For a moment Wellington looked so grim that the secretary began to hope for the order which he would gladly have obeyed, viz., to kick the inventor into the street forthwith. But the next instant the iron face cleared again, and over it played the very ghost of a smile, like gleam of winter sunshine upon a precipice.

a

"Show him in," said he, briefly. The observant secretary noted both the tone and the smile that accompanied it; and he inwardly decided that it would have been better for that inventor if he had not insisted on seeing the Duke.

In came the great discoverer-a tall, slouching, shabby, slightly red-nosed man, with a would-be jaunty air, which gave way a little, however, before the "Iron Duke's" penetrating glance.

"I am glad to think that your Grace appreciates the merits of my invention," said he, in a patronizing tone. "They are, indeed, too important to be undervalued by any great commander. Your gallant troops at Waterloo among the French cuirassiers, whose breast-plates were not bullet-proof; whereas, if

"Have you got the thing with you?" interrupted Wellington.

The inventor unwrapped a very showy looking cuirass of polished steel, and was just beginning a long lecture upon its merits, when the Duke cut him short by

asking,

"Are you quite sure it is bulletproof?"

Quite sure, your grace." "Put it on, then, and go and stand in that corner."

The other wonderingly obeyed.

"Mr. Temple," shouted Wellington to his secretary," tell the sentry outside to load with ball-cartridge, and come in here

to test this cuirass."

But quick though the secretary was, the inventor was quicker still. The moment he realized that he had been set up there on purpose to be fired at, and to be shot dead on the spot if his cuirass turned out to be not bullet-proof after all,

"PIE."1

The real social curse of the Atlantic

States is pie. In the West it is pronounced poy," and the backwoodsmen are fond of it; but a man who lives in a log-hut, and is felling trees or toiling in impunity. It is in the North and in the the prairies all day long, can eat pie with East, in cities, and townships, and manufacturing districts, where dense populations of men, women, and children are setions congregate, and where the occupa dentary, that an unholy appetite for pie works untold woes. There the pie fiend the diaphragms and on the souls of its reigns supreme; there he sits heavy on votaries. The sallow faces, the shrunken forms, the sunken eyes, the morose looks, the tetchy temperament of the Northerners are attributable not half so much to iced water, candies, tough beefsteaks, tight-lacing, and tobacco-chewing, as to unbridled indulgence in pie. New England can count the greatest number of votaries to this most deleterious fetish; but pie-worship is prevalent all over the North. In the State of Massachusetts,

for instance, you have pork and beans every Sunday, but you have pie morning, noon, and night, every day, and all the year round. I dare say you have often observed what gross feeders the professed they look for all their abstinence from teetotallers are, and how unwholesome fermented liquors. Set this down in England to a ghoul-like craving for heavy meat, teas, greasy muffins, Sally Lunns, and hot suppers, and in the United States to an overweening addictedness to pie.

I have heard of young ladies who took pie to bed with them. I told you many months ago how angry the Americans were with Mr. Anthony Trollope for saying that the little children in but in degree. There will sometimes inthe States are fed on pickles. He erred, tervene a short period when there are no fresh berries to be had, and when the preserved ones have "gin out." Then the

1 By kind permission of Messrs. Tinsley Brothers.

CULEX IN CARMINE.

[The following poem is from "Jacob Brown and other Poems," published at Cincinnati in 1875, and written by Major Henry T. Stanton, a young Kentuckian of fine rhythmic faculty and keen sense of humor.]

When some migratory clouds
Broke upon the leafy shrouds,
Where the insects lay in crowds,

And a melancholy rain,

On the sounding window pane,
Beats its funeral refrain,

Through a crevice in the sash,
Where the splatter and the dash,
Made his purpose very rash,

A mosquito, lean and thin,
From the drowning and the din,
Undertook to flutter in;

And a crazy shutter's swing
Made the hanging blossoms fling,
Such a flood upon his wing,

That he rather fell than flew,
And was fairly driven through,
By the gusty wind that blew-

Thus succeeding in his flight,
From the unrelenting height,
In a wet and wretched plight.
'Twas the chamber of a maid,
Who, her perfectness displayed-
In a measure-disarrayed;
For a taper in the gloom,
Of the curtained, quiet room,
Showed a woman in her bloom-

And the mellow light was shed,
On her bosom and her head,
In the splendor of her bed.

In a golden current there,
Ran her undulating hair,

From the polished shoulder bare.

As the whitest foam that flees,
Up the beaches from the seas,
Lay the lace of her chemise,-
And the billows of her breast,
In the pillows there imprest,
Kept an ocean-like unrest.

Ah! 'twas well indeed for her,
That the only viewer near
Was the poor mosquito here;

And 'twas better still for him,
That his vision should be dim,
In the halo of the glim.

For the splendid creature there,
With the gilding on her hair,
Lay magnificently fair,

And the smallest insect's eyes,
Seeing such a paradise,
Might be blinded with surprise.

On the inner window case,
With his humid wing and face,
He had anything but grace;
Whilst the mad, reminding rain,
To the vibratory pane,
Brought its horrible refrain.

There, upon the window sill,
He was sitting dreary, still,
In the terror of a chill;

But within his little soul,
He was grateful for the hole
That allowed him such a goal.

So he brushed his little eye,
Saying "May be, by-and-by,
I'll be comfortably dry."

And, exactly as he planned,
With his stoicism grand,
Both his dripping wings were fauned,

For a breeze appeared to flout
In the chamber all about,
And the taper then went out.

Then his eyes began to mark,
By their tiny inner spark,
What there was within the dark.

It was very plain that he,
With a candle burning free,
Found it difficult to see.

But his eyes, denied their sight
In the waxen taper light,
Were exceeding good at night.

By-and-by, at last he tried,
With a flutter at his side,
And his little wings were dried,

And the still existing breeze
Brought a very pleasant ease
To the bending of his knees.

Then he fervently exclaimed! "Now I wish I may be blamed If I'm either wet or lamed."

And he tried a tune of his'n,
Quite a striking kind of buzzin',
"I'm your cousin, cousin, cousin!"

And as joyously he sings,
All around about he flings,

Cousin, cousin," with his wings.

Then he went upon a raid,
Through the heavy-curtained shade,
Till he came upon the maid.

And it's meet and proper here,
That a reason should appear
Why he tarried there with her.

So, the fact is simply this,
When he came upon the Miss,
He was famished for a kiss.

Now, the coldest man we know,
Coming on the Houri so,
For the very same would "go."
And it isn't fair to think,
A mosquito on the brink
Of a nectar-cup,-won't drink.
Splendid type of angel sleep!
Fairer than the pillows' heap,
Lying there in silence deep-

Who will blame him while he dips
From the vintage of her lips,
Redder wine than Bacchus sips?
Less impassioned things of earth,
Seeing such, would know their worth,
Feel it in a fever birth.

Any statue, wanting life,
Nearing lips so passion-rife,
Soon would wake to pulsing strife.

So the glad mosquito sank
Joyous on the fruity tank,
And to utter fulness drank.

Better far the cruel rain,
Thumping on the window-pane,
Fell upon his wing again—

Better far the shutter's swing,
Caught his cousin-crying wing,
Never more to let it sing.

Better he had known a drouth
In the marshes of the South,
Than the nectar of her mouth.

Early morning, fair and sweet,
Found him helpless on a sheet-
Glassy eye and icy feet.

Butterfly and humble bee,
For the coroner's decree,
Early came the corpse to see,—

Laid him out upon the floor,
Scanned his body o'er and o'er,
As it never was before.

After consultation slow,
Pro and con, and so and so,
There they let the insects know:

"This mosquito, lying dead,
By the female in that bed,
Poisoned was with carmine red."

THE SUICIDAL CAT.

There was a man named Ferguson,
He lived on Market street,
He had a speckled Thomas cat

That couldn't well be beat;
He'd catch more rats and mice, and sich,
Than forty cats could eat.

This cat would come into the room

And climb upon a cheer,
And there he'd set and lick hisself,

And purr so awful queer,

That Ferguson would yell at him-
But still he'd purr-severe.

And then he'd climb the moon-lit fence,
And loaf around and yowl,

And spit and claw another cat
Alongside of the jowl;

And then they both would shake their tails
And jump around and howl.

Oh, this here cat of Ferguson's
Was fearful then to see,
He'd yell precisely like he was
In awful agony;

You'd think a first-class stomach-ache

Had struck some small baby.

And all the mothers in the street,

Waked by the horrid din,

Would rise right up and search their babes
To find some worrying pin;

And still this viperous cat would keep
A hollerin' like sin.

And as for Mr. Ferguson,

'Twas more than he could bear, And so he hurled his boot-jack out Right through the midnight air; But this vociferous Thomas cat, Not one cent did he care.

For still he yowled and kept his fur
A standin' up on end,

And his old spine a doublin' up
As far as it would bend,
As if his hopes of happiness

Did on his lungs depend.

But while a curvin' of his spine,
And waitin', to attack

A cat upon the other fence,

There come an awful crack ;-
And this here speckled Thomas cat
Was busted in the back!

When Ferguson came home next day,
There lay his old feline,
And not a life was left in him,

Although he had had nine.

"All this here comes," said Ferguson, "Of curvin' of his spine."

Now all you men whose tender hearts

This painful tale does rack,
Just take this moral to yourselves,
All of you, white and black;
Don't ever go like this here cat,
To gettin' up your back.

ANONYMOUS

HERE is a short Kansas poem: He found a rope, and picked it up, And with it walked away.

it happened that to t'other end

A horse was hitched, they say.

They found a tree, and tied the rope
Unto a swinging limb.

It happened that the other end
Was somehow hitched to him.

THE HAT.

Recited by M. Coquelin, of the Comédie

Française.

[In Paris, monologues are the fashion. Some are in verse; some are in prose. At every matinee, dinnerparty, or soirée the mistress of the entertainment makes it her duty to provide some little scenic recitation, to be One gone through by Saint Germain or Coquelin. which recently enjoyed great success, entitled "The Hat," we here offer in an English version.]

Mise en Scène: A gentleman holding his hat. Well, yes! On Tuesday last the knot was tied

Tied hard and fast; that can not be denied. I'm caught, I'm caged, from the law's point of view,

Before two witnesses, good men and true.
I'm licensed, stamped: undo the deed who