A RECEIPT AGAINST NIGHT AIR.
"Theodore Hook," writes a friend, "had a receipt of his own to prevent invalids from being exposed to the night air. I remember his once taking me home from a party in his cab, between four and five o'clock on a brilliant morning in July. I made some remark, soon after we had passed Hyde Park Corner, about the reviving quality of the air after the heated rooms we had been in. 'Ah,' said Hook, 'you may depend on it, my dear fellow, that there is nothing more injurious to health than the night air. I was very ill some months ago, and my doctor gave me particular orders not to expose myself to it.' 'I hope,' said I, 'you attended to them?' 'O yes!' said he, 'strictly; I came up every day to Crockford's or some other place to dinner, and I made it a rule on no account to go home again till about this hour in the morning.'"
PUNTING.
"In the course of our fishing, we had been punted down the river opposite to Lord ——'s house, and while seated in front of it, he remarked that he used to be on very friendly terms with the noble owner; but that a coolness had lately sprung up between them, in consequence of his lordship having taken umbrage at the epitaph (pointed with a clever but objectionable pun) he had composed for his late brother, so unhappily notorious for the charges brought against him of false play at whist. On seeing the present Peer out on the river fishing, Hook had received from him, instead of his usual courteous greeting, a very stiff, ceremonious bow; but, determined not to notice it, he only replied:—
"'What, my lord, following the family occupation, eh?—punting, I see—punting!'"
An impromptu of Hook's on the same subject, ran the round of the club-houses. It will be remembered that the nobleman alluded to brought an action for defamation against certain of his accusers, which, however, he thought proper to abandon at the last moment.
EPIGRAM.
"Cease your humming,