"_Barney_"--I received the rat tarrier yu sent me by the Merchants' Union Express, last evening, and gave him a quart ov milk for hiz tea. He pocketed the milk, and wagged for sum more; it made him stick out like a false caff. He slept sound last night, and hasn't waked up yet, altho it iz now 10 o'clock this morning. I have stopped writing tew tickle hiz nose with a pin, and he iz now rushing things around the room for sum rats. He haz just tipped over a Chinese god, worth 8 dollars, and broke him, he will git rats when mi wife cums in. He kant find enny rats, and is now chawing oph mi little boy's toe--to hiz shoe. He iz now crazy for rats agin, and will smash the other vase agin, I'll bet. Thare goes the other vase, bi thunder! all tew powder. He iz now out ov wind, and iz running hiz tung out and in. He wants tew go out doors for sumthing, and i hav let him went. He haz just found a poor little boy in the street, whom he knows, and the boy seems tew know him, and they hav gone round the next block, on a run, together, tew see sumthing. He don't seem tew cum back! It iz now to-morrow, and the tarrier don't seem tew cum back. My wife iz glad ov it. I am out 2 vases, a quart of nu milk, and one tarrier. My wife sez, if i ever buy another rat pup, she will put him tew immediate soak in the cistern at onst. Mi wife iz one ov them kind ov wimmin that don't make enny statements unless they are true, so yu needn't send me enny more tarrier. LXXV. CUPID ON A RAID. It iz real singular what a man-killer and a woman killer the god Cupid iz for one ov hiz heft. He iz piktured out on paper about the size of a four-year old fat boy baby, with a pair of wings about az large as a boss butterfly's, and iz armed with a bow and arrows, that might possibly answer tew kill bumbelbees at four paces. This little fellow haz bagged more game with hiz wooden shuteing irons than aul the powder and shot that ever haz been built can brag ov. I suppoze that it is generally known that he shutes from under cover, at both long and short range, and never iz seen himself. He haz in hiz quiver innumerable arrows, sum few ov them dipped in genuine love, and feathered with good sense, but most ov them would seem too trifling tew be at all dangerous if I hadn't, with mi own eyes, noticed him at work with them, both at male and female game, both sitting and flieing, and seen the many ded shots he haz made. I have been at sum pains for the last tew seazons tew watch hiz manoovers, whare I have happened tew be, and the following reckord iz a faithful history of this little chap's bloody bizz: --> Ben Slocum, aged 19 years, weight about 190 pounds, and a good eater, at work by the month for Farmer Brown, hoeing corn, received hiz death wound from a garter belonging to Rachel Tucker, Brown's hired girl, as the said Tucker waz learning tew jump the rope down in the garden.