a set of men who had been uttering the most
obstreperous noises, and were ready to commit
violence; who yet, it was manifest, were in so
good a frame of mind, that one word of
reasonable explanation of the cause of this
delay would have quieted them in a moment.
"But no "—as Sir Valentine said—" No
this one word of reasonable explanation, is
just the thing you will not give! " The train
had been stationary, as described, a whole
hour, by several watches.

A third train now came up, on the way to
London. This time, the first to move was the
long-suffering crescent, whose passengers, in
passing the other train, gave a loud cheer of
victorious triumph over them; which was
answered by the crowd in the third class with
a prolonging ba-a-ing and other lugubrious
imitations of a train to Smithfield.

Nothing further occurred till the train
paused near the London terminus, in order to
take the passengers' tickets. When the guard
came with his lamp, and received the tickets
from Sir Valentine's carriage, he made a
stop as he looked at the latter, and then said,
with rather a suspicious look—"This is not
correct!"

"You 'll have to pay over again," said the
man in the duffel coat.

"Correct! " exclaimed Sir Valentine, " Of
course it's not correct. I paid one pound
four for a first-class carriage in the Express-
train; and here I am in a second-class carriage
of the Excursion-train, in which these gentlemen
have paid eight-and fourpence! I 'll
thank you for the balance!"

"Well, well;" said the guard, with an
easy, accommodating air, "I dare say this
will do." And he moved on to the next
carriage.

"This," said Sir Valentine, addressing the
grazier in the duffel coat, "this is the cool
way in which you impose upon the public!
Whether you build a man a sea-wall, set up a
small public-house, or carry people in a train
to see a contest between gunpowder and
chalk—Porter! Call Sir Valentine Saltear's
carriage—You are never satisfied unless you
have committed some stultified oversight, by
which everybody is made uncomfortable and
nobody benefited!"

"Then call it yourself!" said the porter.

A LESSON FOR FUTURE LIFE.

EVERY present holds a future in it,
     Could we read its bosom secret right,
Could we see the golden clue and win it,
     Lay our hand to work with heart and might.

Time it is we shall not live in story,
     But we may be waves within a tide,
Help the human flood to near the glory,
    That shall shine when we have toil'd and died.

Therefore, though few praise or help or heed us,
     Let us work—with head, or heart, or hand,
For we know the future ages need us,
     We must help our time to take its stand.

That the after day may make beginning
     Where our present labour hath its end;
So each age, by that before it winning,
     To the following help in turn shall lend.

Each single struggle hath its far vibration,
     Working results that work results again;
Failure and death are no annihilation,
     Our tears, absorb'd, will make some future rain.

Let us toil on; the work we leave behind us,
   Though incomplete, God's hand will yet embalm,
And use it some way: and the news will find us
   In heaven above, and sweeten endless calm.

SPIDERS' SILK.

URGED by the increased demand for the
threads which the silk-worm yields, many
ingenious men have endeavoured to turn the
cocoons of other insects to account. In
search of new fibres to weave into garments,
men have dived to the bottom of the sea, to
watch the operations of the pinna and the
common mussel. Ingenious experimentalists
have endeavoured to adapt the threads
which hold the mussel firmly to the rock,
to the purposes of the loom; and the day
will probably arrive when the minute thread
of that diminutive insect, known as the
money-spinner, will be reeled, thrown, and
woven into fabrics fit for Titania and her
court.

In the early part of last century, an
enthusiastic French gentleman turned his attention
to spiders' webs. He discovered that certain
spiders not only erected their webs to trap
unsuspecting flies, but that the females, when
they had laid their eggs, forthwith wove a
cocoon, of strong silken threads, about them.
These cocoons are known more familiarly as
spiders' bags. The common webs of spiders
are too slight and fragile to be put to any use;
but the French experimentalist in question,
Monsieur Bon, was led to believe that the
cocoons of the female spiders were more
solidly built than the mere traps of the
ferocious males. Various experiments led M. Bon
to adopt the short-legged silk spider as the
most productive kind. Of this species he
made a large collection. He employed a
number of persons to go in search of them;
and, as the prisoners were brought to him,
one by one, he enclosed them in separate
paper cells, in which he pricked holes to
admit the air. He kept them in close confinement,
and he observed that their imprisonment
did not appear to affect their health.
None of them, so far as he could observe,
sickened for want of exercise; and, as a
gaoler, he appears to have been indefatigable,
occupying himself catching flies, and delivering
them over to the tender mercies of his
prisoners. After a protracted confinement in
these miniature Bastiles, the grim M. Bon
opened the doors, and found that the majority
of his prisoners had beguiled their time
in forming their bags. Spiders exude their