When Capt. Clapperton, the African traveller, breakfasted with the Sultan Bautsa, he was treated with a large broiled water rat, and alligators’ eggs both fried and stewed.
Good Measure.—“I don’t know how it is,” said a person who was fond of writing poetry for the public journals, but whose productions had always met with a rejection—“I have written a great deal, but my pieces have never been published.”
“Perhaps,” replied his friend, “there were faults in your effusions that you were not aware of, but which were easily detected by the hawk-eyed editors. The measure might not have been correct.”
“There it is now,” rejoined the disappointed poet; “I can always write the first line well enough; but I am often perplexed about the second. Now, this is poetry, but it don’t seem to jingle to my satisfaction.
‘Tread lightly, stranger, o’er this hallowed dust,
For if you don’t mend your ways—lay like me you must.’”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed the critic, “that’s bad measure.”
“Bad measure! why, man, you’re mistaken, it’s very good measure—it’s more than enough!”