“An attraction of the eminently respectable _Harper’s Weekly_ will be a series of papers called ‘A Houseboat on the Styx’ by Mr. Bangs of Yonkers. Nothing is sacred to this funny man. Not content with taking his fling at the defunct majesty of Napoleon he now proposes to take Pluto by the beard and make copy of the pale shadows that throng the Stygian shores.” It may be so, but I did not know that Pluto had whiskers. And how does Miss Boyce dispose of the legend concerning the smooth face and giddy ways of old Mr. Pluto when he took to wife the young and blooming Persephone? Charon wears a Vandyke as we well know; while Mephisto is usually represented as clean-shaved or at best a moustache and goatee; but hereafter I’ll never think of Pluto without calling up in mind Mr. Peffer of Kansas. Go to, Fair Lady! think you because barber shops are closed in York State on Sundays that they are shut in Hades all the week? Next! * * * * * A lecturer on Egypt, telling the natives of Buffalo, N. Y., about the marvels in stone built on that strip of mud, illustrated the proportions of the Nile Valley by saying “It it eleven hundred miles long in Egypt proper and seven miles wide for most of its length. If the city of Buffalo were laid crosswise in the valley, it would bisect the kingdom.” And a Rochester man who had strayed into the fold was mean enough to add: “And if Buffalo was there, that’s the way it would lie—cross-ways.” That’s the way they talk in Rochester. * * * * * I quote this paragraph from _Alice_ and respectfully refer it to the editor of _Mlle New York_ with the hope that he can see the point as plainly as he sees most things: All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera glass. At last he said, “You’re travelling the wrong way,” and shut up the window and went away. * * * * * On his way to Montreal Mr. Hall Caine stopped off one day at East Aurora. The Pink Tea given in his honor at the office of THE PHILISTINE was largely attended by the farmers from both up the creek and down the creek. In fact, as my old friend Billy McGlory used to say, “Ye cudden’t see de street fer dust.” * * * * *