it is in no sense of triumphing over a fallen adversary that we add the conviction that the beaming countenance of Karl Konstant Kain, the last of the K.'s, had never dawned upon this prophet's sense of the ridiculous. We shall introduce him to the reader as he was, and is, and without any reference to a future--that with him is but a name, a fleeting shadow. And in order that this reminiscence may be perfect, it will be needful to relate that he had reached, at this period of his existence, a climax of loneliness and gaunt despair that would have rendered him a fit companion for the "Wandering Jew," and a most unfit one for anything less ludicrously ideal. Though it had been of his own choosing, a shadow pursued him and would not let him rest: it was the ghost of the murdered K. K. K. He had been with it in its prosperity; had eaten its bread in its adversity; and since above the spot of its interment the daisies were developing into types of its departed beauty, he had given himself to the magnanimous resolve of perpetuating its genius in other climes. Having chalked a freight car, "Through without delay," he deposited his remains on the inside, and four days thereafter found himself at the door of a cheap hashery, in the thriving little city of Columbus, Texas. Here he refreshed the inner man on a promise to pay, rendered subsequent to the meal, and having been damned for a "blister," and a "cooter," and a "scorpion," wandered forth, that image of "blank dismay" which we have already depicted to the reader. Destiny was now begun with him in earnest, and it was only necessary for him to sit still and "administer upon the fluttering pasteboards," with that resignation of soul which should characterize the man who has given five points in the game, and occupies the losing seat. Mounting a goods-box on a neighboring corner, he adjusted his unshapeliness to its angles in a posture that would have been an easy one for another man, and awaited events. They were not slow in coming. In fact they came in troops, and awaited their turn with a constancy of resolve that would have frightened a less Napoleonic structure. The first visitation comprised two Hibernians of smiling aspect, who, observing this unusual tableau, affected to note a disposition to sneeze in the subject. Instantly our hero accepted the challenge (_ad hominem et sine exceptione_), and leaping from his perch engaged his persecutors with the desperation of a man who feels that he would be made happier if soundly whipped. Striking right and left, he provoked his adversaries to do their worst, and soon brandishing huge knives, they made inroads upon his anatomy which left him an intricate subject for the hospitals and doctors. Twenty-two wounds in all had severally penetrated his lungs, severed his carotid artery, atrophied his liver, wasp-nested his umbilicus, riddled his facial parts, and bereft him of five fingers and the arm to which