The Spirit of Discontent.
THE other day we stood by a cooper who was playing a merry tune with his adz round a cask. "Ah!" said he, "mine is a hard lot—driving a hoop." "Heigho!" sighed the blacksmith on a hot summer day, as he wiped the perspiration from his brow, while the red iron glowed on the anvil; "this is life with a vengeance, melting and frying one's self over a hot fire." "Oh! that I were a carpenter," ejaculated the shoemaker as he bent over his lapstone. "Here I am, day after day, wearing my soul away making soles for others—cooped up in this little seven-by-nine room. Hi-ho-hum!" "I'm sick of this out-door work!" exclaimed the bricklayer—"broiling under the sweltering sun or exposed to the inclemency of the weather. I wish I were a tailor." "This is too bad," petulantly cried the tailor—"to be compelled to sit perched up here plying the needle all the time. Would that mine were a more active life." "Last day of grace! banks won't discount—customers won't pay—what shall I do?" grumbles the merchant. "I had rather be a truck, a dog, or anything else." "Happy fellows!" groans the lawyer, as he scratches his head over some dry, musty records—"happy fellows! I had rather hammer stones all day than puzzle my head over these tedious, vexatious questions."—Sel.