I keeps a butcher shop, you know,

Und in a stocking stout,

I put avay my gold and bills,

Und no one gets him oudt.

If in der night some bank cashier
Goes skipping off mit cash,

I shleep so sound as nefer vos,
Vhile rich folks go to shmash.

I court dot vidder sixteen months,
Dot vidder she courts me,

Und vhen I says: "Vill you be mine?"
She says: "You bet I'll be !"

Ve vos engaged-oh! blessed fact !
I squeeze dot dimpled hand;
Her head upon my shoulder lays,
Shust like a bag of sand.

Before der vedding day vos set,
She vhispers in mine ear,

"I like to say I haf to use

Some cash, my Jacob, dear.

"I owns dis house and two big farms, Und ponds und railroad stock;

Und up in Yonkers I bossess

A grand big peesness block.

"Der times vos dull, my butcher boy, Der market vos no good,

Und if I sell"-I squeezed her handt To show I understood.

Next day-oxcoose my briny tears-
Dot shtocking took a shrink;

I counted out twelve hundred in
Der cleanest kind o' chink.
Und later, by two days or more,
Dot vidder shlopes avay;
Und leaves a note behindt for me
In vhich dot vidder say:

"DEAR SHAKE:

Der rose vos redt

Der violet blue

You see I've left,

Und you're left, too!"

-Unknown.

I

The

WROTE some lines once on a time

In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,

A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;
How kind it was of him,

To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limbl

"These to the printer," I exclaimed, And, in my humorous way,

I added (as a trifling jest),
"There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I watched,

And saw him peep within;

At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;

He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;

The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth; he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes.

By your honor's, command, aships crew,

Y your honor's command, an example I stand

I am hampered and stripped, and if I am whipped, 'Tis no more than I own is my due.

In this scurvy condition, I humbly petition

To offer some lines to your eye:

N. B. He was pardoned.

Merry Tom by such trash once avoided the lash,
And, if fate and you please, so may I.

There is nothing you hate, I'm informed, like a cat;
Why, your honor's aversion is mine:

If puss then with one tail can make your heart fail, O save me from that which has nine!

'TWA

From Deal to Ramsgate span,

That I found alone, on a piece of stone,

An elderly naval man.

His hair was weedy, his beard was long,

And weedy and long was he;

And I heard this wight on the shore recite, In a singular minor key:

"O, I am a cook and a captain bold, And the mate of the Nancy brig, Amd a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, And the crew of the captain's gig."

"O elderly man, it's little I know
Of the duties of men of the sea,
And I'll eat my hand if I understand
How you can possibly be

"At once a cook and a captain bold,
And a mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig "

Then he gave a hitch to his trousers, which
Is a trick all seamen larn,

And having got rid of a thumping quid
He spun this painful yarn:-

"'Twas in the good ship Nancy Bell

That we sailed to the Indian Sea, And there on a a reef we came to grief, Which has often occurred to me.

"And pretty nigh all o' the crew was drowned (There was seventy-seven o' soul);

And only ten of the Nancy's men

Said Here' to the muster-roll.

[bold,

"There was me, and the cook, and the captain
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And the bo'sun tight and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig.

"For a month we'd neither wittles nor drink,
Till a-hungry we did feel,

So we drawed a lot, and accordin', shot
The captain for our meal.

"The next lot fell to the Nancy's mate,
And a delicate dish he made;

Then our appetite with the midshipmite
We seven survivors stayed.

"And then we murdered the bo'sun tight,
And he much resembled pig;

Then we wittled free, did the cook and me,
On the crew of the captain's gig.

"Then only the cook and me was left,
And the delicate question, 'Which
Of us two goes to the kettle?' arose,
And we argued it out as sich.

And Exactly so,' quoth he.

"Says he: 'Dear James, to murder me
Were a foolish thing to do,

For don't you see that you can't cook me,
While I can and will-cook you?'

"So he boils the water, and takes the salt
And the pepper in portions true

(Which he never forgot), and some chopped shalot,

And some sage and parsley too.

"'Come here,' says he, with a proper pride. Which his smiling features tell;

"T will soothing be if I let you see

How extremely nice you'll smell.'

"And he stirred it round, and round, and round, And he sniffed at the foaming froth;

When I ups with his heels, and smothers his squeals

In the scum of the boiling broth.

"And I eat that cook in a week or less,

And as I eating be

The last of his chops, why I almost drops, For a vessel in sight I see.

*

"And I never larf, and I never smile,

And I never lark nor play; But I sit and croak, and a single joke I have-which is to say:

"O, I am a cook and a captain bold
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig!"
--W. S. Gilbert.

NTO a little negro, A-swimming in the Nile, Appeared quite unexpectedly, A hungry crocodile.

UNTswimming

Who, with that chill politeness

That makes the warm blood freeze, Remarked: "I'll take some dark meat

Without dressing, if you please."

A JOLLY fat friar loved liqy a good store,

And he had drunk stoutly at supper;

He mounted his horse in the night at the door,

And sat with his face to the crupper:

"Some rogue," quoth the friar, "quite dead to remorse, Some thief, whom a halter will throttle,

Some scoundrel has cut off the head of my horse,
While I was engaged at the bottle,

Which went gluggity, gluggity—glug-
glug-glug."

The tail of the steed pointed south on the dale,

'T was the friar's road home, straight and level; But when spurred, a horse follows his nose, not his tai', So he scampered due north, like a devil: "This new mode of docking," the friar then said,

WE

E are two travelers, Roger and I. Roger s my dog;-come here, you scamp! Jump for the gentleman,-mind your eye! Over the table,-look out for the lamp,The rogue is growing a little old :

Five years we've tramped through wind and weather,

And slept out-doors when nights were cold,
And ate and drank-and starved together.
We've learned what comfort is, I tell you!
A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin,

A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow !
The paw he holds up there's been frozen,)
Plenty of catgut for my fiddle,

(This out door business is bad for strings,) Then a few nice buckwheats, hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up for kings!

I'd sell out heaven for something warm To prop a horrible inward sinking.

Is there a way to forget to think?

At your age, sir, home, fortune and friends, A dear girl's love,-but I took to drink,

The same old story; you know how it ends. If you could have seen these classic features,— You needn't laugh sir; they were not then Such a burning libel on God's creatures: I was one of your handsome men !

If you had seen her, so fair and young,

Whose head was happy on this breast! If you could have heard the songs I sung When the wine went round, you wouldn't have guessed

That ever I, sir, should be straying

From door to door, with fiddle and dog,

Ragged and penniless, and playing

To you to-night for a glass of grog!

She's married since, -a parson's wife:

'Twas better for her that we should part,Better the soberest, prosiest life

Than a blasted home and a broken heart.