ANGLICE-FRENCHIE EXCLAMATION (_on any of the recent many showery days when, after an interval of ten minutes, the next bucketful descended_).--"_POUR une autre fois!_" * * * * * [Illustration: NATURE'S SECRETS. "HERE ARE SOME NEW LAID EGGS FOR YOU, GEORGIE!" "OH, THANKS! HOW NICE! I HAVEN'T SEEN A NEW LAID EGG FOR WEEKS! HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO GET THEM? OH, OF COURSE--YOU'VE GOT _AN INCUBATOR_!"] * * * * * INNS AND OUTS. NO. III.--THE PORTER. I had intended to have written, this week about "Loggosh"--including that mysterious canvass hand-box which contains all that a foreigner cares to carry about with him by day, and often pillows him when travelling by night; but the very mention of luggage brings me back to the Porter. I abominate him. I am "one who has suffered." So here goes! "Imposing," best describes the Hotel porter; a very Grand Hotel has at least two of these impositions--the House Porter and the Omnibus Porter. The latter you only see twice in your Hotel existence, but he is the most futile and the deadliest fraud of the two. This Porter is part and parcel of that horrible deep-red-plush nuisance, the Hotel-omnibus. He and it are inseparables, and make up a sort of Centaur between them. Once outside the Railway-station, I am besieged by a babel of these Porter-omnibuses--"Bear Hotel, Sor;" "Grand Hotel, Sor!"--This, from a very dilapidated specimen, which, on inspection, turns out to be "Grand Hotel Du Lac;" a pirate porter-omnibus in fact; at last I find _The_ Grand Hotel vehicle, and functionary. The latter is of gigantic stature; quite a "chucker-out;" in a uniform between that of a German bandsman and a Salvation Captain--"Certinly, Sar. Dis Grand Hotel; I see your Loggosh, Sar; gif me se empfangschein." "Do you speak English?" I retort.--"Certinly; spik Ingleese--empfangschein!"--"Empfangschein" baffles me, and I am about to hand my keys to the monster, when a good-natured Courier explains that it signifies the luggage-receipt.