ninety-four years old lived over the way, who told me that he was born in the venerable building in question, and that his aged aunt often told him that she was born there, and that the building could not be less than one hundred and seventy years old. I closely examined the beams and chimneys, and formed the opinion that it had seen not less than two hundred winters, including summer tornadoes. I often visited brother Thomas, and always dreaded climbing the ladder that led to his and Raymond’s apartment. And when I entered their comic room, I had to take off my hat, and squat down, and often when I arose to depart, I bumped my head severely against the pigeon-house ceiling. But Tommy and the proud Governor and Editor in the invisible future were very short, and could walk erect as turkeys without bumping their heads, and they really seemed to enjoy their little oven amazingly. They had but one squeaking cot, (that Parson Brown, their host, bought at auction,) and only one stool, and a pine table with only three legs. The fourth leg was Raymond’s cane, which he placed under the table when he wrote his $4 a week articles for Greeley’s _Tribune_. And it was a funny spectacle for me to see Raymond seated on the stool, beside the three legged pine table, (with his hair shaved to the skull.) writing for his life, with Tom on the squealing cot, waiting for Raymond to close his last paragraph, so that he (Tom) could have a chance to write a letter in answer to an Advertiser in the _New York Sun_ for a clerk. They had no wash bowl, nor pitcher, nor comb, nor looking glass, and washed their hands and face in the yard with cistern water. I bought a pocket comb for Tommy, which he often loaned to Raymond, and finally sold it to him for a free ticket to a concert, which Greeley gave Raymond. I at last obtained a situation for Tommy, and about daylight rushed into his boarding house, (the door was always open all night,) and up I flew the last flight of stairs and precarious ladder, and popped into their cosy room, and there they lay, reposing and dreaming of the past, and of better days in perspective. Tommy was on his side, and his face was partially eclipsed with his sheet, but Raymond was flat on his back, and he had a tooth-ache poultice on his cheek, covered with his handkerchief, which encircled his head around his ears, and he looked pale, and plaintive, and care worn, and I pitied him. I softly thrust my hand into the clothes, in pursuit of Tom’s feet, which I began to tickle, when Tom (who was always as nervous and ticklish as a very susceptible girl) suddenly popped over on the other side, and gave Raymond’s poultice n bang, when the latter gave a growl, and popped over on his other side, and, in doing so, dislocated his poultice, which came out in great profusion, and run all over his face and down into his neck, and the bed clothes, and yet the Governor and Editor in embryo snored on, as though nothing had transpired. I then made another