the British public look upon the Royal Family, and a sensation of relief cum over my mind as I thought if I once entered their ground no one dared foiler me.  So I gin a spring and leaped right atop of the middle chimny.  Owin’ to private considerations, I did’nt mind the soot, but I clambered down, and there I was, to my amazement, rite in the private apartments of the Queen.  She was sittin’ at a table lookin’ at a dogerotipe of Prince Albert; and I walked straight up to her, not feel in’ a bit afeared, and making my manners, axed her if I didn’t resemble the Prince?—­rememberin’ that the preacher had kindly said over my coffin that “there was no distinction in the grave.”

I thought that as I was a pooty gay image of Death, I might remind her of the “Prince Consort.”

She looked up kinder sideways as I spoke, but she must have bin a leetle hard o’ hearing, for she shook her head.

Then I thought I’d try her on another tack.  So I placed my hands on my shakey knees, and bendin’ over in this guise, so she could see me plainly, while my teeth rattled in my skull as I shook my head at her and growled: 

“Haint you afeared of me, Madam?” With the pirsistent obstinacy of the feminine gender, she refused to notice me.  So I thought she was kinder “set up on her pins,” and I shouted louder: 

“Victoria Brown!  Aint you afeared of me?  Aint you afeared I’ll tell Prince Albert of your dooins?”

At that she gin an awful yell, and flung herself down upon a yaller satin divan, trimed with gold, and slobbered it all over with tears.

I know’d then I had a “mission to perform,” and that my fleshless bones were not given me for useless pleasure, but as a “warnin’ to my race.”

Arter this adventer I left the palace as I had entered it, “leavin’ not a trace behind me.”

Since that affair, I have bin goin’ about “doin’ good,” frightnin’ the wicked into fits, and follerin’ in the steps of the parsen, and thus working my way out of Purgatory.

LECTER II.

ARTEMUS WARD.—­OUT OF PURGATORY.

Relatives and nabors,—­Thinkin’ you’ll, like to know whether I’d bin roastin’ in brimstone, along with Solomen and Lot’s wife, and that you might feel consarned to know sumthin’ about my further adventers, I’ll continoo.

One mornin’ soon after this, havin’ spent a restless nite, I was thinkin’ what I had best do, when I seed, cumin’ rite out of a big marble edifice, a nice little woman about as raw-boned as myself.  As she carried an open paper in her hand which was certified to by two bishops and three clergeymen that she’d bin baptised and her sins washed away, I felt it would be safe for me to foller her, knowin’ I had no such dockerment to admit me into the good graces of Abraham or Peter, or whatever porter might keep the gates of Paradise.

She seemed kinder skeered and tremblin’ like for a minit, not knowin’ what to do; then with a sudden start she spread herself out just like the eagel of Ameriky, and soared rite up into the sky with nothin’ to histe her by.  I felt in my heart to foller her, and spread out just as she did, keeping near her on the sly.