O, prudent folks, for fear of hoax,
Put no belief in Ghosts!
FRIENDS AWAITING A SAILOR’S RETURN.
A SNAKE-SNACK.
“Twine ye, twine ye.”—SIR W. SCOTT.
IT was my good fortune once, at Charing Cross, to witness the feeding of the Boa Constrictor; rather a rare occurrence, and difficult of observation, the reptile not being remarkable for the regularity of its dinner-hour; and a very considerable interval intervenes, as the world knows, between Gorge the First, and Gorge the Second, Gorge the Third, and Gorge the Fourth. I was not in time to see the serpent’s first dart at the prey; she had already twisted herself round her victim,—a living White Rabbit—who with a large dark eye gazed piteously through one of the folds, and looked most eloquently that line in Hamlet—
“O could I shuffle off this mortal coil!”
THE BOA AFTER A MEAL.