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THE furniture of the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The rocking-chairs and sofas were not present, and never had been, but they were represented by two three-legged stools, a pine-board bench four feet long, and two empty candle-boxes. The table was a greasy board on stilts, and the table-cloth and napkins had not come-and they were not looking for them, either. A battered tin platter, a knife and fork, and a tin pint cup, were at each man's place, and the driver had a queen's-ware saucer that had seen better days. Of course this duke sat at the head of the table. There was one isolated piece of table furniture that bore about it a touching air of grandeur in misfortune. This was the castor. It was German silver, and crippled and rusty, but it was so preposterously out of place there that it was suggestive of a tattered exiled king among barbarians, and the majesty of its native position compelled respect even in its degradation. There was only one cruet left, and that was a stopperless, flyspecked, broken-necked thing, with two inches of vinegar in it, and a dozen preserved flies with their heels up and looking sorry they had invested there. The station-keeper up-ended a disc of last week's bread, of the shape and size of an old-time cheese, and carved some slabs from it, which was as good as Nicholson pavement, and tenderer.

He sliced off a piece of bacon for each man, but only the experienced old hands made out to eat it, for it was condemned army bacon, which the United

States would not send to its soldiers in the forts, and the stage company had bought it cheap for the sustenance of their passengers and employés. We may have found this condemned army bacon farther out on the plains than the section I am locating it in, but we found it-there is no gainsaying that.

Then he poured for us a beverage which he called "slumgullion," and it is hard to think he was not inspired when he named it. It really pretended to be tea, but there was too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind in it to deceive the intelligent traveller. He had no sugar and no milk -not even a spoon to stir the ingredients with.

We could not eat the bread or the meat, nor drink the "slumgullion." And when I looked at that melancholy vinegar-cruet, I thought of the anecdote (a very, very old one, even at that day) of the traveller who sat down to a table which had nothing on it but a mackerel and a pot of mustard. He asked the landlord if this was all. The landlord said—

"All? Why, thunder and lightning! I should think there was mackerel enough there for six." 'But I don't like mackerel."

I MET the waiter in his prime At a magnificent hotel;

His hair, untinged by care or time,
Was oiled and brushed exceeding well.
When "Waiter!" was the impatient cry,
In accents growing stronger,
He seem'd to murmur, "By-and-by;
Wait a little longer.”

Within a year we met once more,
'Twas in another part of town-
An humbler air the waiter wore,
I fancied he was going down.
Still, when I shouted, Waiter, bread!”
He came out rather stronger,
As if he'd say with toss of head,

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'Wait a little longer."

Time takes us on through many a grade; Of" ups and downs" I've had my run, Passing full often through the shade

And sometimes loitering in the sun. I and the waiter met again

At a small inn at Ongar;

Still, when I call'd, 'twas almost vainHe bade me wait the longer.

Another time-years since the last-
At eating-house I sought relief
From present care and troubles past,
In a small plate of round of beef.
"One beef, and taturs," was the cry,

In tones than mine much stronger;
'Twas the old waiter standing by,
"Waiting a little longer."

I've marked him now for many a year;
I've seen his coat more rusty grow;
His linen is less bright and clear,

His polished pumps are on the go.
Torn are, alas! his Berlin gloves-
They used to be much stronger;
The waiter's whole appearance proves
He cannot wait much longer.

I sometimes see the waiter still; 'Gainst want he wages feeble strife; He's at the bottom of the hillDownward has been his path through life. Of" Waiter, waiter!" there are cries, Which louder grow and stronger; "Tis to old Time he now replies, "Wait a little longer."

OLD BACHELORS. "FAUGH!" says Mrs. Partington, "don't tell me! Old bachelors, indeed! Let 'em die as they deserve. They always die sooner than married men, ex

cept my husband, poor dear, departed soul! Bachelors can't live long. They've nobody to darn their stockings and mend their clothes. They catch cold, and have nobody to make 'em sage tea; consequently they drop off; and serve 'em right; it's no matter, for hands." not taking some of my daughters off my

A BIT OF OPINION. "If there is anybody under the canister of heaven that I have in utter excrescence," said Mrs. Partington, "it is a tale-bearer and slanderer, going about like a vile boa constructor, circulating his camomile about honest folks. I always know one by his phismahogony. It seems as if Belzabob had stamped him with his private signal, and everything he looks at appears to turn yaller." And having uttered this somewhat elaborate speech, she was seized with a fit of coughing, and called for some demulcent drops.

ON COSMETICS.

"THAT'S a new article for beautifying the complexion," said Mrs. Bibb, holding up a small bottle for Mrs. Partington to look at. She looked up from darning a woollen sock for Ike, and took the bottle in her hand. "Is it, indeed?" said she; "well, they may get up ever so many rostrums for beautifying the complexion; but, depend upon it, the less people have to do with bottles for it, the better. My neighbour, Mrs. Blotch, has been using a bottle for a good many years for her complexion, and her nose looks like a ruption of Mount Vociferous, with the burning lather running all over the contagious territory."

IN COURT.

man seemed to be asking a good many impertinent questions-just like some old folks and people were sitting round making minutes of the conversation. I don't see how they made out what was said, for they all told different stories. How much easier it would be to get along if they all told the same story! What a sight of trouble it would save the lawyers! The case, as they called it, was given to the jury, but I couldn't see it, and a gentleman with a long pole was made to swear that he'd keep an eye on 'em, and see that they didn't run away with it. Bimeby in they come agin, and then they said somebody was guilty of something, who had just said he was innocent, and didn't know nothing about it no more than the little baby that never had any subsistence. I come away soon afterward, but I couldn't help thinking how trying it must be to sit there all day, shut out from the blessed air."

HORTICULTURE.

"So you take an interest in the science of the soil? said a neighbour, leaning over the gate, as he saw Mrs. Partington with a bran-new garden trowel, hovering over some plants that she was endeavouring to "set." She arose from the dust of the earth, as though so great a question should be answered perpendicularly, and wiping her hands on her apron said, smiling as an open dandelion blossom," Some." "You have many fine varieties, I see," continued the neighbour; "they display excellent taste." "They smell better than "Some helly-o-tripes they taste," replied she. over there are very odions." "Many fuchsias?" asked the neighbour. "Some confusion," replied she; "but as soon as the borders are deranged. I think it will be very ambiguous. I do love so to see things growing! I think that is the beauty of a garden, don't you?" The neighbour assured her that he thought very much as she did, and deemed a garden that had nothing growing in it must be a very dreary place. A perfect desert of Sarah," said the dame, breaking in like a sunbeam on a fog. "Are your plants not too near together?" the neighbour asked. "Oh, no," she replied; "they are more sociable when they are near together, and there's no room wasted. It is very pleasant to have ground of one's own to cultivate; and if the cats don't tear it up, my garden will bloom by-and-by like a paradox." She stuck the trowel in an upright position, like a note of admiration, as she concluded, and the neighbour went away. The cats trouble the old lady's garden operations, though Ike has brought home more than four bushels of oyster-shells to throw at

A YOUNG aspirant for fame, having a desire to see his name in print, sent his verses for publication. In the "pome" the following line occurred :

"A fragrant rose found near the pendant corn." The compositor in whose hands the manuscript

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A rapin' machine of me!

CH, I'm sick of the sickle, Molly dear, And stoopin' so long and so low, And it's little sorrow it gives me To give the ould bother the go. And when an

other har-
vest comes,
By the pow
ers! I'd like

to see
The money or
anything
else that'ud
make

I've raped in the North and the South country,
And I've raped in the Lothians three,
And I've crossed the Irish Sea so oft
That they give it its name from me;
I've raped your wheat and your barley,
And your oats and your beans, sez Pat,
But as for profit-it's sorra the rapin'
That ever I raped of that!

So good luck to yez, Misther M'Cormick,
And your riverence, Misther Bell,
And good luck to yez, Misther Samuelson-
I wish your honour well.

The shearer's footin' in the field

Ye've fairly cut away,

But it's not been worth the standin' on,

Bedad, this many a day.

And now the horse takes the harvest in hand,

And pulls the huge machines

That go snicking and clicking across the fields
Of wheat, oats, barley, and beans.
Machines for sowin' and thrashin'
And rapin', between and betwixt—

In troth, it's my private opinion they'll have
A machine for eatin' it next!

Then we'll throw the sickle aside, Molly,
And go and try our luck

On the banks of the far Australian strames,
Where the otters has bills like a duck;

For there's mate and drink and clothes, Molly,
And riches and rank to be won,

At the Anti- what d'ye call the place
On t'other side of the sun?

And there'll be no land agents,

Nor middle-men, nor Jews,

But ye'll see me stoning lumps of gold
At the thieving kangaroos

And no more masses to pay for!

Good-day to you, Father O'Bladd; The last confession from me, faiks,

And the very last penny ye've had;
It's little your riverence leaves behind,
The day ye pardon sin-

As the prophet sez, ye purge our dross
And take away all our tin!

Ye've a bandage on your wrist, Molly;
That wrist with gems I'll deck,
And a string of nuggets like mill-stones
I'll hang around your neck.

And we'll live in a nate retirement,
Where our nearest neighbour 'll be
The Emperor of China, who

Will sometimes jine us at tea.

Och, the world we're leavin', Molly,
Is a world of bitter care,

For even the pigs and praities are not
The angels that once they were;
But the world we're goin' to, Molly,
Is where the giants of ould
Buried, for want of a better bank,
Their stockin'-legs filled with gould.

"You can't do that again," as the pig said when the boy cut off his tail.

"HONESTY is the best policy, but it keeps a man shocking poor," said Smith, as he wetted the sugar, without mixing it with sand.

"I SPEAK within bounds," as the prisoner said when addressing the jury from the dock.

"It is said that a watch-dog is not so large in the morning as at night, because he is let out at night and taken in in the morning.

"THAT motion is out of order," remarked the chairman of a political meeting to a rowdy who was raising his arm to throw a rotten egg at him.

"I CAN'T find bread for my family," said a lazy fellow in company. "Nor I," replied an industrious miller; "I am obliged to work for it."

"ACCIDENTS will happen, even in the best regulated families," as the poacher said when he was caught in a man-trap.

"THAT'S what I call capital punishment," as the boy said when his mother shut him up in the closet among the preserves.

"Ir appears to me," said Mawworm, "that they have been making a great deal of fuss with this sinner, Burns, and yet if it wasn't for his writings he never would have been heard of?"

423

"THAT is shear nonsense," as the convict remarked when he saw his wavy locks fall off under the influence of the penitentiary barber.

"THOUGH lost to sight, to memory dear," as the maiden said to her lover, when his face was buried in beard and whiskers.

"ANYTHING to please the child," as the nurse said when she let the baby crawl out of the nursery window.

"I'm lost in grief," as the fly said when he tumbled into a lady's tear.

Ir is wonderful to think how near conceit is to insanity; and yet how many folks are suffered to go free, and foaming with it.

England; but be sure of it, innocent reader, red THE bowstring is unknown in free and happy tape has its daily victims.

EVERY man talks of his neighbour's heart as though it was his own watch-a thing to be seen in all its works, and abused for irregular going.

THE littler folks be, the bigger they talk. You never seed a small man that didn't wear high-heeled boots and a high-crowned hat, and that warn't ready to fight almost any one, to show he was a man every inch of him.

A SAILOR who has recently returned from Newfoundland says that the fog is so thick there, that he used to drive a nail in it to hang his cap on. "So far so good," as the boy said when he had finished the first pot of his mother's jam.

SOME sensible chap says truly that a person who undertakes to raise himself by scandalising others, might just as well sit down on a wheelbarrow, and undertake to wheel himself.

A WAG who was asked to buy the Bank Note Detector, said he would purchase it if it would detect a bank note in his pocket.

A DANCER once said to a Spartan, "You cannot stand on one leg so long as I can." "Perhaps not," said the Spartan, "but any goose can."

I'LL take your part," as the dog said when he robbed the cat of her portion of the dinner.

"TERRIBLE pressure in the money market," as the mouse thought when the keg of specie rolled

over him.

AN old Baptist preacher, so straight a Calvinist that he leaned over backward, was defending his doctrines against a man as ignorant as he was obstinate. At length the preacher said to his opponent, "Now look here, my friend: don't you believe what is to be, will be p" "No, I don't at all. I believe what is to be, won't be."

A MAN, boasting of the smartness of his children, said the youngest was so smart it would take its hand off a hot stove twice without being told.

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"You have lost some of your friends, I see," said a traveller to a negro whom he met on the road. "Yes, massa.” Was it a near or distant relative?" "Well, purty distant-'bout twentyfour mile," was the reply.

AFTER dinner, at a country gentleman's, where B. met with the captain of a vessel lately returned from a voyage to the Baltic, a dish of birstled peas was introduced as an accompaniment to the bottle. The captain, whose dialect was interspersed with a

little of the Scandinavian accent, remarked that Peeter the Greet was very fond of birstled "Yes," added B., " and hence his title, the Great Pea-eater."

peas."

THE following cure for the gout is taken from an old work: 1st. The person must pick a handkerchief from the pocket of a maid of fifty years, who has never had a wish to change her condition. 2nd. He must wash it in an honest miller's pond. 3rd. He must dry it on a parson's hedge who was never covetous. 4th. He must send it to a doctor's shop who never killed a patient. 5th. He must mark it with a lawyer's ink who never cheated a client. 6th. Apply it to the part affected, and a cure will speedily follow.