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Dodging A Dun.

Some know how to do it, and can scent a dun at any distance, and can dodge him effectively. It is a knack acquired by long experience. If the dun, however, by his experience be comes expert, the dunnee stands small chance of escape. The dun becomes equally sensitive in detecting the debtor, and often are practiced between the two, manoeuvres that would pale the reputation of even Napoleon himself.

We heard a story, the other day, of old Dr. G.-, of Portsmouth, which, though not having any very great reverency to the preceding paragraph, is nevertheless to the point as regards the dunning. For there is a wide difference between the amateur and the professional.

Dr. G-- was a man of great integrity and worth, and his business habits were on the square--exacting everything that was his own, and paying every man his due. He held a note against a gentleman of Hampton for some considerable amount, and whenever he met him, the Dr. was ready, note in hand, for the payment of the instalment. It became at last an agonizing dread with the debtor about meeting the Doctor, particularly at a time when troubled with a disease known in financial parlance as "shorts." But whenever he met him, the Doctor's dun would be anticipated by his debtor's movement for his pocket book, frequent payments were made without seeing the note at all, or enquiring as to the chances of its eventual payment. He knew that the Doctor was honest, and that it would be all right, and several payments were, thus very blindly made.

A great dearth of funds made him more shy of meeting the Doctor, and as he passed through the town his eyes wandered in all directions to catch a glimpse of his dread creditor, and avoid him if possible. He succeeded admirably for a while, and outgeneralled the old man several times; but fate does not always favor the brave, and the doctor, from a distant position, saw his victim tie his horse to a post and enter a store.-- He made all the haste he could, and entered the store, when his debtor dodged him behind a rice cask.

"Didn't I see Mr.. come in here?' asked the Doctor.

"He did come in here, sir,' said the shopkeeper, 'but has gone somewhere now.'"

The Doctor said he was not in a hurry, and could wait as well as not; he saw his horse at the door, and thought he would be back before long;

The man remained hid and the old Doctor waited a long time. At last he went out, to the man's great relief, and after a while he himself went out, and was just stepping upon his wagon, when the Doctor darted at him from a doorway.

"Well, Mr.-a-,' said the Doctor, 'you needn't dodge me any more; that note has been paid up these six months, and I have been trying to see you, that I might pay you back twenty dollars that you overpaid me.'"

The recollection of hiding behind a rice cask to avoid being paid twenty dollars, haunted the man as long as he lived, and among other advice which he gave his children was this, contained in a couplet of domestic poetry, written in chalk on the old dresser :

"Never run,
When you see a dun."