THE NYMPH'S REPLY. (_Some way after Sir Walter Raleigh._) If I were sure 'twere sooth thou'st sung, That truth were on thy silvery tongue; These pleasures must my passion move To live with thee and be thy love. But art _thou_ sure the Allotted Field A present paradise will yield, Making a lady of a thrall, As dreamed at the Memorial Hall? Thy Village Council, Cottage cosy, Present in sooth a prospect rosy, But promises so oft are rotten; I've oft been wooed--and oft forgotten! Free vote, fair rating, open school, Good wage, intelligent self-rule,-- These are enticements me would move To live with thee and be thy love. If thy zeal last, if love, indeed, Fire thee my hapless lot to heed; Then such delights my mind shall move To live with thee and be thy love. * * * * * A LOST OPPORTUNITY.--During a recent _cause célèbre_ in the Divorce Court the petitioner was asked by Sir CHARLES RUSSELL, Q.C., M.P., P.T.P.C., "Did he do anything?" to which the reply was, "He took up a salt-cellar and threw the contents in my face." Mr. FRANK LOCKWOOD, Q.C., M.P., V.P.T.P.C. has been lamenting ever since that he could not have appeared as _amicus curiæ_ to point out that this testimony, until flatly contradicted, "must be taken as _primâ facie_ evidence of _a salting her_." * * * * * CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. _AFTER A VERY OLD NURSERY MODEL._ One, two, crimson and blue; Two, three, treaclyness free; Three, four, gilding galore; Four, five, bogies alive; Five, six, spectres from Styx; Six, seven, angels from heaven; Seven, eight, big "extra plate"; Eight, nine, wassail and wine; Nine, ten, pencil and pen; Ten, eleven, commercial leaven; Eleven, twelve, "high-art" shelve; Thirteen, fourteen, pictures of sporting; Fifteen, sixteen, ghost-stories, fixt een; Seventeen, eighteen, advertisements great in; Nineteen, twenty, profit in plenty! * * * * * [Illustration: "WHEN A MAN DOES NOT LOOK HIS BEST."--NO. 5. WHEN, AFTER LUNCHING SUMPTUOUSLY AT A STRANGE HOTEL IN A STRANGE PART OF THE COUNTRY, IT SUDDENLY OCCURS TO HIM THAT HE HAS LEFT HIS PURSE, WITH ALL HIS MONEY IN IT, IN THE MAIL TRAIN GOING NORTH.] * * * * * ILLEGAL FICTIONS. SCENE--_Interior of a Publisher's Office, shortly after the trial of Pinnock v. Chapman and Hall._ _Publisher_. We have given our best attention to your Manuscript of a three-volumed novel, called--let me see, what did you call it? Oh, yes, here it is!--called, _Haunted by Sixteen Goblins_, and we are afraid it won't do. _Literary Aspirant_ (_pained_). Won't _do_!