The Rhode Island Republican

From the Trenton Emporium.

"LOOK A SECOND TIME."

It was a night of deep and sullen gloom; there was an awful scowl on the face of the sky, and the clouds were rolled together in long furrows, through which fierce flashes of lightning gleamed every minute. The wind swept by in gusts which bent the trees almost to the ground; and the melancholy shriek of distant night birds, and the moaning howl of the forest became every moment more and more distinct, when I reached the steps of my grandfather's, and bursting through the door, I threw myself into the entry, as if the very fiends that ride on the storm through many a fearful nursery tale, had me by the heels.

The old gentleman, who claimed as his especial privilege a quiet house in the evenings, and who had been disturbed by the rude assault, came in a terrible hurry to the entry, with his spectacles in one hand and his pipe in the other, and discovering that I was the author of the disturbance, before I had time quietly to gather myself up and escape into the chimney corner, saluted me with the unwelcome—"Go to bed Bob,"—that I had a thousand times exerted all my ingenuity to avoid, and never heard without a heavy heart.

To have sat an hour by the cheerful fireside, and conned over my lesson, or watched the smoke as it curled peacefully round my grandfather's nose, would have composed the tumult of my bosom, and restored the tranquility of my nerves; but I had no alternative after the command was given, but to obey; and accordingly, with fear and trembling, made my way in the dark to my bed-chamber, the dreadful forms of ghosts and goblins rising to my fancy at every step.

I approached in silence the door of the room; opened it cautiously; a flash of lightning that moment glared through the windows; and lo! a gigantic figure of a man, with a slouched hat drawn over his eyes, stood immediately before me at the bed side.

With a shrill ejaculation, and a backward leap, I found myself thundering head over heels down stairs in an instant, and fairly brought to at the foot, a hundred times more frightened than hurt. The family was round me directly; and the cause of my alarm extorted from me. The servants armed themselves; all the shovels, tongs, and pokers were put in instant requisition; and a solemn parade took place, headed by my grand-father, to the scene of action; where the first thing that met the eye, was a coat and hat hung carelessly on the bed post; the mistake was all unravelled; the servants laughed; and my grand-father put on a long face and said gravely, "always look a second time, Bob."

I remembered it as one might suppose I would: and even longer perhaps than my grand-father expected, for it happened a while after that he got tired of his single life; for he was a widower; and as old hawks like young fish, he took it into his head to marry a girl of twenty; it was a gay game for an old beau to play, but my grand-father brought her home, and made her mistress of the house. His domestic government was overturned in a fortnight: his pipe broken; and his velvet small clothes and silver shoe-buckles exchanged for broadcloth and boots; the quiet of his evenings was gone, and as I met him escaping up stairs one night from the din of music and a rout, I could not but return by way of discharging the interest of the debt I owed him—"Always look a second time, Sir."

It's a good thing to "look a second time" occasionally; as, at a note before you indorse it; at a story before you believe it; at a bargain before you strike hands, and at the means of payment before you run in debt; and it is sometimes well too, to "look a second time" at one's practice before making professions. For in all these things and a hundred more, I find grown people fall into blunders quite as ready as young ones.