Henry Ward Beeeher let her weep till her surcharged orbs had ceased to give down, and then he brought out some valley tan that he had in the house for medicinal purposes and comforted her.

Then they got acquainted.

They sat in the gloaming, and Henry Ward Beecher turned the gas partly off, and held the hand of Oleander, and told her that Obejoyful had been a humorist on an Ohio paper, and otherwise destroyed the prospects of the absent lover in the eyes of Miss McTodd.

They looked into each other's eyes and knew that they were solid pards from that moment. Shortly afterward they rode away to the nearest justice of the peace, about 223 miles off, and were married.

Then they went home.

Obejoyful was there. He was also heeled; but H. W. B. got the drop on him. Then Obejoyful seemed filled with disgust, and he seemed oppressed and filled with nameless forebodings. He seemed to lose faith in mankind, also to some extent in womankind. He seemed to think that love wasn't exactly what it was represented to him by the agent. It didn't seem to be full weight, and there wasn't a prize in each and every package, as he had been led to suppose.

He then presented a bill to Henry Ward Beecher for $49.53, freight charges on Oleander McTodd; but H. W. B. swore with a great, blood-curdling, three-cornered oath that he would not pay it.

That night Obejoyful Jenkins procured some poison, and stole away to a quiet place, and wrote a note to tell his friends, when they found his body, why he had taken his own life. Then he commended his soul to Providence, poured out a glass of whisky, thought he would try it without the poison first. The draught revived him. He changed his mind and put the poison in Henry Ward Beecher's whisky, stole H. W. B.'s narrow-gauge mule Boomerang, and lit out for the North Park.

This is a true story. If the gentle reader has doubts about it I will produce the mule Boomerang, which is now in my possession and in a good state of preservation.

Hereafter, in order to save time and annoyance to my readers, true stories over my signature will be marked with a star, thus, *.