BY EVA L. OGDEN.
She was rich and of high degree;
A poor and unknown artist he.
"Paint me," she said, "a view of the sea."
So he painted the sea as it looked the day
That Aphrodite arose from its spray;
And it broke, as she gazed in its face the while
Into its countless-dimpled smile.
"What a pokey stupid picture," said she;
"I don't believe he can paint the sea!"
Then he painted a raging, tossing sea,
Storming, with fierce and sudden shock,
Wild cries, and writhing tongues of foam,
A towering, mighty fastness-rock.
In its sides above those leaping crests,
The thronging sea-birds built their nests.
"What a disagreeable daub!" said she;
"Why it isn't anything like the sea!"
Then he painted a stretch of hot, brown sand,
With a big hotel on either hand,
And a handsome pavilion for the band,—
Not a sign of the water to be seen
Except one faint little streak of green.
"What a perfectly exquisite picture," said she;
"It's the very image of the sea."
—Century Magazine.
A TALE OF A NOSE.
BY CHARLES F. ADAMS.
'Twas a hard case, that which happened in Lynn.
Haven't heard of it, eh? Well, then, to begin,
There's a Jew down there whom they call "Old Mose,"
Who travels about, and buys old clothes.
Now Mose—which the same is short for Moses—
Had one of the biggest kind of noses:
It had a sort of an instep in it,
And he fed it with snuff about once a minute.
One day he got in a bit of a row
With a German chap who had kissed his frau,
And, trying to punch him à la Mace,
Had his nose cut off close up to his face.
He picked it up from off the ground,
And quickly back in its place 'twas bound,
Keeping the bandage upon his face
Until it had fairly healed in place.