BROWN, who was along with me, tried werry Hard to gammon me to bleeve as none of the pullers in the fust boat got nothink for winning, and that none of the pullers in the larst boat paid nothink for loosing! But I wasn't quite such a born fool as to beleeve that rubbish. I had jest the same good larf as usual in seeing how hard the three big steam-boats, as started jest after the racing-boats, tried their werry hardest to catch 'em up, but coudn't do it till they was past the winning post! And the best of the fun was, as they painted two of 'em Oxford and Cambridge, to make all poor greenhorns beleeve as they was the reel racing-boats, and the other was a going fust jest to show 'em the way. Lor, how heasy it is to gammon sum poor fellers! Like all trew waiters, hating any think at all like waste, me and BROWN, and the other two of us, seed all our Company hoff, and then we quietly took our seats, and I bleeves as I can truly say, that, neether in the eatable line, or the drinkable line, was there any waste in that there bootiful Steamer that there appy day. ROBERT. * * * * * FROM MR. J. L. T**LE.--It is not true that _Die Walkuere_, about to be produced at the Grand Opera, in Paris, is either an adaptation, or a translation, of _Walker--London_. It's WAGNER, not WALKER. * * * * * [Illustration: THE WAY TO GET ON. _Fair Amateur Palmist (who has kissed the Blarney Stone)._ "I'M SORRY TO SAY, DEAR LADY CROESUS, THAT YOU WILL HAVE A SERIOUS ILLNESS AT FORTY!"] * * * * * A DELICATE QUESTION. [In the pages of the _Author_ Mr. BESANT suggests, that "the Society of Authors should undertake the examination of journalists."] O zealous Mr. BESANT, we have heard with consternation Of this, the latest project of your ever-busy band; Each journalist, apparently, must pass examination, Lest any deal with matters which he does not understand. You're horrified to notice at performances dramatic A row of so-called critics, knowing nothing of the play; You mean to make essential an acquaintance with the Attic, In all allowed to comment on the drama of to-day. With ample stock of history and other knowledge, clearly, The man who writes on politics must show himself supplied, The taste of all reviewers will be criticised severely, The Sporting Sage must qualify in papers on _Ruff's Guide_. No doubt your plan is laudable, but then we find it printed That novelists to manage all the scheme will be allowed, And since they love reviewers not, it may, perhaps, be hinted, That every man alive of us is certain to be ploughed! Moreover, on reflection, quite excusably one fancies That, if so great advantage in the system you discern, Its use should be extended to the weavers of romances, And you and other novelists should suffer in your turn!