The two brightest lights of Theosophy being in the same place at once in company with the Ashes of Madame Blavatsky, an Inquiring Soul thought the time propitious to learn something worth while. So he sat at the feet of one awhile, and then he sat awhile at the feet of the other, and at last he applied his ear to the keyhole of the casket containing the Ashes of Madame Blavatsky. When the Inquiring Soul had completed his course of instruction he declared himself the Ahkoond of Swat, fell into the baleful habit of standing on his head, and swore that the mother who bore him was a pragmatic paralogism. Wherefore he was held in high reverence, and when the two other gentlemen were hanged for lying the Theosophists elected him to the leadership of their Disastral Body, and after a quiet life and an honourable death by the kick of a jackass he was reincarnated as a Yellow Dog. As such he ate the Ashes of Madame Blavatsky, and Theosophy was no more. The Opossum of the Future One day an Opossum who had gone to sleep hanging from the highest branch of a tree by the tail, awoke and saw a large Snake wound about the limb, between him and the trunk of the tree. "If I hold on," he said to himself, "I shall be swallowed; if I let go I shall break my neck." But suddenly he bethought himself to dissemble. "My perfected friend," he said, "my parental instinct recognises in you a noble evidence and illustration of the theory of development. You are the Opossum of the Future, the ultimate Fittest Survivor of our species, the ripe result of progressive prehensility--all tail!" But the Snake, proud of his ancient eminence in Scriptural history, was strictly orthodox, and did not accept the scientific view. The Life-Savers Seventy-Five Men presented themselves before the President of the Humane Society and demanded the great gold medal for life-saving. "Why, yes," said the President; "by diligent effort so many men must have saved a considerable number of lives. How many did you save?" "Seventy-five, sir," replied their Spokesman. "Ah, yes, that is one each--very good work--very good work, indeed," the President said. "You shall not only have the Society's great gold medal, but its recommendation for employment at the various life-boat stations along the coast. But how did you save so many lives?" The Spokesman of the Men replied: "We are officers of the law, and have just returned from the pursuit of two murderous outlaws." The Australian Grasshopper A Distinguished Naturalist was travelling in Australia, when he saw a Kangaroo in session and flung a stone at it. The Kangaroo immediately adjourned, tracing against the sunset sky a parabolic curve spanning seven provinces, and evanished below the horizon. The Distinguished Naturalist looked interested, but said nothing for an hour; then he said to his native Guide: "You have pretty wide meadows here, I suppose?"