Sketches New and Old eBook

He went back there last week in a couple of ships of war, to prospect around the coast for a safe place for a farm where he could be quiet; but a great “tidal wave” came, and hoisted both of the ships out into one of the interior counties, and he came near losing his life.  So he has given up prospecting in a ship, and is discouraged.

Well, now he don’t know what to do.  He has tried Alaska; but the bears kept after him so much, and kept him so much on the jump, as it were, that he had to leave the country.  He could not be quiet there with those bears prancing after him all the time.  That is how he came to go to the new island we have bought—­St. Thomas.  But he is getting to think St. Thomas is not quiet enough for a man of his turn of mind, and that is why he wishes me to find out if government is likely to buy some more islands shortly.  He has heard that government is thinking about buying Porto Rico.  If that is true, he wishes to try Porto Rico, if it is a quiet place.  How is Porto Rico for his style of man?  Do you think the government will buy it?

SOME LEARNED FABLES, FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS

IN THREE PARTS

PART FIRST

HOW THE ANIMALS OF THE WOOD SENT OUT A SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION

Once the creatures of the forest held a great convention and appointed a commission consisting of the most illustrious scientists among them to go forth, clear beyond the forest and out into the unknown and unexplored world, to verify the truth of the matters already taught in their schools and colleges and also to make discoveries.  It was the most imposing enterprise of the kind the nation had ever embarked in.  True, the government had once sent Dr. Bull Frog, with a picked crew, to hunt for a northwesterly passage through the swamp to the right-hand corner of the wood, and had since sent out many expeditions to hunt for Dr. Bull Frog; but they never could find him, and so government finally gave him up and ennobled his mother to show its gratitude for the services her son had rendered to science.  And once government sent Sir Grass Hopper to hunt for the sources of the rill that emptied into the swamp; and afterward sent out many expeditions to hunt for Sir Grass, and at last they were successful—­they found his body, but if he had discovered the sources meantime, he did not let on.  So government acted handsomely by deceased, and many envied his funeral.

But these expeditions were trifles compared with the present one; for this one comprised among its servants the very greatest among the learned; and besides it was to go to the utterly unvisited regions believed to lie beyond the mighty forest—­as we have remarked before.  How the members were banqueted, and glorified, and talked about!  Everywhere that one of them showed himself, straightway there was a crowd to gape and stare at him.