MEERSCHAUM, n. (Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed to be made of it.) A fine white clay, which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not been disclosed by the manufacturers. There was a youth (you've heard before, This woeful tale, may be), Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore That color it would he! He shut himself from the world away, Nor any soul he saw. He smoked by night, he smoked by day, As hard as he could draw. His dog died moaning in the wrath Of winds that blew aloof; The weeds were in the gravel path, The owl was on the roof. "He's gone afar, he'll come no more," The neighbors sadly say. And so they batter in the door To take his goods away. Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay, Nut-brown in face and limb. "That pipe's a lovely white," they say, "But it has colored him!" The moral there's small need to sing-- 'Tis plain as day to you: Don't play your game on any thing That is a gamester too. Martin Bulstrode MENDACIOUS, adj. Addicted to rhetoric. MERCHANT, n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar. MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders. MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner. METROPOLIS, n. A stronghold of provincialism. MILLENNIUM, n. The period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side. MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. From the Latin _mens_, a fact unknown to that honest shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitor over the way had displayed the motto "_Mens conscia recti_," emblazoned his own front with the words "Men's, women's and children's conscia recti." MINE, adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it. MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility. His principal qualification is a degree of plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador. MINOR, adj. Less objectionable. MINSTREL, adj. Formerly a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with a color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and blood can bear. MIRACLE, n. An act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.