"With wit, and wealth, and wine, the hours of night In sombre Babylon may dispense delight. These revellers, slumber-scorning, Radiant and well-arrayed, will stop, and stop, Till waiters drowse. But then, yon slaves of Shop Must meet a different morning." (_To be continued._) * * * * * ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. An unsatisfactory christmas present.--We can well understand and sympathise with you in your disappointment on discovering that you had been deceived as to the amount of intelligence possessed by the Learned Pig that you had been induced to purchase as a Christmas present for your invalid Grandfather. It must have been very annoying, after having imagined that you had provided your aged relative with a nice long winter's evening amusement resulting from the creature's advertised powers of telling fortunes and spelling sentences with a pack of ordinary playing cards, to receive a letter from the housekeeper bitterly complaining of its performance, which seems merely to have consisted of eating all the tea-cake, biting a housemaid, getting between your Grandfather's legs and upsetting him in his armchair, and, finally, when pursued, trying to obtain refuge in the grand piano. You cannot be surprised after this experience, that it has been intimated to you that if you do not take the creature yourself away at once, it will be forthwith handed over to the first policeman that passes. Yes, spite the pig's reputed intellectual gifts, we would advise you to close with the pork-butcher's offer you mention. When the creature has been cut up, send your Grandfather some of the sausages. This may possibly appease the old gentleman, and serve to allay the irritation that your unfortunate Christmas gift appears to have occasioned. * * * * * THE NORTH WALLS.--The Sporting Correspondent of the _Sunday Times_ tells us that Colonel NORTH is "having a new ball-room"--(he wouldn't have an old one built, would he? But no matter)--"the walls of which are composed of onyx." Of course, a Billionaire pays all the workmen punctually and regularly; therefore, "Owe-nix" walls are an appropriate memorial. _Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice._ * * * * * DARES AND ENTELLUS. (_New Non-Virgilian Version told by Punchius to the Shade of Sayerius in the Elysian Fields. With Intercalary Observations by the Illustrious ex-Pugilist._) Illustration: _Mr. Punch._ "WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT, TOM?" _Shade of Sayers._ "THINK!" (_Disgusted._) "WHY, I THINK THE SOONER THE P. R.'S PUT DOWN, THE BETTER!"