REVENGE IS SWEET.

IF there is one thing I hate more than another, - I say thing, as the word seems most appropriate, - it is a blue-coat, a peeler, a cop. I know not by what name that noble enforcer of the laws, that preserver of the country's peace, is best known to you; but never mind its name, perhaps it has none, the label may have dropped off. I was never well acquainted with these queer specimens until I came to college, but there I found the true article, the Cambridgeport peeler; this very fascinating individual interrupted, one Sunday afternoon, a quiet game of lawn tennis in which I was participating, and introduced himself to me; after a little conversation the extremely polite gentleman invited me to call on him at nine the following morning, saying he would like to have me meet His Honor the Judge and a few friends. The Judge, the Great Mogul, the High Muckamuck, was quite enough; he must have been a foreigner, for with frigid smile and withering glance he said: "Ignorantia non excuset; four dollars and nine cents, please." I told him I never spoke the language in my life, but supposed it was all right, paid him for his exertions, and hoped he had not dislocated any thing.

This, and like experiences with Buttons, made me cherish a deep and warm affection for him, and I resolved then to repay him for his kindness at the very first opportunity; this opportunity, however, did not offer itself until two years after I had left college, at which time I was on my uncle's ranch in Kansas. One evening, about seven o'clock, a gentleman stopped at the house inquired for uncle, and asked him whether he could accommodate him for the night, and in the morning give him a horse to ride and a guide to show him the way to Fairfield, a village about sixty miles distant, as very important business demanded his presence there. Uncle consented to do as he wished, and asked me to act as guide. Upon closer examination I found the stranger to be my old friend Buttons, who had risen from the low station of policeman to the rank of detective.

Blue-coat did not recognize me, and so much the better. I told uncle I would attend to him, and I rather think I did. Instructions had been given the coachman to have the pony and mule ready at four the next morning, but I told Pat I would attend to them myself. The pony was an easy riding animal, but the mule was a perfect terror, and the most severe bit could not begin to hold him. Determined to have some fun with the detective, I put on the mule the bridle with the snaffle-bit, and, after assuring my friend of the gentleness of the animal, requested his lordship to mount. He told me he had no fears, as he considered himself a very good rider; but no sooner had he thrown his leg over the animal's back than the mule started, first with five or six buckjumps of twenty feet or more, and then went off at a tangent down the road, his tail high in the air, puffing fire from his nostrils, and increasing his speed at every jump, whilst the poor detective, bouncing like an india-rubber ball on his back, landed alternately upon the sharp protuberances of the army saddle, and cried to him to stop, that he wanted to get off and walk, but

"The more he said 'Whoa,' I cried, 'Let him go,'

And the mule went faster and faster."

Did he get there? He was picked up on the road five hours after - a total wreck.