Cats hate rats, and rats hate cats, and—who don’t.
I serpose thare is between 50 and 60 millions of rats in Amerika (i quote now entirely from memory,) and i don’t serpose thare is a single necessary rat in the whole lot. This shows at a glance how menny waste rats thare is. Rats enhance in numbers, faster than shoe pegs do by machinery. One pair ov helthy rats is awl that enny man wants tew start the rat bissiness with, and in ninety days, without enny outlay, he will begin tew hav rats,—tew turn oph.
Stujent.—We never furnish ortograffs in less quantity than 489 bi the package. It iz a bizness that grate men hav got into, but it dont strik us az being profitable nor amuzing. We furnished a near and very dear friend our ortograff a few years ago, for 90 days, and it got into the hands ov one of the banks, and it kost us $275 tew get it back. We went out of the bizzness then, and have not hankered for it sinse.
Manifess destiny iz a disseaze, but it iz eazy tew heal; i hav seen it in its wust stages cured bi sawing a cord ov dri hickory wood. I thought i had it onse, it broke out in the shape ov poetry; i sent a speciment ov the disseaze tew a magazine, the magazine man wrote me nex day as follers:
“Dear Sur: Yu may be a darn phule, but yu are no poeck. Yures, in haste.”
Matty—It iz very natral that you should ask me in what manner you should reseave the proposal from your lover. It iz sumthing ov a trick tew dew it nice. You don’t ought tew jump into the collar suddin, nor fly back suddin, like a bocky hoss, but yu ought tew take it kind, looking down hill, with an expreshun, about half tickled and half scart. After the pop iz over, if your luvver wants tew kiss you, I dont think I would say yes or no, but let the thing kind ov take its own course.
Mirakle:—Yu sa “yu kant understand the mirakle ov the whale, that swallered Joner.” I dont serpose that Joner, nor the whale, ever fully understood it themselfs. I kant tell yu what Joner did while in the whale’s sosiety; but i kno what a yankee would hav did, he would hav rigged a rudder on the animal, and run him into port, and either klaimed the ile for salvage, or sold out his chanse.
SHORT, BUT SWEET.
Richard.—Yu done wisely tew ask me questions in Natral history. I am perfektly at hum amung beasts, burds, and fishes. I kan tell whi the flea bights, whi the bull bellers, and whi the rinosseross hasn’t got but one tusk, and that on the top of his knoze. I hav writ the biography ov all theze kritters, from the genial muskeeter and pensiv cockroach klean up tew the elephant, with hiz trunk, and the lion, who hain’t got enny trunk at all. You ask me about the zebra. The zebra iz a striped hoss, the wildesst thing in natral history ov hiz size, and az hard tew civilize az the hyena, and az useless, when civilized, az the osstritch or the rattlesnaik. They don’t inhabit the United States at large; they may liv in Kanda, if they hav a mind to—I never hav been thare tew diskover. They are about the size ov a moderate mule, but they kant kik with the mule. Thare ain’t nothing that kiks for phun or kiks for a living that kan outkik a mule, except it iz an old-fashioned, Continental, revolushionary war, Fourth ov July musket. Put about 3 and a haff inches ov powder 491 into one ov theze old vetrans of 1776, ram it down heavy, and lay it on a stump, and tutch it oph with a slo match, and I had just az leafs stand in front ov it az tew stand in the rear ov it. Thare iz sum ov the oldest and crossest ov theze muskets that will kik, and even squeal, if yu go near them, whether they are loaded or not. The zebra iz ov no use whatever only tew look at, at 25 cents a chance, in sum circus tent, but after they are broke they are spilte for enny thing else. They are like all other wild animals—fleet only for a short distance; and civilizashun iz a grate damage tew them, just az it iz tew an injun. Deth iz the only kind ov civilizashun that an injun kan understand.