I vent indo der shmoking car, Vhere dhey vas blaying boker, Und also haf somedings dhey calls Der funny "leedle joker." Some money id vas shanging hands, Dhey vanted me to try-- I says: "You vas too brevious, I don'd vas been a fly!" On Central Park a shmardt young man Says: "Strauss, how vas you peen?" Und dake me kindtly py der hand, Und ask off mine Katrine. He vants to shange a feefty bill, Und says hees name vas Schneider-- Maype, berhaps, he vas all righdt; More like he vas a shpider. Mosd efry day some shwindling chap He dries hees leedle game; I cuts me oudt dot shpider biece Und poot id in a frame; Righdt in mine shtore I hangs it oup, Und near id, on der shly, I geeps a glub, to send gvick oudt, Dhose shpiders, "on der fly." CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS. _LARIAT BILL._ "Well, stranger, 'twas somewhere in 'sixty-nine I wore runnin' the 'Frisco fast express; An' from Murder Creek to Blasted Pine, Were nigh onto eighteen mile, I guess. The road were a down-grade all the way, An' we pulled out of Murder a little late, So I opened the throttle wide that day, And a mile a minute was 'bout our gait. "My fireman's name was Lariat Bill, A quiet man with an easy way, Who could rope a steer with a cow-boy's skill, Which he'd learned in Texas, I've heard him say. The coil were strong as tempered steel, An' it went like a bolt from a cross-bow flung, An' arter Bill changed from saddle to wheel, Just over his head in the cab it hung. "Well, as I were saying, we fairly flew, As we struck the curve at Buffalo Spring, An' I give her full steam an' put her through, An' the engine rocked like a living thing; When all of a sudden I got a scare-- For thar on the track were a little child! An' right in the path of the engine there She held out her little hands and smiled! "I jerked the lever and whistled for brakes, The wheels threw sparks like a shower of gold; But I knew the trouble a down-grade makes, An' I set my teeth an' my flesh grew cold. Then Lariat Bill yanked his long lassoo, An' out on the front of the engine crept-- He balanced a moment before he threw, Then out in the air his lariat swept!" He paused. There were tears in his honest eyes; The stranger listened with bated breath. "I know the rest of the tale," he cries; "He snatched the child from the jaws of death! 'Twas the deed of a hero, from heroes bred, Whose praises the very angels sing!" The engineer shook his grizzled head, And growled: "He didn't do no sich thing.