Dr. Wood was a man of large "understanding." One day at a presidential reception he was standing in a large crowd, when he felt two feet pressing on his patent leathers. Looking down, he discovered that the said feet belonged to a female. Wood was a bachelor, and at first the sensation was delightful. It made inexpressibly delicious thrills run all up and down his body. But as the _impression_ was all on the lady's side, the above sensations became gradually superseded by those not quite so delightful, and finally the pressure became very uncomfortable. Mustering courage, he said, very gently,-- "Madam, if you please, you are standing on my feet--" "Your feet, sir, did you say?" For the crowd was so dense that she could not possibly see to the ground. "Yes, madam, on my feet--this last half hour," very politely. "O, I beg a thousand pardons, sir; I thought I was standing on a block. _They are quite large, sir_," trying to remove. "Yes, ma'am, quite large; but _yours covered 'em, madam_." A SHANGHAI ROOSTER. Many people suffer more from the anticipation of trouble than by the actual infliction. The world is full of "trouble-borrowers." They generally keep a stock on hand to lend to those who unfortunately are compelled to listen to them. The following is a mitigated case:-- "Sir," said a physician visiting a patient in the suburbs of this city, to a neighbor, "your Shanghai greatly disturbs my patient." "Is it possible?" asked the neighbor, expressing surprise. "Yes, the bird is a terrible nuisance, giving the patient no peace, day or night, he informs me; but he did not want to complain." "But," replied the sceptical owner, "I don't see how he can annoy neighbor B. Why, he only crows twice in the night, and only two or three times at regular intervals during the day." "Yes; but you don't take into consideration all the times the patient is _expecting_ him to crow." SPREADING HERSELF. In a country town in Maine the writer knew an elderly physician, who had married a wife much younger than himself, whose aristocratic notions hardly coincided with those of this democratic people, though she had now lived here several years. Finally a young physician came into the place and commenced practice. Among the patients that he obtained from the old doctor's former practice was one named Higgins. Mrs. Higgins, whose daughter had just recovered from a fever, gave a party, to which the families of both doctors, with the two ministers, and others, were invited. "Will you go to Mrs. Higgins's party?" asked a neighbor of the old doctor's wife. "Yes, I intend to go, by all means, for I want to see old Mother Higgins and her new doctor spread themselves." This reminds me of the following story, which is too good to be lost:-- "'Once upon a time,' an old lady sent her grandson to set a turkey,--not the gobbler, as did the parson in Mrs. Stowe's 'Minister's Wooing.' On his return, the following dialogue occurred:--