A PRISONER, who had received notice that he was to die the next morning, was asked by some of his unfortunate companions to share their repast with them. He answered, "I never eat anything that I expect will _not digest_." MDCCVIII.--SELF-INTEREST. THOSE who wish to tax anything containing _intelligence_, must be actuated by selfish views, seeing that it is an imposition of which they are not likely to feel _the burden_. MDCCIX.--ALL THE DIFFERENCE. A GLASGOW professor met a poor student passing along one of the courts, and remarked to him that his gown was very short. "_It will be long enough before I get another_," answered the student. The reply tickled the professor's fancy so much that he continued in a state of suppressed laughter after passing on. Meeting a brother professor, who asked him what was amusing him so much, he told the story with a slightly varied reading. "I asked that fellow why he had so short a gown, and he answered, _it will be a long time before I get another_."--"Well, there's nothing very funny in that."--"Neither there is," said the professor, "I don't understand how it amused me so much. It must have been something in _the way he said it_." MDCCX.--FOOTE'S LAST JOKE. WHEN Foote was on his way to France, for change of air, he went into the kitchen at the inn at Dover, to order a particular dish for dinner. The true English cook boasted that she had never set foot out of her country. On this, the invalid gravely observed, "Why, cookey, that's very extraordinary, as they tell me up stairs that you have been several times _all over grease_!"--"They may tell you what they please above or below stairs," replied the cook, "but I was never ten miles from Dover in my life!"--"Nay, now, that must be a _fib_," says Foote, "for I have myself seen you at _Spithead_!" The next day (October 21, 1777) the exhausted wit "shuffled off this mortal coil." MDCCXI.--_L'Envoy_. THERE is so much genuine humor in the following jocular DINNER CODE, that we cannot do better than close our little volume with it. DINNER CODE. _Of the Amphitryon.--His Rights._ Art. 1.--The Amphitryon is the king of the table: his empire lasts as long as the meal, and ends with it. Art. 2.--It is lawful for his glass to exceed in capacity those of his guests. Art. 3.--He may be lively with his male guests, and gallant towards the females; to such of them as are pretty he may risk a compliment or two, which is sure to be received from him with an approving smile. _His Duties._ Art. 1.--Fulfilling to the utmost the laws of hospitality, he watches with paternal solicitude over the welfare of the stomachs committed to his care; reassures the timid, encourages the modest, and incites the vigorous appetite. Art. 2.--He must abstain from praising either his dishes or his wines.