There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. When the Berton excursionists were taken by the Californians to the Cliff House, Mr. RICE brought out a bottle. Of course the Californians were wide awake for the drawing of the cork. "Whiskey, perhaps!" they murmured, "Brandy, possibly!" they sweetly sighed. "Rum, maybe!" they conjectured. "Schnapps, possibly," they surmised. But when Mr. RICE had drawn the cork, it was discovered that there was nothing in the bottle except a pint of salt water, taken from the Atlantic Ocean, which the bottle holder (as a rare joke) proceeded to empty into the Pacific Ocean, thus making (as he observed) "a literal blending of the waters." Very pretty, indeed; but not the sort of witticism which a dry man would be likely to appreciate—and Californians are sometimes extremely dry!
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Employing female clerks in the Treasury Department because they will work for small wages.
A SIMPLE INQUIRY.
May not a pretty actress, when playing a page part, appropriately be called a "belle boy"?
NINETY-NINE IN THE SHADE.
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A MIDSUMMER ODE.
Oh for a lodge in a garden of cucumbers! Oh for an iceberg or two at control! Oh for a vale which at midday the dew cumbers! Oh for a pleasure-trip up to the Pole! Oh for a little one-story thermometer, With nothing but Zeros all ranged in a row! Oh for a big, double-barrelled hygrometer, To measure this moisture that rolls from my brow! Oh that this cold world were twenty times colder! (That's irony red hot it seemeth to me.) Oh for a turn of its dreaded cold shoulder! Oh what a comfort an ague would be! Oh for a grotto to typify heaven, Scooped in the rock under cataract vast! Oh for a winter of discontent even! Oh for wet blankets judiciously cast! Oh for a soda-fount spouting up boldly From every hot lamp-post against the hot sky! Oh for proud maiden to look on me coldly, Freezing my soul with a glance of her eye! Then oh for a draught from a cup of "cold pizen!" And oh for a resting-place in the cold grave! With a bath in the Styx, where the thick shadow lies on And deepens the chill of its dark-running wave! |