He also sat down in that

and was healed immediately. place to eat bread, and to drink of the bottle that was given to him a little before: so, being refreshened, he addrest himself to his journey, with his sword drawn in his hand; for, he said, I know not but some other enemy may be at hand. But he met with no other affront from Apollyon quite through this valley.

THE FREEDOM OF A FLY

BY JOHN RUSKIN

I believe we can nowhere find a better type of a perfectly free creature than in the common house-fly. Nor free only, but brave and irreverent to a degree which I think no human republican could by any philosophy exalt himself to do. There is no courtesy in him; he does not care whether it is a king or a clown whom he teases; and in every step of his swift mechanical march, and in every pause of his resolute observation, there is one and the same expression of perfect egotism, perfect independence and self-confidence, and conviction of the world's having been made for flies.

Strike at him with your hand; and to him the mechanical fact and external aspect of the matter is, what to you it would be if an acre of red clay, ten feet thick, tore itself up from the ground in one massive field, hovered over you in the air for a second, and came crashing down with an aim. That is the external aspect of it; the inner aspect, to his fly's mind, is of quite natural and unimportant occurrence one of the momentary conditions of

his active life. He steps out of the way of your hand, and alights on the back of it. You can not terrify him nor govern him nor persuade him nor convince him. He has his own positive opinion on all matters; not an unwise one, usually, for his own ends; and will ask no advice of yours.

He has no work to do-no tyrannical instinct to obey. The earthworm has his digging; the bee, her gathering and building; the spider, her cunning network; the ant, her treasury and accounts. All these are comparative slaves, or people of vulgar business. But your fly, free in the air, free in the chamber-a black incarnation of capricewandering, investigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich variety of choice in feast, from the heaped sweets in the grocer's window to those of the butcher's back-yard, and from the galled place on your cab-horse's back to the brown spot on the road, from which, as the hoof disturbs him, he rises with angry, republican buzzwhat freedom is like his ?

DOCTOR MARIGOLD

BY CHARLES DICKENS

I am a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery?

I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have Doctor Marigold.

me.

The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. And my father was a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work. Now I'll tell you what. I mean to go down into my grave declaring that, of all the callings ill-used in Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain't we a profession? Why ain't we endowed with privileges? Why are we forced to take out a hawker's license, when no such thing is expected of the political hawkers? Where's the difference betwixt us? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, I don't see any difference but what's in our favor.

For look here! Say it's election-time. I am on the footboard of my cart in the market-place on a Saturday night. I put up a general miscellaneous lot. I say: "Now here, my free and independent voters, I'm going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I'll show you what I am a going to do with you. Here's a pair of razors that'll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians; here's a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; here's a frying-pan artificially flavored with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it, and there you are complete with animal food; here's a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid

silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family and save up your knocker for the postman; and here's half a dozen dinner-plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm the baby when it's fractious. Stop. I'll throw you in another article, and I'll give you that, and it's a rolling-pin, and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth are coming, and rub the gums once with it, they'll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to be tickled. Stop again! I'll throw you in another article, because I don't like the looks of you, for you haven't the appearance of buyers unless I lose by you, and because I'd rather lose than not take money to-night, and that article's a looking-glass in which you may see how ugly you look when you don't bid. What do you say now? Come! Do you say a pound? Not you, for you haven't got it. Do you say ten shillings? Not you, for you owe more to the tallyman. Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll heap 'em all on the footboard of the cart-there they are! razors, flat-iron, frying-pan, chronometer watch, dinner-plates, rolling-pin, and lookingglass-take 'em all away for four shillings, and I'll give you sixpence for your trouble!" This is me, the Cheap Jack.

But on Monday morning, in the same market-place, comes the Dear Jack on the hustings-his cart-and what does he say? "Now, you free and independent voters, I am going to give you such a chance" (he begins just like me) "as you never had in all your born days, and that's the chance of sending myself to Parliament. Now I'll tell you what I am a going to do for you. Here's the interests of this magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the

civilized and uncivilized earth. Here's your railways carried, and your neighbors' railways jockeyed. Here's all your sons in the Post Office. Here's Britannia smiling on you. Here's the eyes of Europe on you. Here's uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal food, golden corn-fields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own hearts, all in one lot, and that's myself. Will you take me as I stand? You won't! Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come now! I'll throw you in anything you ask for. There! Churchrates, abolition of church-rates, more malt tax, no malt tax, uniwersal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignorance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army, or a dozen for every private once a month all round, Wrongs of Men or Rights of Women-only say which it shall be, take 'em or leave 'em, and I'm of your opinion altogether, and the lot's your own on your own terms. There! You won't take it yet? Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come! You are such free and independent woters, and I am so proud of you-you are such a noble and enlightened constituency, and I am so ambitious of the honor and dignity of being your member, which is by far the highest level to which the wings of the human mind can soar-that I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll throw you in all public-houses in your magnificent town for nothing. Will that content you? It won't? You won't take the lot yet? Well, then, before I put the horse in and drive away, and make the offer to the next most magnificent town that can be discovered, I'll tell you what I'll do. Take the lot, and I'll drop two thousand pound in the streets of your magnificent town. for them to pick up that can. Not enough? Not enough? Now look