Tom?-Tom, you come here; I shall want you to hand me up the picture."

And then he would lift up the picture, and drop it, and it would come out of the frame, and he would try to save the glass, and cut himself; and then he would spring round the room, looking for his handkerchief. He could not find his handkerchief, because it was in the pocket of the coat he had taken off, and he did not know where he had put the coat, and all the house had to leave off looking for his tools and start looking for his coat; while he would dance round and hinder them.

"Doesn't anybody in the whole house know where my coat is? I never came across such a set in my lifeupon my word I didn't. Six of you!-and you can't find a coat that I put down not five minutes ago! Well, of all the

Then he'd get up, and find he had been sitting on it, and would call out:

"Oh, you can give it up! I've found it myself now. Might just as well ask the coat to find anything as expect you people to find it."

And, when half an hour had been spent in tying up his finger, and a new glass had been got, and the tools, and the ladder, and the chair, and the candle had been brought, he would have another go, the whole family, including the girl and the scrub-woman, standing round in a semicircle, ready to help. Two people would have to hold the chair, and a third would help him upon it, and hold him there, and a fourth would hand him a nail and a fifth would pass him up the hammer, and he would take hold of the nail, and drop it.

"There!" he would say, in an injured tone, "now the nail's gone."

And we would all have to go down on our knees and grovel for it, while he would stand on the chair, and grunt, and want to know if he was to be kept there all the evening.

The nail would be found at last, and by that time he wou'd have lost the hammer.

"Where's the hammer? What did I do with the hammer? Seven of you, gaping round there, and you don't know what I did with the hammer!"

We would find the hammer for him, and then he would have lost sight of the mark he had made on the wall, where the nail was to go in, and each of us had to get up on a chair, beside him, and see if we could find it; and we would each discover it in a different place, and he would call us all fools, one after another, and tell us to get down. And he would take the rule, and remeasure, and find that he wanted half of thirty-one and three-eighths inches from the corner, and would try to do it in his head, and go mad.

And we would all try to do it in our heads, and all arrive at different results, and sneer at one another. And in the general row, the original number would be forgotten, and Uncle Podger would have to measure it again.

He would use a bit of string this time, and at the critical moment, when the old fool was leaning over the chair at an angle of forty-five, and trying to reach a point three inches beyond what was possible for him to reach, the string would slip, and down he would slide on to the piano, a really fine musical effect being produced by the suddenness with which his head and body struck all the notes at the same time.

And Aunt Maria would say that she would not allow the children to stand round and hear such language.

At last, Uncle Podger would get the spot fixed again, and put the point of the nail on it with his left hand, and take the hammer in his right hand. And, with the first blow, he would smash his thumb, and drop the hammer, with a yell, on somebody's toes.

Aunt Maria would mildly observe that, next time Uncle Podger was going to hammer a nail into the wall, she hoped he'd let her know in time so that she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother while it was being done.

“Oh! you women, you make such a fuss over every

thing," Uncle Podger would reply, picking himself up. "Why I like doing a little job of this sort."

And then he would have another try, and, at the second blow, the nail would go clean through the plaster, and half the hammer after it, and Uncle Podger be precipitated against the wall with force nearly sufficient to flatten his nose.

Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was made; and, about midnight, the picture would be up very crooked and secure, the wall for yards round looking as if it had been smoothed down with a rake, and everybody dead beat and wretched except Uncle Podger.

"There you are," he would say, stepping heavily off the chair on to the scrub-woman's corns, and surveying the mess he had made with evident pride. "Why, some people would have had a man in to do a little thing like that!"

THE MEN WHO DO NOT LIFT.

The world is sympathetic; the statement none can doubt. When A's in trouble don't we think that B should help him out?

Of course we haven't time ourselves to care for any one,
But yet we hope that other folks will see that it is done.
We want the grief and penury of earth to be relieved;
We'd have the battles grandly fought, the victories achieved;
We do not care to take the lead, and stand the brush and
brunt;

At lifting we're a failure, but we're splendid on the grunt.

And there are others, so we find, as on our way we jog, Who want to do their lifting on the small end of the log; They do a lot of blowing, and they strive to make it known That were there no one else to help, they'd lift it all alone. If talking were effective, there are scores and scores of men Who'd move a mountain off its base and move it back again. But as a class, to state it plain, in language true and blunt, They're never worth a cent to lift, for all they do is grunt.

LOTTY'S MESSAGE.-ALEXANDER G. MURDOCH.

Can you listen a heart-thrilling story
Of pathos, and passion, and sin,-

A tale of the tragical sorrow

That comes of the liking for gin?
Your ear, then, good friends, and I'll tell it,
In just as plain words as I can,

How honest Jack Drew was a drunkard,
And how he became a new man.

For Jack was a right honest fellow,

And handsome and stalwart, as true,—
A forgeman, who wrought a Steam Hammer,
And a large weekly "pay-bill" he drew;
So Jack, like his fellows, got married,
And had in good time a wee "tot,"
A sweet little flaxen-haired darling
As ever fell to a man's lot.

'Twas Lotty they called her-" Wee Lotty
And well was the darling caressed,
Till the passion for drink, like a demon,
Killed all the sweet love in his breast;
For Jack, who was once a good husband,
As never was known to go wrong,
Began to dip into the "strong stuff,"
And the end, you may guess, wasn't long.

And Lotty's poor mother, alas, sirs,

Now that her "dear Jack" was astray,
Broke down in the fight to make ends meet,
And passed straight to heaven away!
And Jack for a moment was sobered,

And drew himself back from the brink
Whereon he'd been reeling in madness,-
The horrible hell-pit of drink!

But, alas for the heart's human weakness!
And, alas for the power that's in gin!
Jack went back, like a tiger unsated,

To drink down the horror within!

Oh, the fires of remorse that now wrung him!
That scorched both his heart and his brain!
The regrets for the wrongs done his lost wife,
He'd never on earth see again!

Ah: 'twas Lotty he now had to live for,
If only the demon of drink

Would loosen the bands that enslaved him
And free him to work and to think!
For Lotty, neglected wee Lotty,

She, too, was fast wearing away

To the land where her mother had gone to,
Two years since, last Christmas day.

81

Well, one night in the depth of wild winter,
When snow lay on house-top and street,
Jack came home with fierce fire in his sunk eyes,
His face gone as white as a sheet;
"Lotty, get me a copper on these, lass!

And hurry up! quick! or I'm done!
The 'Pawns' will be shut in a minute,
And to get you in time, lass, I've run!”

And he handed poor Lotty her wee boots,—
The only good pair she had got;

"Oh, father, the Sunday School Soiree,

Next week!" and she smiled at the thought. "Curse the Sunday School Soiree! Be quick, child! Run, run the whole way all your might; I must have more drink, or, God help me, The river will have me to-night!"

"Hush, father! don't speak so! I'll go! yes,
I'll run as I ne'er ran before.

Though weak with a touch of the fever-”
"Off! make yourself scarce! out the door!"
So the poor child-ill-clad and sore ailing,
Slow dying of want and despair-
Ran out on the cold snows barefooted,
Death-pierced by the cutting night-air.

Oh, 'twas vexing to Lotty! Just think on't!
Her wee Sunday boots thus to go,

To furnish the gin that was killing

The love that her childhood should know; And the Children's Soiree she had dreamed of,

No longer in hope to be hers!

Oh, that drink should tear worse than a tiger!
Yet that is the truth of it, sirs.

But Lotty ran hard with the "off"ring,"
As hard and as fast as she could,