After a time, they only resemble one thing, a collection of several homicidal criminals. Sit before a bust, any bust, under the above circumstances. You wonder to what you would have condemned this hideous creature had he been brought up, in his lifetime, before you, as a magistrate. On every feature is stamped Ruffian. This man _must_ have been hung, were there any justice in the world. No. This bust is of the late venerable and excellent Archbishop Snuffler. Is it possible. And all these other savage-looking creatures?... "Are," says my informant in the damp library who only comes in for a minute, "Archbishops, Bishops, celebrated Philanthropists, Doctors, and men of science." And here they are perched up aloft, like overgrown cherubs, whose wings have been taken off by some surgical operation. _Happy Thought._--If you want to be revenged on somebody, and don't mind expense, have his portrait painted with all his defects glaringly rendered, and present it, as a mark of esteem, to his family. On his fiftieth birthday give him a bust of himself to be placed in his hall. Depend upon it you've punished him. Jenkyns Soames, our Professor of Scientific Economy, was talking of the Zoological Gardens. "I dispute," says he, "the fact of the Hyæna laughing." "Why?" "Why? Solvitur ambulando, or rather non ambulando, for I've stood in front of his cage for half an hour, and I've never seen him laugh once." This was repeated to Mrs. Boodels. "Yes," says she, "that's very probable. But when Mr. Jenkyns _went away_ * *" Milburd tried to cap this by asking as a conundrum "why the Hyæna wouldn't laugh in your face?"---- As Mrs. Boodels rose, the ladies had to go out too, so no one stopped for the answer. He caught me alone in a corner and told me what it was. I think he said that it was because the Hyæna was an _Hy-brid_ animal. He explained that he meant "_high-bred_." _Happy Thought._--To say, "Oh, that's very old." This has the same effect on a conundrum-maker as the most brilliant repartee. Unless it leads him to come to you three times a day ever afterwards, with fresh ones, all hot as it were from the baker's, and ask you perpetually, "Well, is _this_ old?" [Illustration: JO MILLER, (_Bringing more Material for Joke_).] CHAPTER XIII. MUSIC--MEDFORD--MILBURD'S SONG--CONSEQUENCE--OPINIONS--NOTE-- COMPLIMENTS--EPIGRAM--THE DAMP FIREWORK. Milburd asks Medford to accompany him in a "little thing of his own." The ladies have taken their turn at the piano, and Medford himself has favoured us with half an hour's worth of his unpublished compositions. Milburd announces his song as "A WAITING GAME." (_Suggested by "A Dreary Lot is Mine."_)