HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York
THE MOON-FAY PORTRAIT-GALLERY.
Upon a giant lily-pad the Bull-frog sits at night
To have his portrait painted by a cunning little sprite;
The artist begs him take a pose that gives him greatest ease,
And every now and then he says, "Look pleasant, if you please."
Some years ago there lived in England a certain bishop who was extremely pompous, and very fond of impressing upon the minds of the poorer people the evil of doing wrong. As they never seemed to do aught but wrong in the worthy man's opinion, it sometimes became irksome to these people to hear him constantly admonishing them to do right. One of the bishop's habits was to visit the miners a short distance from his city, and his presence grew familiar to these toilers. During one of his calls he found a group of them talking together, and after a few preliminary words on his customary subject of doing right, he asked them what they were talking of.
"You see," said one of the men, "we found a kettle, and us has been er-trying who can tell the biggest loi to own the kettle."
The bishop was duly surprised, and read the men a lecture in which he spoke of how strongly the offence of lying had been impressed upon him when he was young, and how he had never told a lie in the whole course of his life. He had hardly finished when one of the men cried out,