The reason why the people of London ridiculed Jonas Hanway was because at that time it was considered only proper that an umbrella should be carried by a woman, and for a man to make use of one was very much as if he had worn a petticoat.