A Peculiar Case.

season I made out from my records that Cyrus had been called to moum the loss of nine extinct grandmothers in three months ; but has his moral tegument Avas impervious to protestation , I never charged upon him , face to face , his pretended unnatural supply

of female relations . ( Ovid alludes to Bacchus as " t-nrice born , " —bis geniti but all such natal exaggerations are abhorent to credulity . ) There are those whose minds are always on the wrong side of any subject

presented to them . Of such was the boy Cyrus in an eminent degree , for his mind was ever in that wandering state which precludes the possibility of lodging an idea within an acre or two of its blundering precints . He dwelt in an atmosphere

beclouded with carelessness , and so he comprehended everything in an opposite light from the true one . He paused when he should have gone on , and moved rapidly ( for

him ) when he should have ceased motion . His manners Avere preposterous in their illimitable absurdity . When I begged him one day to step forward quickly and hold a friend ' s horse that was restive at the door , he leisurely observed " he was not-agoin ' to spring for anybody ! " ( Cyrus on a spring

Avould have been a sight Avorth seeing . ) Being in the habit of bursting into my private room to ask irrelevant questions , at all hours , without the formality of knocking , I hinted mildly to him that it Avas the custom to knock before entering

another ' s apartment . He stared at my suggested act of propriety for a moment , and then blurted out the remark that for his part he did ' nt " see wot good that would do , but he AVOUIC ! give a thump next time . " Accordingly Avhen he had occasion to come again to iny door , he pounded vigorously on it Avith the heel of his heavy boot .

" Who ' s there f I inquired . " Cyrus J . Muchmore ! " he shouted in a voice that set all the crockery dancing on the adjacent shelves , and " woke the neighbouring cliffs around . " Laziness Avas his foible . He had that unpleasant qualitin its condition .

y supreme The throne of indolence was vacaut on our coast until Cyrus lulled forward and fell into it . He was own brother to the snail , and no relation Avhatever to the ant . Even his

cautious father , discoursing of him one day , acknowledged that " the boy was rather chicken-hearted about work , " Unaided locomotion Avas distasteful to him . If sent on an errand to the next cottage , he waited , patiently for an opportunity to transfer himself bodily into the tail-end of

somebody's passin g waggon , considering it better to be thus assisted along than to assume the responsibility of moving for-Avard on his oAvn legs . He spared himself all the fatigue possible to mortality , and overcame labour by constantlling in

y y wait for " a lift , " as he called it . He was the only sea-side stripling I ever met Avho escheAved fishing . Most boys are devotees of the rod and line , but Cyrus was an exception . The necessary anterior search for bait was too much for his inertia .

Clam and worm might lie for ever undisturbed , so far as he was concerned . His dilatory habit rose sometimes to the audacity of genius . He could consume more hours in going a mile to the village post office and returning Avith the mail than one would credit , unless his gait came under personal observation . We took a kind of exasperated delight as we used to

watch him tz-aihng along the ground , and we felt a fresh wonder every day at his poAver of SIOAV procedure . It seemed a gift , an endowment , now for the first time vouchsafed to mortal inertness . The caterpillar would have been too rapid for him , he Avould lose in a race Avith that dull

groundling . He seemed to be counting myriads of something in the road . When he cautiously ancl laboriously lifted up one foot , it seemed an eternity before the other folloAved it . He would frequently drop asleep in getting over a stone walland his

, recumbent figure was imprinted under all the trees by the road-side . He hated action , except at meals , There he astonished the cook , who complained after his advent into our kitchen that " one pair of hands could ' nt provide enough for such

a commomnk , " and advised us to have him " examined ! " She accused him of " always a-georging of hisself . " She averred that Avhen he was helping her shell peas he ate up all but the pods during the operation ; and she declared that if she took her eyes off him as he moved from the pantry , he devoured as he went , to use her own words , " like an army of locusses ! "