More frisky the curate, his slave. It makes the glad spirit still gladder, And moistens the splenetic vein; When I can't see a hole through a ladder, It mounts on the sly to my brain. Then push round the glasses, be cosey, Fill bumpers to whiskey and whim; Good luck to each man, while his nose he Hangs pleasantly over the brim! There's nothing remarkably odd in A gent who to nap is inclined; He can't want a blanket while noddin', When he's two or three sheets in the wind. “Sirs,” exclaimed the satirical-nosed gentleman, “I alone am to blame for this audacious vivacity of my sister's son. I turned it on, and lo! it hath inundated us with buffoonery. Sirrah!” shaking the identical plant that Dr. Johnson travelled with through the Hebrides, Tom Davies's shilling's worth for the broad shoulders of Macpherson, “thou shalt find in future that I joke with my cudgel!” * * “Hombre burlo yo con mi escopeta!” was the characteristic saying of the celebrated Spanish bandit Josse Maria. But it was labour in vain; the “laughing devil,” so peculiar to the eye of the middle-aged gentleman, leered ludicrous defiance to his half-smiling half-sulky mouth. As a last determined effort, he shook his _head_ at Mr. Bosky, whereupon Mr. Bosky shook his _hand_. The mutual grasp was electrical, and thus ended the brief farce of Uncle Timothy's furor. “Gentlemen,” said Mr. Bosky, in a subdued tone, “if I could believe that Uncle Timothy had been really in earnest, my penitential punch should be turned into bitter aloes, sweetened with assafoetida, to expiate an offence against the earliest, best, and dearest friend I ever knew! But I owed Uncle Timothy a revenge. Of late he has worn a serious brow, a mournful smile. There has been melancholy in his mirth, and sadness in his song; this, he well knows, cuts me to the quick; and it is not until he is angry,--or, rather” (smiling affectionately at Uncle Tim) “until he _thinks_ himself so,”--(here Uncle Tim gave Mr. Bosky one of his blandest looks) “that he is 'cockered and spirited up,' and the cloud passes away. What do I not owe to my more than father?” Uncle Timothy got enormously fidgety; he beat Lucifer's tattoo with his right leg, and began fumbling in both waistcoat pockets for his snuffbox. “A precocious young urchin, gentlemen, in every sort of mischief!” interrupted Uncle Timothy with nervous impetuosity, “on whose birch-provoking little body as many besoms were bestowed as would set up the best chandler in Christendom!” “An orphan too--” “Benjamin Bosky! Benjamin Bosky! don't--_don't_ be a blockhead!”