On one occasion Noble was so close upon his red-backed friend that, unable to get up the maple tree, the squirrel dodged into a hole in the wall, ran through the chinks, emerged at a little distance, and sprang into the tree. The intense enthusiasm of the dog at that hole can hardly be described. He filled it full of barking. He pawed and scratched as if undermining a bastion. Standing off at a little distance, he would pierce the hole with a gaze as intense and fixed as if he were trying magnetism on it. Then, with tail extended, and every hair thereon electrified, he would rush at the empty hole with a prodigious onslaught. This imaginary squirrel haunted Noble night and day. The very squirrel himself would run up before his face into the tree, and, crouched in a crotch, would sit silently watching the whole process of bombarding the empty hole, with great sobriety and relish. But Noble would allow of no doubts. His conviction that that hole had a squirrel in it continued unshaken for six weeks. When all other occupations failed, this hole remained to him. When there were no more chickens to harry, no pigs to bite, no cattle to chase, no children to romp with, no expeditions to make with the grown folks, and when he had slept all that his dogskin would hold, he would walk out of the yard, yawn and stretch himself, and then look wistfully at the hole, as if thinking to himself, "Well, as there is nothing else to do, I may as well try that hole again!"--_Eyes and Ears._ * * * * * N. P. Willis was usually the life of the company he happened to be in. His repartee at Mrs. Gales's dinner in Washington is famous. Mrs. Gales wrote on a card to her niece, at the other end of the table: "Don't flirt so with Nat Willis." She was herself talking vivaciously to a Mr. Campbell. Willis wrote the niece's reply: "Dear aunt, don't attempt my young feelings to trammel. Nor strain at a Nat while you swallow a Campbell." OLD GRIMES Old Grimes is dead; that good old man We never shall see more: He used to wear a long, black coat, All button'd down before. His heart was open as the day, His feelings all were true: His hair was some inclined to gray-- He wore it in a queue. Whene'er he heard the voice of pain, His breast with pity burn'd: The large, round head upon his cane From ivory was turn'd. Kind words he ever had for all; He knew no base design: His eyes were dark and rather small, His nose was aquiline. He lived at peace with all mankind, In friendship he was true: His coat had pocket-holes behind, His pantaloons were blue. Unharm'd, the sin which earth pollutes He pass'd securely o'er, And never wore a pair of boots For thirty years or more. But good old Grimes is now at rest, Nor fears misfortune's frown: He wore a double-breasted vest-- The stripes ran up and down.