A SAGACIOUS DOG.--A grocer in Edinburgh had a dog, which for some time amused and astonished the people in the neighborhood. A man who went through the streets ringing a bell and selling penny pies, happened one day to treat this dog with a pie. The next time he heard the pieman’s bell, the dog ran to him with impetuosity, seized him by the coat, and would not allow him to pass. The pieman, who understood what the animal wanted, showed him a penny, and pointed to his master, who stood at the street door and saw what was going on. The dog immediately supplicated his master by many humble gestures and looks. The master put a penny into the dog’s mouth, which he instantly delivered to the pieman, and received his pie; and this traffic between the pieman and the grocer’s dog continued to be daily practised for many months. Absence of Mind. This is that habit which some people have, of thinking of one thing, while they are doing another. The famous Sir Isaac Newton was a philosopher, and he thought a great deal about the heavenly bodies, and such mighty matters. Of course, he could hardly be expected to think much about common things. However, he did once have a fancy for a lady, and one evening he went to see her. As he was sitting with her by the fireside smoking his pipe, he became absorbed in his mathematics, and in his absence of mind he took hold of the lady’s finger and stuck it into the fiery bowl of his pipe, thus making it a tobacco-stopper! I once knew an old lady who would go about the room, looking upon the shelf, peeping into the table drawer, tumbling over a cupboard that served as a kind of Noah’s ark, where every strange thing was deposited--all the time teasing and fretting because she could not find her spectacles, until at last she discovered that the said spectacles were snugly sitting astride of her nose! But this is a trifling instance of absence of mind, compared with some others. An old maid of Edinburgh, in Scotland, had taken an unaccountable fancy to a pig, which she kept as a kind of pet about the house, and often took it into her lap. The poor thing seemed to be forever pinched with a pain in its bowels, and therefore kept up an almost perpetual squealing. Still, the kind woman loved it all the better, and cherished it the more for its very infirmities. The lady was withal a literary lady, and fond of reading and writing books, and her head ran upon these operations so much, that she often forgot where she was, and what she was doing. One day, she appeared at the door of a neighbor in a good deal of trouble, with the pig under her arm, squealing with all its might, as usual; upon which the following dialogue ensued: _Woman._ Good morning, neighbor! Good morning! I called to see you about--about--something or other--but in fact I forget what it was I was after. _Neighbor._ Oh! you wanted something or other, and you thought you’d come and ask me what ’twas you wanted?