Off-Hand Sketches, a Little Dashed with Humor

THE reader cannot but smile at some of the phases of life presented in this volume. Yet the smile will, in no case, the author thinks, be at the expense of humanity, good feelin...

I was in business when the exciting event occurred, and I am still in business, and I believe as well off as I was then. But let me relate the circumstance.

"A thousand bushels. Ninety cents; nine hundred dollars;--I'll tell you what, friend, since talking to you has put me into the notion of trying my hand at a speculation on wheat...

It is no matter of surprise that, ere ten o'clock in the evening, the gentleman's premonitory symptoms, which had experienced a temporary abatement, assumed a more alarming char...

An individual immediately volunteered to go in search of him. In half an hour he was produced. As he entered the grave assembly, he looked around with great composure upon the a...

Half an hour passed. There was a movement, and the murmuring sound of voices,--but, though I listened eagerly, I was not able to make out what was said. I heard the tread of a m...

There was a curious provision in the law by which Jenkins had been freed from all the claims of his creditors against him; and this provision is usually incorporated in all simi...

"Perhaps," said Hardy, after thinking for a few minutes, "I may have been in error in regard to the amount of money contained in the package. Can't you remember having received...

It would hardly be fair to record all the sayings and doings of that eventful evening. Overwearied in body and mind, the family retired to rest, but some of them, alas! not to s...

"If so horrible to think of, what must it be in reality?" said my thoughtless visitor. "If it were my case, I would prefer death. But Mrs. N--is not an ordinary woman. She posse...

"Very well. Your principal has challenged mine. All these rights are of course his; and he is justified in choosing those weapons with which he is most familiar. The weapon he c...