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d'honneur, the word of a gentleman, that you shall be paid

to-morrow.

Dix. Can't wait, rayally neöw, Jovanny. Fact is, you 'vo dodged round that mast most too often. No, Jovanny, you don't leave this house without shellin' out the pewter. Count. Well, then, sign your bill, and I'll pay you. you von grand excessif—

Dix (eagerly)

vanny?

But

Scoundrel! Did you say scoundrel, Jo

Count. No, sare; you von grand impostor.
Dix. Wa-a-l, then, there 's your receipt.

Count. And there 's your money.

A MODEST WIT-ANON.

A SUPERCILIOUS nabob of the east

Haughty, being great-purse-proud, being rich,

A governor, or general, at the least,

I have forgotten which

Had in his family an humble youth,

Who went from England in his patron's suite,

An unassuming boy, and in truth

A lad of decent parts, and good repute.

This youth had sense and spirit;

But yet, with all his sense,

Excessive diffidence

Obscured his merit.

One day, at table, flushed with pride and wine,
His honor, proudly free, severely merry,
Conceived it would be vastly fine

To crack a joke upon his secretary.

"Young man," he said, " by what art, craft or trade,
Did your good father gain a livelihood ?”—

"He was a saddler, sir," Modestus said,
"And in his time was reckoned good."-

"A saddler, eh! and taught you Greek,
Instead of teaching you to sew!
Pray, why did not your father make
A saddler, sir, of you?"

Each parasite, then, as in duty bound,
The joke applauded, and the laugh went round.

At length Modestus, bowing low,

Said, (craving pardon, if too free he made,)
"Sir, by your leave, I fain would know

Your father's trade !"

66

My father's trade! Bless me, that's too bad!
My father's trade? Why, blockhead, are you mad?

My father, sir, did never stoop so low-
He was a gentleman, I'd have you know."

"Excuse the liberty I take,"

Modestus said, with archness on his brow
"Pray, why did not your father make
A gentleman of you?"

DANIEL VERSUS DISHCLOTH.-STEVENS.

WE will consider the law, as our laws are very considerable, both in bulk and magnitude according as the statutes declare, considerandi, considerando, considerandum; and are not to be meddled with by those who do not understand them. Law always expressing itself with true grammatical precision, never confounding words, cases or genders, except, indeed, when a woman happens to be slain, then the verdict is always brought in man-slaughter. We all know that the essence of the law is altercation; for the law can altercate, fulminate, deprecate.

irritate, and go on at any rate. Now the quintessence of the law has, according to its name, five parts:-the first, is the beginning, or incipiendum ;—the second, the uncertainty, or dubitandum ;—the third, delay, or puzzleendum ;-fourthly, replication without endum;—and fifthly, monstrum et horrendum All of which are fully exemplified in the following case of

Daniel versus Dishcloth. Daniel was groom in the same fam ily in which Dishcloth was cook-maid; Daniel returning home one day somewhat fuddled, he stooped down to take a sop out off the dripping pan;-Dishcloth thereupon laid hold upon him, and in the struggle pushed him into the dripping pan, which spoiled? his clothes. He was advised to bring his action against the cook-maid therefor, the pleadings of which were as follows:The first counsel who spoke was Mr. Serjeant Snuffle. He began with saying "Since I have the honor to be pitched upon to open this case to your lordship, I shall not impertineutly presume to take up any of your lordship's time, by a roundabout, circumlocutory manner of speaking, or talking, quite foreign to the purpose, and not anywise relating to the matter in hand; I shall-I will-I design to show whats damages my client has sustained, hereupon-whereupon and thereupon. Now, my lord, my client being a servant in the same family with Dishcloth, and, not being at board-wages, imagined he had a right to the fee simple of the dripping pan

therefore, he made an attachment on the sop with his right haud --which the defendant replevied with her right hand— tripped up our heels, and tumbled us into the dripping pan. Now, in Broughton's Reports, Slack vs. Smallcoat, it is said, primus strokus, sine jocus, absolutos est provokos; now, who gave the primus strokus? Who gave the first offence? Why, the cook-maid; she placed the dripping pan there; for, my lord, though we will allow if had not been where we were, we could not have tumbled where we did-yet, my lord-if the dripping pan had not been where it was we could not have fallen down into the dripping pan."

The next counsel, on the same side, began with-" My lord, he who makes use of many words to no purpose, has not much

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to say for himself; therefore, I shall come to the point at once, at once and immediately I shall come to the point. My client was in liquor-the liquor in him having served an ejectment upon his understanding, common sense was non-suited, and he was a man beside himself, or, as Doctor Biblicus declares, in his dissertation upon bumpers in the one hundreth and thirtyninth folio volume of the abridgment of the statutes, page one thousand two hundred and eighty-six, that a drunken man is a homo duplicans, or a double man-not only because he sees things double, but, also, because he is not as he should be, “perfecto ipse "--but is as he should not be, "defecto tipse."

The counsel for the cook-maid rose up gracefully, playing with his ruffles prettily, and tossing the ties of his wig about emphatically. He began with "My lud, and gentlemen of the jury-I humbly do conceive, I have the authority to declare that I am counsel in this case for the defendant-therefore, my lud, I shall not flourish away in words;—words are no more than fillagree works; some people may think them an embellishment; but to me, it is a matter of astonishment, how any one can be so impertinent to use them to the detriment of all rudiments; but, my lud this is not to be looked at through the medium of right and wrong; for the law knows no medium, and right and wrong are but mere shadows. Now, in the first place, they have called a kitchen, my client's premises.Now, a kitchen is nobody's premises;-a kitchen is not a warehouse a wash-house, a brewhouse, an outhouse—or an inhouse-nor a dwellinghouse-nor any house;-no my lud,` 't is absolutely and bona fide neither more nor less than a kitchen, or, as the law more classically expresses it-a kitchen is, camera necessaria pro usos cookare; cum sauce panis, stew-panis, scullero,-dressero,-coalholo,- sto vis―smoakjacko, pro roastandum-boilandum-fryandum, et plum-pudding mixandum; pro turtle supos, calves head hashibus, cum calippe et caliphashibus. Moreover, we shall not avail ourselves of an alibi, but admit the existence of a cook-maid. Now, my lud, we shall take a new ground, and beg a new trial-for as they have curtailed our name in their pleadings

from plain Mary into Moll, I hope the court will not allow of this-for if the court were to allow mistakes, what would become of the law--although where there are no mistakes it is clearly the business of the law to make them.

Therefore, The court, after due consideration, granted the parties a new trial; for the law is our liberty, and happy it is for us, that we have the privilege of going to law.

T& DANCE, OR NOT TO DANCE-A PARODY.-ANON.

To dance, or not to dance-that is the question
Whether 't is better in an awkward fellow,
With gait uncouth, and feet turned in, to stand
A mere spectator; or with hand presumptuous
To lead out a partner-to dance-chasscé,―
No more-and by one effort say we end
Vile mauvaise honte, and all the ungrateful fears
That bashfulness is heir to 't is a deed
Devoutly to be wish'd-to dance—to trip--
To trip-perchance to tumble-there's the rub,
For from such hapless fall, what laughs may rise
When we have shuffled scarce through half the room,
Must give us pause; there's the respect which makes
The rusty student in a corner slink

Pinching his fingers; for who else would bear
The coxcomb's sneer, the proud belle's contumely,
The taunt of foolish widows, and the spurn
Which patient rustics of pert misses take,
When he himself might his quietus make
By a mere caper-who would fiddles hear,
Yet sweat and groan under the fear of dancing,
But that the dread of some unhappy blunder,
Some unforseen mistake, (a foul disgrace
Which time will ne'er wipe off) puzzles the wil
And makes us rather sit, and hide our faults,
Than dance, and publish them.

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