OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

A SLEEPING-CAR SERENADE.

Not long ago I had to travel by the night-express from Montreal to New York, and feeling drowsy about eleven o'clock, presented my claim for a lower berth in the car paradoxically designated "sleeping," and tantalizingly named "palace," with sanguine hopes of obtaining a refreshing snooze. Knowing from experience the aberrations of mind peculiar to travelers roused from sleep, by which they are impelled to get off at way-stations, I secured my traps against the contingencies liable to unchecked baggage, and creeping into the back of the sepulchral shelf called a bed, I enveloped myself after the fashion of Indian squaws and Egyptian mummies, and fell asleep.

I do not know whether the noise and concussion of the cars excite the same sort of dreams in every one's cranium as they do in mine, but they almost invariably produce in my brain mental phenomena of a pugnacious character, which are nothing modified by palace cars and steel rails. This particular night there was a perfect revelry of dreams in my brain. I was on the frontier with our corps, engaged in a glorious hand-to-hand conflict with men our equals in number and valor. We were having the best of it, giving it to them hot and heavy, crash! through the beggars' skulls, and plunge! into their abominable abdominal regions. "No quarter!" It was a pity, but it seemed splendid.

Bang! roared an Armstrong gun, as I thought, close to my ear: down went a whole column of the enemy like a flash, as I awoke to find it a dream, alas! and the supposed artillery nothing more or less than one of those sharp, gurgling snorts produced during inspiration in the larynx of a stout Jewish gentleman, who had in some mysterious way got on the outer half of my shelf during my sleep, and whose ancient descent was clearly defined in the side view I immediately obtained of the contour and size of his nose. I had got one of my arms out from under the covering, and found I had "cut left" directly upon the prominent proboscis of my friend—a passage of arms that materially accelerated his breathing, and awoke him to the fact that though he had a nose sufficiently large to have entitled him to Napoleon's consideration for a generalship had he lived in the days of that potentate, yet there was something unusual on the end of it, which was far too large for a pimple and rather heavy for a fly. Perhaps it induced a nightmare, and deluded him into the belief that he had been metamorphosed into an elephant, and hadn't become accustomed to his trunk. It puzzled me to know how or why he had been billeted on my palatial shelf, for the whole of which I had paid; but as it was rather a cold night, and there was something respectable in the outline of that Roman nose, I turned my back on him and determined to accept the situation, soothing myself with the reflection that if I repeated the assault upon his nose, such an accident must be excused as a fortuitous result of his unauthorized intrusion.

I had just got freshly enveloped in the "honey-dew of slumber" when my compagnon de voyage began to snore, and in the most unendurable manner, the effect of which was nothing improved by his proximity. It seemed to penetrate every sense and sensation of my body, and to intensify the extreme of misery which I had begun to endure in the hard effort to sleep. His snore was a medley of snuffing and snorting, with an abortive demi-semi aristocratic sort of a sneeze; while to add to the effect of this three-stringed inspiration there was in each aspiration a tremulous and swooning neigh. I had been reading The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man for several previous days, and began to think I had discovered some wandering Jewish lost link between man and the monkey, and that I actually had him or it for a bedfellow; but by the dim light of the car-lamps I managed to see his hands, which had orthodox nails. I was now thoroughly awake, and found myself the victim of a perfect bedlam of snorers from one end of the car to the other, making a concatenation of hideous noises only to be equaled by a menagerie; though, to give the devil his due, a earful of wild animals would never make such an uproar when fast asleep.

It is a well-known fact that when one's ears prick up at night and find the slightest noise an obstacle to slumber, after much tossing and turning, and some imprecating, tired Nature will finally succumb from sheer exhaustion: she even conquers the howling of dogs holding converse with the moon and the cater-wauling of enamored cats. Cats, and even cataracts, I have defied, but of all noises to keep a sober man awake I know of none to take the palm from the snoring in that car. There seemed to be a bond of sympathy, too, among the snorers, for those who did not snore were the only ones who did not sleep.

The varieties of sound were so intensely ridiculous that at first I found it amusing to listen to the performance. A musical ear might have had novel practice by classifying the intonations. The war-whooping snore of my bedfellow changed at times into a deep and mellow bass. To the right of us, on the lower shelf, was a happy individual indulging in all the variations of a nervous treble of every possible pitch: his was an inconstant falsetto in sound and cadence. Above him snored one as if he had a metallic reed in his larynx that opened with each inhalation: his snore struck me as a brassy alto. The tenors were distributed at such distances as to convey to my ears all the discord of an inebriated band of cracked fifes and split bagpipes playing snatches of different tunes. There were snores that beggar description, that seemed to express every temperament and every passion of the human soul. I cannot forget one a couple of berths off, which seemed to rise above the mediocrity of snores, mellowing into a tenderness like the dying strains of an echo, and renewing its regular periods with a highbred dignity which Nature had clearly not assumed. Another broke away from the harsh notes around in soft diapasons, and with a mellifluous soprano which I instinctively knew must belong to a throat that could sing. Was it Nilsson? Just over my head was a jerky croak of a snore, sounding at intervals of half a minute, as if it had retired on half-pay and longed to get back into active service.

It occurred to me, when amid these paroxysms of turmoil I heard a very fair harmony between the bass of my bedfellow and the tenor of a sleeper in the next berth, that if a Gilmore could take snores, into training, and by animal magnetism or mesmerism manage to make them snore in concert and by note—

we should have a diverting performance in sleeping-cars, and one objection to their use would be actually utilized as an extra inducement to patronize them.

Several times I was strongly impelled to shunt my bass snorer off the bed or twig his Roman nose, but one experiment of a kick roused such a vigorous snort, like that produced by dropping a brick on a sleeping pig, that I abandoned such physical means of retaliation. I thought of tickling his nose with a feather or a straw, but the bed contained neither, and I had not even a pin. And supposing I should stop my shelf-mate, what could I do to suppress the rest? Should I make some horrible noise between a hoarse cough and a crow, and say, if any one complained, that it was my way of snoring? But I thought that the object to be attained, and the possibility of being voted insane and consigned, in spite of protestation, to the baggage-car, would not compensate me for the exertion required; so I determined to submit to it like a Stoic. (Query: Would a Stoic have submitted?)

The more one meditates upon the reason of wakefulness, the more his chances of sleep diminish; and from this cause, conjoined with the peculiarity of the situation and the mood in which I found myself, I had surely "affrighted sleep" for that night. As I lay awake I indulged in the following mental calculation of my misery to coax a slumber: The average number of inspirations in a minute is fifteen—remember, snoring is an act of the inspiration—the number of hours I lay awake was six. Fifteen snores a minute make nine hundred an hour. Multiply 900 by 6—the number of hours I lay awake—and you have 5400, the number of notes struck by each snorer. There were at least twelve distinct and regular snorers in the car. Multiply 5400 by 12, and you have 64,800 snores, not including the snuffling neighs, perpetrated in that car from about eleven P. M. until five the next morning!

The question follows: "Can snoring be prevented?" It is plainly a nuisance, and ought to be indictable. I have heard of the use of local stimulants, such as camphire and ammonia—how I longed for the sweet revenge of holding a bottle of aqua ammonia under that Roman nose!—and also of clipping the uvula, which may cause snoring by resting on the base of the tongue. The question demands the grave consideration of our railroad managers; for while the traveling public do not object to a man snoring the roof off if he chooses to do it under his own vine and fig tree, tired men and women have a right to expect a sleep when they contract for it. Is there no lover of sleep and litigation who will prosecute for damages?

There is a prospect, however, of a balm in Gilead. An ingenious Yankee—a commercial traveler—has invented and patented an instrument made of gutta percha, to be fitted to the nose, and pass from that protuberance to the tympanum of the ear. As soon as the snorer begins the sound is carried so perfectly to his own ear, and all other sounds so well excluded, that he awakens in terror. The sanguine inventor believes that after a few nights' trial the wearer will become so disgusted with his own midnight serenading that his sleep will become as sound and peaceable as that of a suckling baby.

And yet there is nothing vulgar in snoring. Chesterfield did it, and so did Beau Brummell, and they were the two last men in the world to do anything beyond the bounds of propriety, awake or asleep, if they could help it. Plutarch tells us that the emperor Otho snored; so did Cato; so did George II., and also George IV., who boasted that he was "the first gentleman in Europe." Position has nothing to do with cause and effect in snoring, as there are instances on record of soldiers snoring while standing asleep in sentry-boxes; and I have heard policemen snore sitting on doorsteps, waiting to be wakened by the attentive "relief." We may be sure Alain Chartier did not snore when Margaret of Scotland stooped down and kissed him while he was asleep, or young John Milton when the highborn Italian won from him a pair of gloves; though it did not lessen the ardor of philosophical Paddy, when he coaxingly sang outside of his true love's window—

Shure, I know by the length of your snore you're awake.

But really, I don't know whether women do snore. I'm not sure that the mellifluous soprano snore in the car was Nilsson's, and Paddy may have been joking. I know that only male frogs croak.

W.G.B.

FABLES FOR THE YOUTH.

THE LION AND THE FOX. The Lion and the Fox once traveled in company. Upon their coming to a public-house, it was agreed that the former should go in and get a dinner, while Master Reynard kept watch at the door. In stalked the Lion boldly, and ordered a haunch of venison and a blood-pudding. The servant-maid, instead of fainting away, bade him throw his mane over a chair and take his ease. Locking the door as she withdrew, she sent for a policeman, and before night King Lion was snugly back in the menagerie whence he and his companion had that morning escaped.

Master Reynard, scenting what was in the wind, took to the woods and was seen no more.

Moral: This fable teaches us to beware of that pretended friendship which is specious and hollow.

THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS. The Gorilla, the Hippopotamus and the Snapping-Turtle were once upon a time partaking of a royal dinner at the table of an opulent old Oyster, when the conversation turned upon personal beauty. Each one of the guests present claimed for himself that he alone was the favorite among the ladies for his handsome form and features. As the wine had gone around freely, the discussion grew heated, and upon the suggestion of the Gorilla it was left to their host to decide between them.

In vain did Mr. Saddlerock (for that was the host's name) insist that the point was too delicate for so humble an individual as himself to presume to pass upon.

"Nay," said all three in concert, "tell us honestly what you think."

"But I may offend you," urged the bivalve.

"Oh, that were impossible," smiled the Turtle.

"Quite so," grunted the Hippopotamus.

"My dear friend," added the Gorilla with a leer, "as for myself, I am so confident of being considered an Apollo that I wish for nothing so much as your candid opinion."

"Well, gentlemen," replied Mr. Saddlerock, "since you all urge me to disclose my real sentiments, I will do so. So far from being good-looking, egad! it's hard telling which of you has the ugliest countenance! In fact, you'd better draw lots for it."

No sooner had this remark fallen from his lips than he saw his mistake. He ran to the window, jumped out and vainly attempted to climb a tall sycamore in the garden. The Gorilla, seizing him with a clutch like that of a vice, dragged him ignominiously back to the dining-hall. Here the unhappy Mr. Saddlerock was opened, and the wicked Gorilla swallowed his body in a twinkle, flinging thereafter a shell to each of the other competitors.

Moral: When the powerful quarrel, don't let yourself become mixed up with them or you may get hurt.

THE SANGUINARY DUEL. Two men fought a duel. Let us distinguish them by the names of A and B respectively. It was a real, bona-fide, powder-and-ball affair. A meant business: so did B.

It was a terrible encounter.

A had all the vocal part of his jaw shot off, and several useful portions of his epiglottis carried away. Totally unfitted for his business as auctioneer, he died some years after of dyspepsia of the brain.

B parted company with his left arm, so he was compelled to pass himself off as a disabled hero of the rebellion and accept a snug little office in the United States custom-house, where there was nothing whatever to do.

That is all.

The dispute grew out of something A had said about B. B said A said that B said something, and B said he hadn't said it.

Moral: Don't duel.

THE DOG AND THE SPARE-RIB. A mastiff crossing a bridge, and bearing in his mouth a piece of meat, suddenly swallowed the meat. He immediately observed that the shadow of the aforesaid meat in the water had disappeared.

Such is optics.

Moral: We learn from this fable that life is but a shadow.

THE ASS AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. A donkey one day was quietly munching thistles when he heard the screaming whistle of a locomotive. Pricking up his ears, he started into a gallop and raced across lots with his tail high in the air.

Moral: This fable teaches what an ass he was.

THE MOUSE AND THE CAT. A mouse once peeped from his hole and saw a cat. The cat was looking the other way, and happened not to see the mouse.

Nobody killed.

Moral: This little fable doesn't teach anything.

SARSFIELD YOUNG.

A PICTURE WITH A HISTORY

In a number of Punch for February, 1873, in the account of "Our Representative Man's" visit to the Exhibition of Old Masters, occurs the following sentence: "No 35. Oh, Miss Linley (afterward Mrs. Sheridan), oh how lovely you are! Oh, Thomas Gainsborough, oh, Thomas Gainsborough, oh! And if Baron Lionel de Rothschild, M.P., ever wishes to offer a testimonial to one who knows nothing whatever about him, and for no particular object, let him send this picture, carriage paid, to the residence of your representative, who as his petitioner will never cease to pray at convenient seasons, etc."

It was at the death of General Bouverie, grandson of Mrs. Sheridan's friend, that her picture was sold, a few months ago, to Baron Rothschild; and a romance might well be woven out of the circumstances which caused this painting to be removed from the place which it had so long occupied in the library of Delapre Abbey.

Delapre Abbey is a stately mansion occupying ground once covered by a monastery, of which the only remains serve as offices of the more modern edifice. Approaching the ancient borough of Northampton by the old London road, you observe on your left, about a mile from the town, a beautiful specimen—one of the only three remaining—of the crosses which a king of England raised to commemorate the places where his beloved wife's body rested on her last journey to Westminster. It lay one night at the abbey, and, whilst that is almost obliterated, the cross remains almost perfect after centuries have elapsed, and served mainly as the model for that which has recently been erected close to Charing Cross, where formerly another of these memorials marked the last halt of the royal funereal cortege.

Mr. Edward Bouverie had several sons, and on the marriage of the eldest Delapre Abbey and the estates attached to it were, in conformity to common usage in England, settled upon the children of this marriage, and, failing issue, on the general's younger brothers and their sons in succession. The general's marriage proved childless, his next brother also left no issue, and at length no son remained but a certain somewhat ne'er-do-weel, Frank.

Frank was an officer in the army. Whilst quartered in the north of Ireland he had fallen in love with a girl beneath him in station, and, greatly to the disgust of his family, married her. His father, who was deeply imbued with aristocratic prejudices, ceased to hold intercourse with him, and except that occasional communications passed between him and his mother, his relations with his family ceased. At length he died, and as it became evident that his brothers would never have children, Frank's son was obviously the heir. Under these circumstances the family offered terms to the mother if she would give up her son altogether and consent to his being bred a Protestant. These overtures she declined. The advice of leading lawyers was then sought, but they declared that the settlement of the property could not by any possibility be set aside. Meanwhile the case suddenly assumed a new aspect.

About twelve years ago a lady of prodigious energy and perseverance made her appearance in the law courts of London, who was bent on proving the legitimacy of her grandfather. By "much wearying" she prevailed upon Lord Brougham to introduce a bill which became known as the "Legitimacy Declaration Act." By the provisions of this measure a person who believes himself heir to a property may cite all persons interested to come in at once and show cause why he should not be adjudged rightful heir and representative of a given person and estate.

On the other hand, ample testimony was adduced to show that Frank Bouverie, notwithstanding his wife's irregularity of conduct, had always regarded the boy as his son and heir; and one witness told how the father had held the little fellow up to look at the picture of his ancestral home, and said, "All that will one day be yours." So the Bouveries' case broke down entirely, and the ex-private soldier, ex-policeman, stepped into the fine old mansion of Delapre with sixty thousand dollars a year. It is satisfactory to be able to add that he has always borne an excellent character, and seems likely to duly take his place as a country gentleman. Of course nothing but the bare fabric and land came to him: the personalty was all left to his aunt, the general's widow, an old lady near ninety, who yet survives; and it was by her direction that the famous Linley picture once more changed hands.

HINTS FOR NOVEL-WRITERS.

"Constance," said Philip to his sister, "I have got on very well with my novel. I have written fifty pages, described my hero and heroine, made them thoroughly in love with each other; and now I intend to part them for a season, without letting them be certain of the state of each other's heart. I think narrative my forte, but it will not do to have no conversations, and my dialogues seem so short and trite. Do look over this:

"'Helena. Your letter has arrived, I see.'

"'Bertram. Yes, I have just read it.'

"'H. Well?'

"'B. It says I must delay no longer.'

"'H. When shall you start?'

"'B. Tomorrow, at the latest.'

"'H. Have you told my aunt?'

"'B. Not yet: I must do it now.'

"'H. Shall you go direct to London?'

"'B. No: I stop one night at the Grange.'

"'H. Oh, then I will ask you to be the bearer of my letter.'

"'B. Is that all you will permit me to do for you?'

"'H. I am careful not to burden my friends.'

"'B. Then you have no belief in true friendship.'"

"Well, Philip, let me try whilst you are at the office, and see what I can suggest:

"'Your letter has arrived, I see,' said Helena, turning as Bertram entered, letter in hand.

"'Yes, I have just read it,' he replied, advancing and leaning his arm on the mantelpiece.

"'Well?' said Helena, stooping as if to warm her hands, but really endeavoring to shade her face.

"'It says I must delay no longer,' he answered, trying to assume an air of indifference.

"'When shall you start?' she said, resuming her work and fixing her eyes on her pattern.

"'To-morrow, at the latest,' he replied, transferring the letter to his pocket.

"'Have you told my aunt?' she said, searching her work-basket for her scissors.

"'Not yet: I must do it now,' he said, putting back the little ornament his elbow had displaced.

"'Shall you go direct to London?' she said, trying to disentangle a skein of colored yarn.

"'No: I stop one night at the Grange,' he said quietly, but with an air of decision.

"'Then I will ask you to be the bearer of my letter,' she added, laying down her work as she spoke.

"'Is that all you will permit me to do for you?' he asked anxiously.

"'Oh, I never burden my friends,' she said, raising her head and tossing back her curls.

"'Then you have no belief in true friendship,' he answered in a tone of bitterness."

"That is pretty good," said Constance to herself, "but I will take these two young people out of doors: perhaps Philip may be better pleased:

"'Your letter has arrived, I see,' said Helena, advancing as Bertram opened the garden gate.

"'Yes, I have just read it,' he replied as he secured the fastening.

"'Well?' said Helena, taking the path to the house.

"'It says I must delay no longer,' he replied, proffering her a bunch of wild-flowers he had gathered in his walk.

"'When shall you start?' said Helena, turning away to pluck some rosebuds, which she added to her bouquet.

"'Tomorrow, at the latest,' he answered, flinging aside roughly a branch that crossed his path.

"'Have you told my aunt?' said Helena, tying the strings of her hat.

"'No: I must do it now,' he said, holding out his hand to relieve her of her parasol as they entered the shady avenue.

"'Shall you go direct to London?' she asked hurriedly.

"'No: I stop one night at the Grange,' he said, inviting her by a gesture to take a seat upon a rustic bench.

"'Oh, then I will ask you to be the bearer of my letter,' she said, quickening her steps lest he should perceive her emotion.

"'Is that all you will permit me to do for you?' he said, with more feeling than he had yet permitted himself to show.

"'Yes: I am careful not to burden my friends,' she added, drawing her mantle round her and speaking in a tone of irony.

"'Then you do not believe in true friendship,' he replied as they reached the house, and with a heightened color he threw back the hall door and made way for her to enter."