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COMIN' THRO' THE RYE.

"It's four o'clock," says a voice in a harsh whisper; "wake up, Master Jack, wake up."

"Master Jack!" James! I disappear under the bed-clothes like a shot; but if I think I am going to be left there in peace, I am much mistaken. To leave Master Jack snoring in bed when (I now remember) James has received particular injunctions over night to eject the same, however unwilling, is no part of his duty, so he punches and prods my prostrate body with a most laudable vigour, making violent efforts to dispossess me of the clothes. To these, however, I cling like grim death, wrapping them about me as tightly as a hedgehog in his skin, and for a space there is a desperate tussle, intensely ludicrous by reason of its silence, for neither of us dare to make a sound for fear of the governor's hearing; finally, altogether worsted and confounded, he goes, and I am left to sit up in bed like Marius among the ruins of Carthage. Presently Jack's head is popped gingerly in at the door, and he stares a good deal at the sight of the tossed bed, my tangled locks, and flushed, indignant countenance.

"Has the governor been taking a turn at you?" he asks in a whisper.

"No," I answer solemnly, "Jeames. I am black and blue. He thought it was you, you know."

"Oh, he did, did he?" asks Jack, sitting down on a chair and going off into a noiseless explosion. "I quite forgot to tell him———" He rocks himself to and fro in an agony of mirth. "I know what his awakings are."

"And so do I," I put in with conviction. "I'm sure they are nothing to laugh at."

"I must go," says Jack indistinctly, "or I shall burst;" and he goes away on some unlawful excursion or another that I should have loved, leaving me to moisten my sheets with unavailing tears. How slowly the hours creep by; how shall I ever get through