Sometimes a couple of
these peregrinants may be seen to encounter each other in the streets,
and straightway there is an adjournment to the nearest bar-room, where
the most scientific method of "springing the arch" is discussed over a
glass of whiskey, at three cents the quart. Springing the arch, though
few may be able to interpret the phrase, is a trick by which every
housewife has suffered. It is the secret of piling the coal into the
measure in such a manner as to make the smaller quantity pass for the
larger, or, in other words, to make three pecks go for a bushel. So the
Pine Rat vindicates his claim to a common humanity with all the rest
of us men and women; for have not we all our secret and most approved
method of springing the arch,--of palming off our three short pecks for
a full and bounteous imperial bushel? Ah, yes! brothers and sisters,
whisper it, if you will, below your breath, but we all can do the Pine
Rat's trick!
We shall not suffer his company much longer in this world,--poor,
neglected, pitiable, darkened soul that he is, this fellow-citizen
of ours. He must move on; for civilization, like a stern, prosaic
policeman, will have no idlers in the path.
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