"Why, Colonel, there's nothing _to_ it. That little, narrow, desolate, unpeopled, oblong streak of grass and gravel, lost in the remote wastes of the vast continent--why, it's like representing a billiard table--a discarded one." "Tut-tut, it's a great, it's a staving preferment, and just opulent with influence here." "Shucks, Colonel, I haven't even a vote." "That's nothing; you can make speeches." "No, I can't. The population only two hundred----" "That's all right, that's all right----" "And they hadn't any right to elect me; we're not even a territory; there's no Organic Act; the Government hasn't any official knowledge of us whatever." "Never mind about that; I'll fix that. I'll rush the thing through; I'll get you organized in no time." "_Will_ you, Colonel--it's _too_ good of you; but it's just your old sterling self, the same old, ever-faithful friend," and the grateful tears welled up in Washington's eyes. "It's just as good as done, my boy, just as good as done. Shake hands. We'll hitch teams together, you and I, and we'll make things hum!" FREDERICK WILLIAM SHELTON INCIDENTS IN A RETIRED LIFE Last year I had a solitary peach upon a solitary tree, for the early frost frustrated the delicious crop. This only one, which, from its golden color, might be entitled El Dorado, I watched with fear and trembling from day to day, patiently waiting for the identical time when I should buoy it up carefully in my hand, that its pulp should not be bruised, tear off its thin peel, admonished that the time had come by a gradual releasing of the fruit from its adhesion to the stem, and I appointed the next day for the ceremonial of plucking. The morrow dawned, as bright a day as ever dawned upon the earth, and on a near approach I found it still there, and said, with chuckling gratification, "There is some delicacy in thieves." Alas! on reaching it, somebody had taken a large bite out of the ripest cheek, but with a sacrilegious witticism had left it sticking to the stem. The detestable prints of the teeth which bit it were still in it, and a wasp was gloating at its core. Had he taken the whole peach I should have vented my feelings in a violence of indignation unsuited to a balmy garden. But as he was joker enough to bite only its sunny side, I must forgive him, as one who has some element of salvation in his character, because he is disposed to look at the bright side of things. What is a peach? A mere globe of succulent and delicious pulp, which I would rather be deprived of than cultivate bad feelings, even toward thieves. Wherever you find rogues whose deeds involve a saline element of wit, make up your mind that they are no rogues.--_Up the River._ * * * * *