Exploring wilds of Central Park,
Or Brooklyn bridge-tower scaling!
Ho, bring my boots! I burn to gain

Famed Harlem's mountains broken,
And flaunt in Scribner's window-pane
My "Travels through Hoboken!"

FLORA.

You wretch! how dare you mock me so At every word I utter?

FRANK (proudly).

Well, I'm no cage-bred pet, you know,
To chirp for cake-and-butter;
Mine be the wild-bird's rocky lair,
The wild-bird's flight aspiring,
To soar through boundless realms of air
On pinions never tiring!

FLORA (sarcastically).

But when the cold December blast Through leafless boughs came moaning,

Or stones by impish urchins cast

Your carols turned to groaning,

I guess you'd find your "freedom" sweet
Too cold for admiration,

And change for birdie's cage and meat
Your free, unthralled starvation.

FRANK.

Bah! give to those who fear the strife,
Retirement and a cottage;

No Esau I to barter life

And all it yields for pottage! Not all the gold of Wall Street Jews To one dull spot should pin me, With "earth before me where to choose," And life aglow within me!

FLORA.

Ah me! no cloud the spirit dims
Till youth and vigor fail us;
But when gray hairs and feeble limbs
And creeping years assail us,

When now no more we proudly stand
Defying grief and dangers,

'Tis then we miss the loving hand-
Lone in a world of strangers!

FRANK (smiling).

Aha! there spoke the sex, ma mie!
No song but this one only:
"Get married and thrice happy be—

Live single and be lonely!"

Well, well, don't frown, my pretty sage—
You know my tongue's a railer;

But, if I'm destined to the cage,
Will you, dear, be my jailer?

DAVID KER.

IN THE CONSERVATORY.

"BUT we must return! What will they say? Yes, I know it's awful nice

In the window here, from the others away, With a taste, now and then, of the ice,

And now and then of Oh, you wretch!
It wasn't at all required

That you should illustrate thus with a sketch
The speech that of course you admired.

"No matter how naughty. There! you have spoiled

The classical Grecian knot'

In which you like my hair to be coiled,
And I really don't know what

Other mischief you haven't done! You're just

Real naughty! You squeeze like a vise! Why can't you men take something on

trust,

And be more dainty and nice?

"There! I'm ready, now.

more?

What! just one

Oh! aren't you a darling tease?

And love me so?—one, two, three, four!
There! come now, dearest, please!

I'm almost afraid of the parlor glare:
When they look at my lips, they'll see
The kisses upon them."-" No, not there;
But, sweet, in your eyes maybe."

EARL MARBLE.

THE AMATEUR SPELLING-MATCH.

SINCE spelling-matches everywhere
O'er all the land abound,

Why should not we, too, "do and dare?"
I will the words propound,
And you the "favored scholar" be,
As Rogers' group suggests.
With what a wealth of poetry
The subject he invests!

Spell "spoons."

you say?

"What! such a word!"

"But fit for kitchen-school?