"Don't you take out dat letter! It ain't fer yous!" expostulated the messenger. "Here's your letter." But the "General," with watering mouth, was already feverishly devouring a violet-colored note beginning, "Darling Guy," his bulbous nose close to the paper and scenting scandal in every line --that is, he devoured it until, quite unexpectedly, the bantam squared off and proceeded to hand him a few "upper cuts," "hooks," and straight leads from the shoulder, until the scandalmonger howled for mercy. But the bantam had his instructions. "No!" says he. Bing! "I'll teach you to read other people's letters!" Bing! "I'll show yous what yous'll get if yous violates de United States mail--see?" Bing! "Read Mr. ----'s letter, will yous?" Bing! "Not wit' me here--see?" Bing! Bing! "You white- haired old son of a printing-press!" Hennessey's description, on his return to the office, of the "General's" appearance at the conclusion of his drubbing was eminently satisfactory; and he forthwith exchanged his messenger's uniform for his Broadway regalia and a crisp one-hundred dollar bill. That is the only time, so far as I ever learned, that the "General" ever got his real deserts; but I am glad that he did, for once. And the sight of his red nose--somehow it looks redder now than it used to--invariably fills me with satisfaction. Quite naturally our firm attracted a number of strange wastrels in the way of clients, all of whom were picturesque and many of them profitable. Among these was a gentleman known as the "Human Dog," who frequented the main thoroughfares during the crowded hours and simulated the performances of a starving animal with a verisimilitude that I believe to have been unsurpassed in the annals of beggary. He would go on all fours snuffling along the gutters for food and when he came to a morsel of offal he would fall upon it and devour it ravenously. If he found nothing he would whine and sit on his hind legs--so to speak--on the curb, with an imploring look on his hairy face. If a police officer approached the "Human Dog" would immediately roll over on his back, with his legs in the air, and yelp piteously; in fact, he combined the "lay" of insanity with that of starvation in a most ingenious and skilful manner. He was a familiar sight and a bugbear to the police, who were constantly arresting him; but, as he never asked for money, they had great difficulty in doing anything with him. Usually the magistrate sent him to the "Island," for thirty days and then Gottlieb would get him out on a writ of habeas corpus. Some of these writs attracted the attention of the bar and several appear in the reports. I am under the impression that we secured his release some twenty-nine separate times. At last he died in a fit of apoplexy caused by overeating; and when we administered his estate we found that he had already laid by, in a comparatively brief career, the very creditable sum of forty-one thousand dollars.