* * * * * ANECDOTE.--“Guzzling Pete,” a half-witted country wight, and the town’s jest, came home one rainy Saturday night so “darkly, deeply, beautifully _blue_,” that he went to bed with his hat and boots on, and his old cotton umbrella under his arm. He got up about two o’clock the next afternoon, drunk with last night, and took his way to the meeting-house. Rev. Dr B---- was at his “17thly” in the second of six divisions of a very comprehensive body of Hopkinsian divinity, when “Guzzling Pete” entered the church with an egg in each hand. He saw as through a glass darkly, and with evident commiseration, a man in black, very red in the face, for the day was oppressively warm, who seemed to utter something with a great deal of vehemence, while a considerable number of those underneath him were fast asleep--among them Deacon C----, with his shiny-bald head leaning against the wall. Pete, unobserved by the minister, balanced his egg, and with tolerable aim plastered its contents directly above the deacon’s pate! Hearing the concussion, the worthy divine paused in his discourse, and looked daggers at the maudlin visitor. “Never mind, uncle,” exclaimed the intruder: “jest you go on a-talkin’--_I’ll keep ’em awake for you!_” By this time the congregation were thoroughly aroused. “Mr L----,” said the reverend pastor, with a seeming charity, which in his mortification he could scarcely have felt, and addressing a “tiding-man” near the door, “Mr L----, won’t you have the kindness to remove that poor creature from the aisle? I fear that he is sick.” “_Sick!_” stammered our qualmish hero, as he began to confirm the fears of the clergyman by very active symptoms; “_s-i-c-k!_--yes, and it’s enough to make a _dog_ sick to sit under such stupid preachin’ as your’n: it’s more’n I can _stand_ under! Yes, take me out--the quicker the better!” * * * * *