_Short-tempered Gentleman in Black_ (_after violent collision with a Stonemason fresh from work_). "NOW, I'LL ARSK YOU JEST TO LOOK AT THE NARSTY BEASTLY MESS AS YOU'VE GONE AND MIDE ME IN! WHY, I'M SIMPLY SMOTHERED IN SOME 'ORRID WHITE STUFF!! WHY DON'T YER BE MORE CAREFUL!!!"] * * * * * EPIGRAMMATICALLY PUT.--An Asylums Board Manager wrote to the _Times_ to complain of Mr. LITTLER, M.P., Q.C.'s charges against the Asylums and Fever Hospitals management. "Which is right, or which is wrong," to paraphrase _Mr. Mantalini's_ words, is no business just now of ours, but the writer of the reply to the attack, might have summed up by saying "that to _him_, Mr. LITTLER, whatever his Christian names might be, appeared as a _Be-Littler_." * * * * * "MR. GLADSTONE ON RENTS IN WALES."--What the Right Honble. Mr. G. omitted to say, when speaking on this subject, was that "but a comparatively small rent in Wales would be produced by Disestablishment, whenever that event should happen, and that this would soon be mended." * * * * * TEMPERANCE RIDDLE.--Why is a man who is thoroughly good-natured and ever ready to oblige, likely to end as a confirmed drunkard? Because he is always _willing_. * * * * * A USEFUL EXPERIENCE. I awoke at one in the morning, I had been two hours in bed, When--bang!--without any warning A joke came into my head. 'Twas brilliant, awfully funny, It flashed through my drowsy brain, It was worth--oh, a lot of money!-- I chuckled again and again. I thought how I might employ it, I laughed till the tears rolled down, Foreseeing how SMITH would enjoy it, And how it would tickle BROWN. I said, "I had best but hint it To _them_, or they might purloin This wonderful jest, then print it, And between them divide the coin." Late in the morn I awoke,--I Puzzled with all my might In vain to recall the joke I Made in the silent night. What _was_ it about? No dreamer Am I! No--I think--I frown-- When next I make a screamer In bed--_I will write it down_. By the side of the bed a taper Shall ever with matches be, A pencil and piece of paper, To note what occurs to me. * * * * * Since then I have tried, but the late joke, As seen in my bedside scrawl, Is always so poor,--that the great joke, _I'm sure, was no joke at all!_ * * * * * YES OR NO? ["The hand-writing of well-educated Ladies is often disgracefully illegible."--_A Ladies' Journal_.] Oh, never did lover in fable In such a predicament stand, A letter I wrote to my MABEL, To ask for her heart and her hand, With compliments worded so nicely, A lifelong devotion I swore; She's answered--and left me precisely As wise as before!