“I can’t pay!” the youth screamed, and by turning his pockets inside out, and yelling his poverty to the heavens, he finally made the deaf man understand. And then he had to shriek his full name three times, while his ears fairly rung with the half-stifled laughter that was breaking out all around him; and he had to scream out where he worked, and roar when he would pay, and he couldn’t get the deaf man to understand him until some of the church members came up to see what the uproar was, and, recognising their young friend, made it all right with the cashier. And the young man went out into the night and clubbed himself, and shred his locks away ontil he was as bald as an egg. _Robert J. Burdette._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S CATASTROPHE._ A YOUNG fellow, a tobacco pedler by trade, was on his way from Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Deacon of the Shaker settlement, to the village of Parker’s Falls, on Salmon River. He had a neat little cart, painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each side-panel, and an Indian chief, holding a pipe and a golden tobacco-stalk, on the rear. The pedler drove a smart little mare, and was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the Yankees; who, as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the Connecticut, whose favour he used to court by presents of the best smoking tobacco in his stock; knowing well that the country lassies of New England are generally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in the course of my story, the pedler was inquisitive, and something of a tattler, always itching to hear the news and anxious to tell it again. After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco pedler, whose name was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of woods, without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little grey mare. It being nearly seven o’clock, he was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to reach the morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up and perceived a man coming over the brow of a hill, at the foot of which the pedler had stopped his green cart. Dominicus watched him as he descended, and noticed that he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick, and travelled with a weary, yet determined pace. He did not look as if he had started in the freshness of the morning, but had footed it all night, and meant to do the same all day. “Good morning, mister,” said Dominicus, when within speaking distance. “You go a pretty good jog. What’s the latest news at Parker’s Falls?”