* * * * * For a child's sketch:--a meeting with all the personages mentioned in Mother Goose's Melodies, and other juvenile stories. * * * * * Great expectation to be entertained in the allegorical Grub Street of the great American writer. Or a search-warrant to be sent thither to catch a poet. On the former supposition, he shall be discovered under some most unlikely form, or shall be supposed to have lived and died unrecognized. * * * * * An old man to promise a youth a treasure of gold, and to keep his promise by teaching him practically a golden rule. * * * * * A valuable jewel to be buried in the grave of a beloved person, or thrown over with a corpse at sea, or deposited under the foundation-stone of an edifice,--and to be afterwards met with by the former owner, in some one's possession. * * * * * A noted gambler had acquired such self-command that, in the most desperate circumstances of his game, no change of feature ever betrayed him; only there was a slight scar upon his forehead, which at such moments assumed a deep blood-red hue. Thus, in playing at brag, for instance, his antagonist could judge from this index when he had a bad hand. At last, discovering what it was that betrayed him, he covered the scar with a green silk shade. * * * * * A dream the other night, that the world had become dissatisfied with the inaccurate manner in which facts are reported, and had employed me, with a salary of a thousand dollars, to relate things of public importance exactly as they happen. * * * * * A person who has all the qualities of a friend, except that he invariably fails you at the pinch. * * * * *