rally felt ineffably indignant that an individual who had never seen any collection of human habitations larger than a log-house village-an individual, in short, no other or better than Bob Smith should venture to express an opinion concerning the manners, customs, or anything else appertaining to, or in any wise connected with, the ultima Thule of backwoods Georgians. There were two propositions which witnessed their own truth to the mind of Mr. Suggs-the one was, that a man who had never been at Augusta could not know any thing about that city, or any place, or any thing else; the other, that one who had been there must, of necessity, not only be well informed as to all things connected with the city itself, but perfectly au fait upon all subjects whatsoever. It was, therefore, in a tone of mingled indignation and contempt that he replied to the last remark of Simon.

"Bob Smith says, does he? And who's Bob Smith? Much does Bob Smith know about Augusty! he's been thar, I reckon! Slipped off yerly some mornin', when nobody warn't noticin', and got back afore night! It's only a hundred and fifty mile. Oh, yes, Bob Smith knows all about it! I don't know nothin' about it! I a'n't never been to Augusty-I couldn't find the road thar, I reckon-ha! ha! Bob-Smi-th! The eternal stink! if he was only to see one o' them fine gentlemen in Augusty, with his fine broad-cloth, and bell-crown hat, and shoe-boots a-shinin' like silver, he'd take to the woods and kill himself a-runnin'. Bob Smith! that's whar all your devilment comes from, Simon."

"Bob Smith's as good as anybody else, I judge; and a heap smarter than some. He showed me how to cut Jack," continued Simon, "and that's more nor some people can do," if they have been to Augusty."

"If Bob Smith kin do it," said the old man, "I kin, too. I don't know it by that name; but if it's book knowledge or plain sense, and Bob kin do it, it's reasonable to s'pose that old Jed'diah Suggs won't be bothered bad. Is it any ways similyar to the rule of three, Simon?"

"Pretty much, daddy, but not adzactly," said Simon, drawing a pack from his pocket, to explain. "Now daddy," he proceeded, "you see these here four cards is what we calls the Jacks. Well, now the idee is, if you'll take the pack and mix 'em all up

together, I'll take off a passel from top, and the bottom one of them I take off will be one of the Jacks."

"Me to mix 'em fust?" said old Jed'diah.

"Yes."

"And you not to see but the back of the top one, when you

go to 'cut,' as you call it ?"

"Jist so, daddy."

"And the backs all jist as like as can be?" said the senior Suggs, examining the cards.

"More alike nor cow-peas," said Simon.

"It can't be done, Simon," observed the old man,

solemnity.

"Bob Smith kin do it, and so kin I."

with great

"It's agin nater, Simon; thar a'n't a man in Augusty, nor on top of the yeath that kin do it!"

"Daddy," said our hero, "ef you'll bet me-"

"What!" thundered old Mr. Suggs. "Bet, did you say?' and he came down with a scorer across Simon's shoulders—" me, Jed'diah Suggs, that's been in the Lord's sarvice these twenty years-me bet, you nasty, sassy, triflin' ugly-”

"I didn't go to say that, daddy; that warn't what I meant adzactly. I went to say that ef you'd let me off from this here maulin' you owe me, and give me Bunch,' ef I cut Jack, I'd give you all this here silver, ef I didn't-that's all. To be sure, I allers knowed you wouldn't bet."

Old Mr. Suggs ascertained the exact amount of the silver which his son handed him, in an old leathern pouch, for inspection. He also, mentally, compared that sum with an imaginary one, the supposed value of a certain Indian pony, called "Bunch," which he had bought for his "old woman's" Sunday riding, and which had sent the old lady into a fence corner, the first and only time she ever mounted him. As he weighed the pouch of silver in his hand, Mr. Suggs also endeavored to analyze the character of the transaction proposed by Simon. "It sartinly can't be nothin' but givin', no way it kin be twisted," he murmured to himself. "I know he can't do it, so there's no resk. What makes bettin'? The resk. It's a one-sided business, and I'll jist let him give me all his money, and that'll put all his wild sportin' notions out of his head."

"Will you stand it, daddy?" asked Simon, by way of waking

the old man up.

"You mought as well, for the whippin' won't do you no good, and as for Bunch, nobody about the plantation won't ride him but me."

"Simon," replied the old man, "I agree to it. Your old daddy is in a close place about payin' for his land; and this here money -it's jist eleven dollars, lacking of twenty-five cents-will help out mightily. But mind, Simon, ef anything's said about this, herearter, remember, you give me the money."

"Very well, daddy; and ef the thing works up instid o' down, I s'pose we'll say you give me Bunch-eh?”

"You won't never be troubled to tell how you come by Bunch; the thing's agin nater, and can't be done. What old Jed'diah Suggs knows, he knows as good as anybody. Give me them fixments, Simon."

Our hero handed the cards to his father, who, dropping the plough-line with which he had intended to tie Simon's hands, turned his back to that individual, in order to prevent his witnessing the operation of mixing. He then sat down, and very leisurely commenced shuffling the cards, making, however, an exceedingly awkward job of it. Restive kings and queens jumped from his hands, or obstinately refused to slide into the company of the rest of the pack. Occasionally a sprightly knave would insist on facing his neighbor; or, pressing his edge against another's, half double himself up, and then skip away. But Elder Jed'diah perseveringly continued his attempts to subdue the refractory, while heavy drops burst from his forehead, and ran down his cheeks. All of a sudden an idea, quick and penetrating as a rifle-ball, seemed to have entered the cranium of the old He chuckled audibly. The devil had suggested to Mr. Suggs an impromptu "stock," which would place the chances of Simon, already sufficiently slim, in the old man's opinion, without. the range of possibility. Mr. Suggs forthwith proceeded to cull out all the picter ones, so as to be certain to include the Jacks, and place them at the bottom, with the evident intention of keeping Simon's fingers above these when he should cut. Our hero, who was quietly looking over his father's shoulders all the time, did not seem alarmed by this disposition of the cards; on the contrary, he smiled as if he felt perfectly confident of success, in spite of it.

man.

"Now, daddy," said Simon, when his father had announced

himself ready, "narry one of us ain't got to look at the cards while I'm a cuttin'; if we do it'll spile the conjuration."

"Very well."

"And another thing-you've got to look me right dead in the eye, daddy-will you?"

"To be sure to be sure," said Mr. Suggs; "fire away!"

Simon walked up close to his father, and placed his hand on the pack. Old Mr. Suggs looked in Simon's eye, and Simon returned the look for about three seconds, during which a close observer might have detected a suspicious working of the wrist of the hand on the cards, but the elder Suggs did not remark it. "Wake, snakes! day's a-breakin'! Rise, Jack!" said Simon, cutting half a dozen cards from the top of the pack, and presenting the face of the bottom one for the inspection of his father.

It was the Jack of hearts.

Old Mr. Suggs staggered back several steps with uplifted eyes and hands!

"Marciful master!" he exclaimed, "ef the boy hain't-well, how in the round creation of the -! Ben, did you ever? to be sure and sartin, Satan has power on this yeath!" and Mr. Suggs groaned in very bitterness.

"You never seed nothin' like that in Augusty, did ye, daddy?" asked Simon, with a malicious wink at Ben.

"Simon, how did you do it?" queried the old man, without noticing his son's question.

"Do it, daddy? Do it? 'Tain't nothin'. I done it jist as asy as-shootin'."

Whether this explanation was entirely, or in any degree, satisfactory to the perplexed mind of Elder Jed'diah Suggs, cannot, after the lapse of time which has intervened, be sufficiently ascertained. It is certain, however, that he pressed the investigation no farther, but merely requested his son Benjamin to witness the fact, that in consideration of his love and affection for his son Simon, and in order to furnish the donee with the means of leaving that portion of the State of Georgia, he bestowed upon him the impracticable pony, "Bunch."

"Jist so, daddy; jist so; I'll witness that. But it 'minds me mightily of the way mammy give old Trailler the side of bacon, last week. She a-sweepin' up the hath; the meat on the table—

old Trailler jumps up, gethers the bacon and darts! maminy arter him with the broom-stick, as fur as the door-but seein' the dog has got the start, she shakes the stick at him and hollers, 'You sassy, aig-sukkin', roguish, gnatty, flop-eared varmint! take it along! I only wish 'twas full of a'snic, and ox-vomit, and blue vitrul, so as 'twould cut your interls into chitlins!' That's about the way you give Bunch to Simon."

"Oh, shuh! Ben," remarked Simon, "I wouldn't run on that way; daddy couldn't help it, it was predestinated—whom he hath, he will,' you know;" and the rascal pulled down the under lid of his left eye at his brother. Then addressing his father, he asked, "Warn't it, daddy?"

"To be sure to be sure-all fixed aforehand," was old Mr. Suggs's reply.

"Didn't I tell you so, Ben?" said Simon-"I knowed it was all fixed aforehand;" and he laughed until he was purple in the face.

"What's in ye? What are ye laughin' about?" asked the old man wrothily.

"Oh, it's so funny that it could all a' been fixed aforehand!" said Simon, and laughed louder than before.

The obtusity of the Reverend Mr. Suggs, however, prevented his making any discoveries. He fell into a brown study, and no further allusion was made to the matter.

FOUND.

BY JOSH BILLINGS.

A MALTEESE soprano kat, about 12 months old, singing old hundred on a picket fence, late last thursda nite, whichever person owns sed kat will find him (or her, according to circumstansis) in a vakant lot, just bak ov our hous, still butiful in death.