LOYALTY, OR JACOBINISM? This piece of amphibology was circulated among the United Irishmen, previous to the Rebellion of 1798. First, read the lines as they stand, then according to the numerals prefixed:— 1. I love my country—but the king, 3. Above all men his praise I sing, 2. Destruction to his odious reign, 4. That plague of princes, Thomas Paine; 5. The royal bankers are displayed, 7. And may success the standard aid 6. Defeat and ruin seize the cause 8. Of France her liberty and laws. NON COMMITTAL. NEAT EVASION. Bishop Egerton, of Durham, avoided three impertinent questions by replying as follows:— 1. What inheritance he received from his father? “Not so much as he expected.” 2. What was his lady’s fortune? “Less than was reported.” 3. What was the value of his living of Ross? “More than he made of it.” A PATRIOTIC TOAST. Most readers will remember the story of a non-committal editor who, during the Presidential canvass of 1872, desiring to propitiate subscribers of both parties, hoisted the ticket of “Gr—— and ——n” at the top of his column, thus giving those who took the paper their choice of interpretations between “Grant and Wilson” and “Greeley and Brown.” A story turning on the same style of point—and probably quite as apocryphal—though the author labels it “_historique_”—is told of an army officers’ mess in France. A brother-soldier from a neighboring detachment having come in, and a _champenoise_ having been uncorked in his honor, “Gentlemen,” said the guest, raising his glass, “I am about to propose a toast at once patriotic and political.” A chorus of hasty ejaculations and of murmurs at once greeted him. “Yes, gentlemen,” coolly proceeded the orator, “I drink to a thing which—an object that—Bah! I will out with it at once. It begins with an _R_ and ends with an _e_.” “Capital!” whispers a young lieutenant of Bordeaux promotion. “He proposes the _République_, without offending the old fogies by saying the word,” “Nonsense! He means the _Radicale_,” replies the other, an old Captain Cassel. “Upon my word,” says a third, as he lifts his glass, “our friend must mean _la Royauté_.” “I see!” cries a one-legged veteran of Froschweiler: “we drink to _la Revanche_.” In fact the whole party drank the toast heartily, each interpreting it to his liking.