LITERARY.
THE R^ED JAR.
C. W. H.
My friend, Emil Olsen, is a mind-reader. He told me so
once in the early days of our acquaintance. But I was a
firm disbeliever in all forms of the occult, and I had laughed
at the assertion.
After that, he had said nothing more about it, and the
fact of his pretending to know what passed through the
minds of others had slipped wholly from my memory. In
fact, my incredulity had apparently put a quietus on all con
fidences of this nature.
One day Olsen broke through this reticence. I remem
ber the scene so well! It was in the court house at Ham-
mersville, and a thrilling murder case was under trial. The
rain was pouring in torrents outside; the swollen Blackwater
was roaring in our ears; the court room was full, and the
faculties of all present were intent on the case. Olsen kept
his eye fixed on one man, the busiest perhaps in all that
throng.
I perceived he wished to speak to me, and bent towards
him. “That grave looking old man,” whispered he, “who
looks as if funerals were his bread and meat, is making puns
internally all the time—and pretty poor ones some of them
are ! 5 ’