REGGIE. "All right, mamma; then I'll play off well, and go skating just to stop my sickness." * * * * * "How is your little sister, Robbie?" "She's getting well, she's taking celuloid milk." And he marched off proud of having accomplished such a big word, for sterilized or celuloid was all one to this little man of five. * * * * * "Mamma," said Clara, "the minister always says amen; when a lady prays does she say awoman?" * * * * * BOBBY'S COMPOSITION. PARENTS. Parents are things which boys have to look after them. Most girls also have parents. Parents consist of Pas and Mas. Pas talk a good deal about what they are going to do, but mostly it's Mas that make you mind. Sometimes it is different, though. Once there was a boy came home from college on vacation. His parents lived on a farm. There was work to be done on the farm. Work on a farm always has to be done early in the morning. This boy didn't get up. His sister goes to the stairway and calls: "Willie, 'tis a beautiful morning. Rise and list to the lark." The boy didn't say anything. Then his Ma calls: "William, it is time to get up. Your breakfast is growing cold." The boy kept right on not saying anything. Then his Pa puts his head in the stairway, and says he, "Bill!" "Coming, sir!" says the boy. I know a boy that hasn't got any parents. He goes in swimming whenever he pleases. _But I am going to stick to my parents._ However, I don't tell them so, 'cause they might get it into their heads that I couldn't get along without them. Says this boy to me, "Parents are a nuisance; they aren't what _they're_ cracked up to be." Says I to him, "Just the same, I find 'em handy to have. Parents have their failings, of course, like all of us, but on the whole I approve of 'em." Once a man says to me, "Bobby, do you love your parents?" "Well," says I, "I'm not a-quarrelling with 'em." Once a boy at boarding-school went to calling his Pa the Governor, and got his allowance cut down one-half. His Pa said he ought to have waited till he was going to college. Much more might be written about parents, showing their habits and so forth, but I will leave the task to abler pens. * * * * * A BIRD'S PECULIAR NEST. There is preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Soleure, in Switzerland, a bird's nest made of steel.