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HE first beef I tried in my last campaign was the evening I dined at His Lord ship's. Don't be alarmed, my democratic friend. I am not upon Lord Cowley's visiting list, nor are any coroneted cards ever left at my door on the sixth storey. I did not receive a card from the British Embassy on the occasion of the last ball at the Hôtel de Ville; and I am ashamed to confess that, so anxious was I to partake of the hos pitality of the Prefect of the Seine (the toilettes and the iced punch are perfect at his balls) that I was mean enough to forswear temporarily my nationality, and to avail myself of the card of Colonel Waterton Privilege, of Harshellopolis, Ga.; said colonel being at that time, and in all probability exceedingly sick, in his state-room of the United States steamer Forked Lightning, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. But by His Lordship's I mean an Anglo-French restaurantnamed after a defunct English City eating-house -situate near the Place de la Concorde, and where I heard that real English roast beef was to be obtained at all hours, in first-rate condition.

His Lordship's mansion I found unpretending, even to obscurity. There was no porte-cochère, no courtyard, no gilt railings, nor green verandahs. His Lordship's hotel was, in fact, only a little slice of a shop, with one dining-room over it; for which, I was told, he paid an enormous rent-some thousands of francs a year. In his window were displayed certain English viands pleasant to the sight: a mighty beef-steak pie just cut; the kidney end of a loin of veal, with real English stuffing, palpable to sight; some sausages that might have been pork, and of Epping; some potatoes, in their homely brown jackets, just out at elbows, as your well-done potatoes should be, with their flannel under-garments peeping through; and a spherical mass, something of the size and shape of a bombshell, dark in colour, speckled black and white, and which my beating heart told me was a plum-pudding. A prodigious Cheshire cheese, rugged as Helvellyn, craggy as Criffell, filled up the background like a range of yellow mountains. At the base there were dark forests of bottles branded with the names of Allsopp, and Bass, and Guinness, and there were cheering announcements framed and glazed, respecting Pale Ale on draught, L.L. Whiskey, and Genuine Old Tom. I rubbed my hands in glee. "Ha! ha!" I said, internally; "nothing like our British aristocracy, after all. The true stock, sir. May His Lordship's shadow never diminish!"

Now appeared a gaunt, ossified waiter, with blueblack hair, jaws so closely shaven that they gave him an unpleasant resemblance to the grand inquisitor of the Holy Office in disguise, seeking for heretics in a cook-shop, and who was, besides, in a perpetual cold perspiration of anger against an irate man in a shooting-jacket below, and carried on fierce verbal warfare with him down the stairThis waiter rose up against me, rather than addressed me, and charged me with a pike of bread, cutting the usual immense slice from it. I mildly suggested roast beef, wincing, it must be owned, under the eye of the cadaverous waiter; who looked as if he were accustomed to duplicity, and did not believe a word that I was saying.

case.

Ah! rosbif!" he echoed; "bien saignant, n'estce pas ?"

Now, so far from liking my meat bien saignant, I cannot even abide the sight of it rare, and I told him so. But he repeated "bien saignant," and

vanished.

He came again, though; or, rather, his pallid face protruded itself over the top of the box where I sat (there were boxes at His Lordship's), and asked— "Paint portare ? p'lale? ole' ale ?"

I was nettled, and told him sharply that I would try the wine, if he could recommend it. Whereupon there was silence, and then I heard a voice crying down a pipe," Paint portare!"

He brought me my dinner, and I didn't like it. It was bien saignant, but it wasn't beef, and it swam in a dead sea of gravy that was not to my taste; fat from strange animals seemed to have been grafted on to the lean. I did not get on better with the potatoes, which were full of promise, like a park hack, and unsatisfactory in the performance. I tried some plum-pudding afterwards; but, if the proof of the pudding be in the eating, that pudding remains unproved to this day; for when I tried to fix my fork in it, it rebounded away across the room, and hit a black man on the leg. I would rather not say anything about the porter, if you please; and perhaps it is well to be brief on the subject of the glass of hot hollands-and-water which I tried afterwards, in a despairing attempt to be convivial; for it smelt of the midnight lamp like an erudite book, and of the midnight oil-can, and had the flavour of the commercial turpentine rather than of the odoriferous juniper. I consoled myself with some Cheshire cheese, and asked the waiter if he had the Presse.

"Ze Time is 'gage," he answered,

'I did not want the Times. I wanted the Presse." "Sare," he repeated wrathfully, ze Time is 'gage. Le journal anglais (he accentuated this spitefully) is 'gage."

He would have no further commerce with me after this; and, doubtlessly, thinking that an Englishman who couldn't eat his beef under-done, or indeed at all, and preferred the Presse to the Times newspaper, was an outcast and a renegade, abandoned me to my evil devices, and contented

himself with crying "Voilà!" from the murky distance, without coming when I called. He even declined to attend to receive payment, and handed me over for that purpose to a long French boy in a blouse, whose feet had evidently not long been emancipated from the pastoral sabots, whose hair was cropped close to his head (in the manner suggesting county gaol at home, and ignorance of small-tooth combs abroad), and who had quite a flux of French words, and tried to persuade me to eat civet de lièvre that was to be served up at halfpast seven of the clock.

But I would have borne half a hundred disappointments similar to this dinner for the sake of the black man. Legs and feet! he was a character! He sat opposite to me, calm, contented, magnificent, proud. He was as black as my boot, and as shiny. His woolly head, crisped by our bounteous mother Nature, had unmistakably received a recent touch of the barber's tongs. He was perfumed; he was oiled; he had moustachios (as I live!) twisted out into long rats' tails by means of pommade hongroise. He had a tip. He had a scarlet Turkish cap with a long blue tassel. He had military stripes down his pantaloons. He had patent leather boots. He had shirt-studs of large circumference, pins, gold waistcoat buttons, and a gorgeous watch-chain. I believe he had a crimson under-waistcoat. He had the whitest of cambric

handkerchiefs, a ring on his fore-finger, and a stick with an overpowering gold knob. He was the wonderfullest nigger that the eye ever beheld. He had a pretty little English wife-it is a fact, madam-with long auburn ringlets, who it was plain to see was desperately in love with, and desperately afraid of him. It was marvellous to behold the rapt, fond gaze with which she contemplated him as he leaned back in his chair after dinner, and touched up his glistening ivories with a toothpick. Equally marvellous was the condescension with which he permitted her to eat her dinner in his august presence, and suffered her to tie round his neck a great emblazoned shawl like a flag.

Who could he have been? The father of the African twins; the Black Malibran's brother; Baron Pompey; King Mousalakatzic of the Orange River; Prince Bobo; some other sable dignitary of the empire of Hayti; or the renowned Soulouque himself incognito? Yet, though affable to his spouse, he was a fierce man to the waiter. The old blood of Ashantee, the ancient lineage of Dahomey, could ill brook the shortcomings of that cadaverous servitor. There was an item in the reckoning that displeased him.

"Wass this, sa?" he cried, in a terrible voice, "Wass this, sa? Fesh your mas'r, sa!" The waiter cringed and fled, and I laughed.

"SHON," said a Dutchman, "you may say what you please pout pad neighbours; I have had te vorst neighbours as never was. Mine pigs and mine hens come home wit dere ears split, and todder day two of them come home missing."

A DUTCHMAN thus describes an accident: "Vonce a long vile ago, I vent intos mine abble orchard, to climb a bear tree to get some peaches to make vrow a plumb-budding mit: and when I gets on the tobermost branch, I vall from the lowermost limb, mit von leg on both sides of the fence, and like to stove my outside in."

A FRENCHMAN upon the road on a "Fast Day" told a boy to hold his horse "swift." "Fast, you mean, don't you, sir ?" interrogated the lad. "Vel, fast, den," said the Frenchman. "Mais, be gar," I no understand dis!" "There goes a fast horse!" exclaimed a bystander, as a lively trotting nag passed by. "How is zat?" nervously inquired the astonished Frenchman; "zare is von horse fast, and he goes like zunder all de time; zare is my horse, he is fast too, and he no move."

ANGLAIS.

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This is a Fast Day in reality, by the appearance of the road," said another. Oh, I see den,' said monsieur, "vy dis is fast day; everything is fast; ze horse zat goes is fast, ze horse zat is tied is fast, and ze folks zat eat nothing and eat it slow is fast. Be gar, vot a countrie!"

Ir is said that a country tradesman took back with him, on his return from an Exhibition trip, a card bearing the words "Ici on parle Français," which he duly displayed in his shop window, after the fashion of his metropolitan brethren. A wag, having wagered on the success of his movement, entered the shop one day, and requested that he might be permitted to inspect the "Ici on parle Français," when the good man blandly informed him that, "from the great demand for them in London, he had not been able to get a parcel down, but expected some fine ones in a few days."

"ANYT'ING bite you dar?" inquired one Dutchman of another, while engaged in angling. "No, not'ing at all." Vell!" returned the other, "not'ing pite me, too."

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"HAVE you seed a fox go by here?" "Wal, yes." Have you seed a dog go by here ?" "Wal, yes; they wos a runnin' along like blazes." wos they?" "Wal, about nip and tuck-dog a little ahead." Bob sloped, and gave the dog up for a hard one.

"DON'T stand there loafing," said the master of a grammar-school, to three students standing where they shouldn't. "We're not loafing," said one of them," there are only three of us, and it takes 'leaven to make a loaf."

A BAR-KEEPER in Virginia city, Nevada, posts up the following "regulations" by his bar:-"Drink plain drinks; buy them at this bar; eat a light lunch; pay coin for what you get; drink light but often; ask all your friends to drink; don't beg tooth-picks; don't try to spar the bar-keeper; keep six-shooters uncocked; don't steal the daily papers; be virtuous and you'll be happy."

AN American was once teaching English to a German, and, on being asked if there were no irregular verbs in English, replied by giving the following solitary example:-"I go, thou wentest, he departed, we made tracks, you cut sticks, they skedaddled." But, on asking for a repetition of it, the German found that it varied every time, and he had at last to give it up in despair.

Is describing his journey from California, Artemus Ward says:-"The driver with whom I sat outside, as we slowly rolled down the fearful mountain road, which looks down on either side into an appalling ravine, informed me that he has met accidents in his time which cost the California Stage Company a great deal of money; 'because,' said he, 'juries is agin us on principle, and every man who sues us is sure to recover. But it will never be so agin, not with me, you bet!' 'How is

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that?' I said. It was frightfully dark. snowing, withal; and, notwithstanding the breaks were kept hard down, the coach slewed wildly, often fairly touching the brink of the black precipice. How is that ?' I said. 'Why, you see,' he replied, that corpses never sue for damages, but maimed people do. And the next time I have an overturn, I shall go round and keerfully examine the passengers. Them as is dead, I shall let alone; but them as is mutilated, I shall finish with the king-bolt! Dead folks don't sue. They ain't on it.' Thus, with anecdote, did this driver cheer

me up."

AN American paper says this is certainly the age of progress. Farmer Simpson, having manured his wheat-fields with "baking powder," his crops shot up luxuriantly, and were reaped in harvesttime in the shape of shilling loaves, all ready buttered: a result only paralleled by the success which she sprinkled at night over the fine linen, of Mrs. Simpson with the "washing powder," and in the morning it was all mangled and ironed in the drawers!

HAVE you heard of the Bowery-boy, who, being cut short in a hard life by a sore disease which quickly brought him to death's door, was informed by his physician that medicine could do nothing for him. What's my chances, doctor?" "Not worth speaking of." One in twenty ?"

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Oh, no." "In thirty?" "No." "Fifty?" "I think not." "A hundred ?" Well, perhaps there may be one in a hundred." "I say, then, doctor," pulling him close down, and whispering with feeble earnestness in his ear, "just go in like all thunder on that one chance." The doctor "went in," and the patient recovered.

WE came by the way of Orange, Lemon, and Alexandria Railroad, and would say to persons who are tired of life and in a hurry to get through, try this line. You leave Washington in the evening, and, as a general thing, will reach your grave or Richmond the next day. Each train is provided with a surgeon, undertaker, amputating table, and other luxuries; besides these, it has some of the finest coffins I ever expect to see. Hospitals are established along the entire route, and in case of accident the bodies of strangers are immediately embalmed. The arrangements are so perfect and accidents so sure on this road, that many persons have their limbs amputated and get embalmed before starting, to avoid delay while on

the car.

ONE of the American newspapers observes of a member of Congress for a certain district of Illinois, that "he is so tall that, when he addresses the people, instead of mounting a stump, as is usual in the West, they have to dig a hole for him to stand in!" Another paper, which goes the whole ticket against the said member, politely observes that "they dig a hole for him, not because he is tall, but because he never feels at home except when he is up to his chin in dirt."

I ALWAYS get my bit o' mid-day sustenance at the opposition shop now-Absalom J. Runt's-for I ain't been to Slobbs's for months. If you'd like ter know why, wal, whether or no, I'll tell you. It's because some of our boys have mort'lly grand idee of Derringers and Bowies, and they don't take kyindly yet to the sheriff and the committee of vigilance. We're a rising city, though, at West Paraira; and what we shall be in a few years there ain't no tellin' at all, but it'll be a sight, stranger; and if you of the rotten old country don't gnaw your teeth with envy, why, my name ain't Hiram. You see the great P'cific line goes through us clean, and we've been risin' ever since it started. There ain't a city out west with more bars where you can have a smile or a morning | painter; if there is, tell me on it. Then see what institootions we've got rising fast, from Nathan D. Anson's store, right down to the Paraira Solid Milk and Butter Company in Cross Street, number ten underd an' eight. Slobbs's is in Cross Street, number nine, as p'r'aps you know; Absalom J. Runt's is in Straight Street, and there's a mortal enmity between them two. It's the steam does it, I think.

I left off going to Slobbs's because I thought it was good for me, bein' a very mild, inoffensive sort of a fellow. You see there was a waiter at Slobbs's as had a sort of spite agen me, and he'd always give me the worst cuts of the beef and the fattest of the mutton; while as to gravy, I get more gravy at Runt's in one day than them Slobbses let me have in a week. Then I allus had the wettest salt and the stalest bread, and the dirtiest bit of the tablecloth; and if there was a knife as had broke loose and turned round in the haft, that knife was put for me. We didn't like one another-me and the waiter didn't and we got more and more enemies every day, till I see very plain as there must be a bust soon. I kep' it in, though, for I thought as something might turn up, so as to let me serve Mr. Waiter out by depitty.

There was another thing, too, as I didn't like at Slobbs's, only it wasn't a thing, it was a great ugly customer as always sot on me-mettyphorically, of course, I mean; for he was allus mocking like of my humble ways; and if ever I ordered my glass of anythink, he'd roar instanter for the waiter, and call for a bottle. He made hisself very on pleasant to me, he did, and snubbed me on politicks more than a few; but I let it all wait. I saved it up, as you may suppose, thinking how much I should like to have it out with him; but I never seemed to get no chance till about a week after Slobbses came out strong with a new set of J. Puddick's Alabama 'Lecterer Plate, warranted to wear better than solid silver. Them spoons and forks just did shine so as it seemed a pity to put 'em in the soup, or to get 'em greasy, for you could see your face in 'em, so as you never got tired of vooing the expression of your features.

But even the sight o' them spoons didn't settle

me, and I wasn't going to be tempted into stopping, when Runt's had their doors open to have me, and there was gravy and welkum.

This citizen as allus sot on me was washed in with the name of Shimei-Shimei B. Parsons was his total-and his people made some cuss of a mistake or another over his name, I bet, or else they'd never ha' took to this one.

We got to the climax at last, we did; and I left without a word, after serving 'em both out pleasant-like. It was like this. I'd had a bit of the toughest old steak I ever did stick teeth in since I chawed caoutchouc at school, and got leathered for it; and after I'd been puzzling my teeth with that bit o' steak for half an hour, who should come in but Shimei; and the fust thing he does is to hang his greatcoat over the rail where I was sitting, knock down my felt hat, and then laugh, fleeringlike, at me. I never says nothing; but that there was tougher than the steak, and I couldn't swaller it a bit; but there I sits with that coat touching of me, and the waiter half-grinning at me to see me so uncomfortable. "I reckon I'd like to chaw the couple on yer up," I thinks to myself; and then, somehow, while I was a-balancin' one of J. Puddick's Alabama 'Lecterer Plate Spoons on my finger, I let it slip into one o' my friend opposite's coat-pockets; when, thinking as the poor thing might be cold all alone there by itself, I slips in another, to keep it company. "I shouldn't wonder if that there coat was to hang lop-sided after that," thinks I to myself; and while my neighbour was a-running his eye down the columns of the West Puraira Triboon, I just slips a couple of forks into the other pocket, and then waits a little while till my fren the waiter condescends to take the bill; after which I waits a bit longer, for decency sake, and then I gets up to go.

I finds my fren' the waiter just outside the swingdoors, lookin' at me very soopercilyus like, and I says to him: "Nice sorter gent that in box No. 7." 'Very," he says, shortly.

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"Very true," I says. "Them's a nice set of J. Puddick's Alabama Lecterer Plate, too." "Yes," he says, looking at me quite curus, as much as to say: What's up the tree now?" Shall you charge them forks and spoons in his bill?” I says.

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