WE had just got up from dinner table on Thanksgiving Day and retired to the parlor to chat—Celeste and Boosey, Aurelia and her husband and infant, Mignon and Blanche, Old Blobbs and Mrs. Blobbs and myself.

We were all very thankful, although in divers ways. Boosey was thankful that he had had enough to eat, and that Celeste had got out of the Sorosis; while Celeste was thankful that Boosey had got through the dinner safely and soberly, and had brought her home a new hat the night before. Aurelia and Mr. Peplum were thankful for a small stranger, who dropped in upon them a few weeks since, spoken of above as the infant, and commonly reputed in our set to be the handsomest and smartest baby that has had the bad luck to be born into this world of fleeting show. Mignon was thankful that in these silent days of the year, there is so much beauty left, and Blanche was as thankful as a bobolink on a spray for all good things. Old Blobbs was thankful Mrs. Blobbs had omitted her customary morning lecture, and Mrs. Blobbs was thankful that Old Blobbs had managed to get through his dinner without saying any disagreeable things.

As for myself, I was thankful that I was not obliged to be thankful again for a year. It is hard upon a man to be thankful on the basis of turkey in various culinary stages. I have not the slightest doubt one can be thankful to Divine Providence, Who has vouchsafed, etc., from the depths of his stomach, and can measure his gratitude by the pile of bones on his platter, but it involves dyspeptic possibilities which are fearful to contemplate, and in point of thankfulness leaves a man nowhere in comparison with a hog.

I must acknowledge, further, that it is difficult for me to see the connection between bountiful harvests, and let us have peace, and the mastication of turkey. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace after a Thanksgiving dinner. One might eat a bald eagle and grow patriotic, or a goose and obtain wisdom; but why the turkey should be singled out as the emblem of gratitude, and why we should be called upon to express that gratitude by filling ourselves to the brim with the self-conceited coxcomb of the barn-yard, passes my comprehension. It seems to me that we mistake gluttony for gratitude, and that in the immensity of our gratitude we are killing off turkeys at a rate which must be highly unsatisfactory to the gobblers, who are most interested in the matter. If we are to be thankful by wholesale in this manner on Thanksgiving, why not carry the same principle into our retail gratitude? For instance, if Potter Palmer should come to me and say: "My dear boy, I have no further use for that shanty on the corner of State and Washington streets; take it," I might go at once and eat an oyster stew as a token of my gratitude, and if he should throw in that man and a brother with the horizontal coat-tails, I might go one better also, and eat half a dozen raw. When Blanche sends Mignon a little token of love and esteem, Mignon might eat a Charlotte Russe as a proof of her gratitude, and range from a Russe up to a moderate lunch, according to the value of the gift. Gifts of pocket-handkerchiefs could be paid for by eating a pickle, embroideries in Berlin wool might range as high as a chicken wing, a volume of Tupper be atoned for by a boiled onion; while, to express my thanks for a corner lot with a full furnished house on it, I would risk a moderately-filled dish of pork and cabbage.

I haven't much confidence in that gratitude which strikes to a man's stomach, or that sense of thankfulness which can only be expressed via the stomach.

This was not what we talked about when we got into the parlor, but we undoubtedly should have discussed this topic had not Old Blobbs suddenly broken out on his favorite theory that the world was wrong side up. He does not believe in the present arrangement of things at all, and I sometimes think he is more than half right. Aurelia, Mr. Peplum and the little one were in a corner together, making a very cozy-looking trio; Celeste and Boosey were just about to commence a game of backgammon; Blanche was at the piano, listlessly running her white fingers over the keys, as if she were trying to recall some old melody which had been lost among them in departed days; Mignon sat in the window just under the parlor ivy, which seemed to be trying to reach down to her with its graceful curves as to something akin to it in grace and beauty, when Old Blobbs suddenly broke out: "If I had the management of this world, things would change places. Nothing is in its right place."

"And how would you change them, my dear Blobbs?" said I.

"Change them!" said he. "If I could arrange men and things as they ought to be, you would see some very poor men living in very handsome houses, and some very rich men uncertain where they would get their next meal. You would see some parishioners in the pulpit and some preachers in the pews. You would see some car horses on the front platform and some drivers harnessed to the pole. You would see some men running down the street with tin kettles tied to their tails, and some dogs looking on approvingly. You would see my Lady So-and-So, who can go to the opera every night quite brave in her laces, and diamonds, and head-gear, with no more comprehension of, or care for, what is going on than a cow has of true and undefiled religion, change place with some poor soul to whom music comes full of consolation, and rest, and sympathy, and who cannot go at all. Yes, sir," said Old Blobbs, reddening with rage, "the whole world is wrong, all wrong. Incompetence stands in the shoes of competence. The weak go to the wall. Dishonesty comes out ahead. Brass passes for gold, and tin for silver. One paltry dollar will go further and make more knees bend than all the concentrated honesty and decency of the world since Adam delved and Eve spun. Vive la humbug! The kettles and pots go swimming down the stream because they are empty. A piece of pure, solid metal, no matter how small, goes to the bottom."

"But," said I, "the world keeps turning round, and some day the right must come uppermost."

Blobbs admitted that, but added: "What is the use of a man's coming uppermost a century or two after he is dead, when there is nothing left of him but a bone here and there, and, perhaps, nothing but a handful of dirt, to enjoy the sensation? Why not have the world so arranged that a decent man may, now and then, see some inducement to continue decent, and that real merit may find its recompense without being obliged to attain it through quackery, or enjoy it as a blessed ghost, two or three hundred years from now?"

And all the time Blobbs was delivering his little speech, Blanche was still hunting for the lost melody on the keys, and the ivy was still trying to put its pretty green arms around Mignon's neck, and Celeste was throwing double-sixes with Boosey, and Aurelia was playing with that wonderful baby.

November 28, 1868.