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“And by the same rules, ten is better than one,” said the friend.

“Sold again!” sang out Master Jack from the floor, and went head over heels against the fender.

His brother boxed his ears with great promptitude; and went on–“Well, I don’t care; confess, sir; isn’t it rather a nuisance?”

Paterfamilias’s friend looked very grave, and said quietly, “I don’t think I am able to judge. I never had brother or sister but one, and he was drowned at sea. Whatever I have had, I have had the whole of, and would have given it away willingly for some one to give it to. I remember that I got a lot of sticks at last, and cut heads and faces to all of them, and carved names on their sides, and called them my brothers and sisters. If you want to know what I thought a nice number for a fellow to have, I can only say that I remember carving twenty-five. I used to stick them in the ground and talk to them. I have been only, and lonely, and alone, all my life, and have never felt the nuisance you speak of.”

“I know what would be very nice,” insinuated one of the sisters.

“What?”

“If you wouldn’t mind telling us a very short story till supper-time.”

“Well, what sort of a story is it to be?”

“Any sort,” said Richard; “only not too true, if you please. I don’t like stories like tracts. There was an usher at a school I was at, and he used to read tracts about good boys and bad boys to the fellows on Sunday afternoon. He always took out the real names, and put in the names of the fellows instead. Those who had done well in the week, he put in as good ones, and those who hadn’t as the bad. He didn’t like me, and I was always put in as a bad boy, and I came to so many untimely ends, I got sick of it. I was hanged twice, and transported once for sheep stealing; I committed suicide one week, and broke into the bank the next; I ruined three families, became a hopeless drunkard, and broke the hearts of my twelve distinct parents. I used to beg him to let me be reformed next week; but he said he never would till I did my Caesar better. So, if you please, we’ll have a story that can’t be true.”

“Very well,” said the friend, laughing; “but if it isn’t true, may I put you in? All the best writers, you know, draw their characters from their friends, nowadays. May I put you in?”

“Oh, certainly!” said Richard, placing himself in front of the fire, putting his feet on the hob, and stroking his curls with an air which seemed to imply that whatever he was put into would be highly favored.

The rest struggled, and pushed, and squeezed themselves into more modest but equally comfortable quarters; and after a few moments of thought, Paterfamilias’s friend commenced the story of

MELCHIOR’S DREAM.

“Melchior is my hero. He was–well, he considered himself a young man, so we will consider him so too. He was not perfect; but in these days the taste in heroes is for a good deal of imperfection, not to say wickedness. He was not an only son. On the contrary, he had a great many brothers and sisters, and found them quite as objectionable as my friend Richard does.”

“I smell a moral,” murmured the said Richard.

“Your scent must be keen,” said the story-teller, “for it is a long way off. Well, he had never felt them so objectionable as on one particular night, when the house being full of company, it was decided that the boys should sleep in ‘barracks,’ as they called it; that is, all in one large room.”

“Thank goodness we have not come to that!” said the incorrigible Richard; but he was reduced to order by threats of being turned out, and contented himself with burning the soles of his boots against the bars of the grate in silence: and the friend continued: