“Then you don’t want a rat-trap?” “No, SIR!” yelled Bald-head. “I’ll make you one mighty cheap.” “I’ll knock you down, sir!” roared Bald-head, looking around for his cane. “Oh, wall, I ain’t a starvin’, and it won’t make much difference if I don’t sell to you!” remarked the stranger, and he backed off and left the cabin for the promenade deck. An old maid sat in the shadow of the Texas, embroidering a slipper, and the rat-trap man drew a stool up beside her and remarked— “Madam, my name is Baker, and I am the inventor of the Eureky rat-trap, a sample copy of which I hold here on my left hand, and I think I can safely say that——” “Sir, this is unpardonable!” she exclaimed, pushing back. “I didn’t have an introduction to ye, of course,” he replied, holding the trap up higher: “but business is business, you know. Let me sell you a Eureky trap, and make ye happy for life; I warrant this trap to——” “Sir, I shall call the captain!” she interrupted, turning pale with rage. “Does _he_ want a trap?” eagerly inquired the man. “Such impudence deserves the horsewhip!” screamed the old maid, backing away. The rat-trap man went forward and found a northern invalid, who was so far gone that he could hardly speak above a whisper. “Ailing, eh?” queried the trapper. The invalid nodded. “Wall, I won’t say that my Eureky rat-trap will cure ye,” continued the man; “but this much I do say, and will swear to on a million Bibles, that it climbs the ridge-pole over any immortal vermin-booster ever yet set before——” The captain came up at this juncture, and informed the inventor that he must quit annoying passengers. “But some of ’em may want one o’ my Eureky traps,” protested the man. “Can’t help it; this is no place to sell traps.” “But this is no scrub trap—none o’ your humbugs, got up to swindle the hair right off of an innocent and confiding public.” “You hear me—put that trap up!” “I’ll put it up, of course; but then I’ll leave it to yerself if it isn’t rather Shylocky in a steamboat to charge me the reg’lar figger to Orleans, and then stop me from passing my Eureky rat-trap out to the hankerin’ public?” _C. B. Lewis_ (“_M. Quad._”) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _THE SCHOOL EXAMINATION._ THE bell tapped, and they came forth to battle. There was the line, there was the leader. The great juncture of the day was on him. Was not here the State’s official eye? Did not victory hover overhead? His reserve, the darling regiment, the flower of his army, was dressing for the final charge. There was Claude. Next him, Sidonie!—and Étienne, and Madelaine, Henri and Marcelline,—all waiting for the word—the words—of eight syllables! Supreme moment! Would any betray? Banish the thought! Would any fail?