* * * * * [Illustration: SEVERE ON BYRON BUBBS. _Bubbs_. "DOES YOUR SISTER NETTIE EVER TALK ABOUT ME?" _Little Rose_. "OH, YES! I HEARD HER TELL MA, YESTERDAY, YOU HAD SUCH A BEAUTIFUL NECK, SO LONG THAT IT WOULD DO TO TIE IN A DOUBLE BOW-KNOT!"] * * * * * BY GEORGE! (_Concluded_.) LAKE GEORGE, N. Y., Sept. 12. DEAR PUNCHINELLO: "SLUKER," continued the long-haired man in an absent-minded manner, "was a _corker_! there is no mistake about that. Like the Ghost at BOOTH'S, he was a terror to the peaceful Hamlet. He was always getting up shindys without the slightest provocation, and was evidently possessed of the unpleasant ambition, as well as ability, to whale the entire township in detachments of one. Things got to be so bad after a while that the bark was rubbed off every tree in town on account of the people incontinently shinning up them whenever SLUKER came in sight. It was no unusual thing to see business entirely suspended for hours, while SLUKER marched up and down the main street, whistling, with his hands in his pockets, and every soul in the place, from the minister down, roosting as high as they could get, six on a branch, sometimes. Matters went on in this way until one day a little incident occurred that somewhat discouraged this gentle youth. He had just returned from a discussion with a butcher, (from the effects of which the latter now sleeps in the valley,) when a party of his fellow-townsmen entered the store in which he was loafing, and ordered a coil of half-inch rope from New York by the morning's train. It was the Overland route that SLUKER took for California, and when his aged mother heard that three eyes had been gouged out in one day in the Golden City, she wept tears of joy. Her fond heart told her that the perilous journey was over, and her darling boy was safe. After ten years of a brilliant career he bethought him again of the place of his birth. His heart yearned for the gentle delights,--the heavy laden trees--of his boyhood's home. He said he must go. His friends said he must go, too. In fact they had already appointed a select and vigilant Committee to see him safely on his way. In some respects SLUKER came back an altered man. The stamp of change was on his noble face, indeed it had been stamped on itself, until it looked like a wax doll under a hot stove. But he still retained his warlike spirit. There was not so much chance of indulging it now, however. The Fire Company had disbanded, and nearly every one had grown rich enough to own a shot-gun. There was only one chance left. He joined the Presbyterian Choir. Not that he had much of a voice, though he used to play 'Comin' thro' the Rye' oh the fiddle sometimes, until he got it going _through him_ so much he couldn't draw a note. Nobody would have taken them if he had.