[Illustration: “THE MERRY FIRST OF MAY.” _First Young Wife_. “OH! THIS HORRID HOUSE-MOVING—AN'T YOU DISTRACTED ABOUT IT, DEAR?” _Second Ditto_. “O DEAR! NO. WE HAVE ARRANGED IT NICELY. CHARLES WILL SEE TO THE FURNITURE AND THINGS, AND I WILL SUPERINTEND THE REMOVAL OF FIDO MYSELF.”] HOW A DISCIPLE OF FOX BECAME A LOVER OF BULL. PHILADELPHIA, 4th Month, 13th, 1870. FRIEND PUNCHINELLO: I know thee treats our good city with more consideration than thy brother journalists, and so it is that I address the on this occasion. Last night I listened to the fiddle of OLE BULL. I had long known of this man, even from the time when I first attired myself in a coat, (called by the world after the name of the abdomen of a fish,) as one who —"skinned a cat And put the fur around his hat." But having recently been made aware of the fact that this fiddler only availed himself, in his vain exhibitions, of a part of the _felis_ which was not necessary to its felicity after death, I determined to give a portion of my worldly goods toward the building of a light-house on the Norway coast, for which purpose, I heard it averred, this man's performances were given; and I went to the building where the fiddling was to be, to see if it were done with fidelity for this end. As I sat in the upper seats of the house, serenely elevated above the vain throng, the man BULL appeared before me. His mien was humble and his hair was of a gray tinge, which I attributed to the ceaseless gratings of the instrument which he held on his arm, as carefully as if it had been an immortal child. At first, though I labored conscientiously toward that end, I could discover nothing in the sounds he made which reminded me in the least degree of a Norwegian light-house. But suddenly I forgot that useful monument. Against my will, I seemed to be wafted aloft, even to where the seats were cheaper; and anon, I felt as though I disported among the shameless figures on the ceiling of the house. I now forgot all things earthly, even that suspicious bill which friend HOPKINS paid in to my cashier on Second-day. Yea, my whole being became, as it were, strung upon the entrails of a cat and tickled with the tail of horse. I felt as if I were wafted aloft on a blanket of shivering scrapes while quivering angels gently swung me among the stickery stars! And there I heard a melody as though the edges of glass skies were softly rubbed together. Then all was stiller, stiller, until methought I heard nothing but one consumptive angel breathing in his sleep. But even that sound dribbled away, until the last drop seemed to me about to be sucked down into a hole at the bottom of the airy void, when suddenly there came a rush as though a vast light-house of brass had fallen into a sea of tinkling cymbals, and I jumped so violently that my spectacles slipped from off my nose and fell among the vain ones below.