condition of those institutions of learning that are less favorably situated.  The only case of sickness that has occurred since my arrival, and for a long time previously, was that of my room-mate and friend, Richard Gillander, whose father has recently purchased an estate in our neighborhood, principally on account of the salubrity of our climate.  But Richard had doubtless contracted the disease, which was of an intermittent character, at his former school, which was the Riverbank Classical Academy, at Swamptown.  Our kind preceptor allowed Richard to return to his father’s house until his health should be entirely restored.  He is now decidedly convalescent, and has written me an urgent invitation to visit him on Saturday next.  As this invitation is corroborated by a letter from Mr. Gillander to our preceptor, I should be much pleased to accept it, with your approval.  If you have no objection to this arrangement, therefore, I will thank you to enclose me one dollar by mail, as the railway fare to Richard’s home amounts to nearly this sum.

“Hoping for a favorable reply, and promising myself the pleasure of writing you a full account of this visit one week hence,

“I remain,

My dear parent,

Your dutiful Son,

THEOPHILUS.”

This letter breathed such an air of lofty morality that I was quite overcome.  I enclosed the required dollar, of course, and wrote a line to Doctor STUFFEM complimenting him upon the manifest improvement in his pupil.  I am looking with some anxiety for the promised letter recounting the incidents of the projected visit, and have some misgivings induced by Master DICK’S hints concerning the gun, powderhorn, and percussion-caps.  I infer, however, from the last letter, that such a change has been wrought upon THEOPHILUS, that he will probably spend his holiday in reciting moral apothegms to his friend and “room-mait.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  SEVERE.

Irascible old Gent (to garrulous barber). “SHOO!  SHOO!—­WHY DON’T YOU TREAT YOUR TALK AS YOU DO YOUR HAIR—­CUT IT SHORT?”]

* * * * *

SARSFIELD YOUNG’S PANORAMA.

PART III.

THE GEYSERS.

A fascinating, achromatic sketch of the Geysers of Iceland, those wonderful hydraulic volcanoes, which would readily he considered objects of the greatest natural grandeur, if the hotels in the neighborhood were only a little better kept and more judiciously advertised.  Before these stupendous hot-water works the spectator stands aghast, and boils his egg in fourteen seconds, by a stop-watch.

It would seem as though the poet’s invocation,

   “Come, gentle spring! ethereal mildness, come,”

were somewhat rudely answered, for the spring comes with a noise like thunder, bringing with it “ethereal mildness” at the rate of ten thousand gallons a minute.  It has been calculated that there is thrown out annually water enough to supply all the hot whiskey punches that are required during that time in the State of Maine alone.  Old sailors say it reminds them of a whale fastened alongside their ship—­it is a Seething Tide.