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Your hist'ry (unless you have lent yours)
Will tell he was bound as a lad
To a builder of Railway Debentures,
But when he was through his indentures,
He started in quest of adventures:
In those days the regular fad.

With manners superbly defiant
On his errand this warrior sped:
And he challenged a twenty-foot giant,
Who appeared on his height too reliant,
For Sir Rooster was active and pliant,
And cut off his obstinate head!
This too-sanguine and blundering ogre
With one, whom it is not polite
To name, was what's styled a colloguer
By Boucicault, famed as a broguer
(If I don't about Arrah na Pogue err)—
And boasted of magical might.

He had built him a castle enchanted
Befitting a giant of note,

And there you may take it for granted
The monster at times gallivanted
With damsels, whom captives he planted
In dungeons down under the moat.

But Sir Rooster released them, delighted,
And then became captive in turn
Of a damsel, whose beauty excited
Such flames in his bosom benighted,
That his faith to her promptly he plighted-
And she in exchange gave him hern.

But alas, for the hapless Sir Rooster!
To Peter's gay Court when he came
To that monarch when he introdooced her,
And explained how from prison he loosed her
Her looks did the heart of the goose stir-
King Peter, the first of that name.

And the monarch behaved rather meanly,
For he tipped the fair damsel a wink,
Who guessed what the meaning was keenly,
And dazzled by prospects so queenly,
Threw over Sir Rooster serenely

Who gave himself straightway to drink.

MORAL.

For a moral this but an excuse is

(I have really no morals to spare)
That to rival a king little use is-
That inconstancy female the deuce is-
That a true lover's knot a slip noose is-
And that this is absurdity. There !

THE RIVAL BROOM MAKERS.

DR. JOHN WOLCOT.

A THIEVING fellow, naturally sly,

Cheaper than all the world," his wares would cry, And on a jack-ass's back such bargains brought 'em; All siz'd and sorted town-made brooms,

For sweeping stables, gardens, hearths, or rooms,
So cheap! as quite astonish'd all who bought 'em
Thus, for a while, he drove a roaring trade,
And wisely thought a pretty purse to have made,
When on a dismal day at every door,

Where oft he sold his dog-cheap goods before,
With freezing looks, his customers all told him,
Another broom-monger they'd found,

That travelled far and wide the country round,
And in all sorts and sizes, under-sold him.

Scratching his wig he left 'em, musing deep, With knitted brows-up to his ears in thought, To guess, where in the deuce could brooms be bought, That any mortal man could sell so cheap. When lo! as through the street he slowly passes, A voice as clear as raven's, owl's, or ass's,

And just as musical, rung in his ears like thunder
(Half-splitting his thick head, and wig cramm'd full of
wonder),

With roaring out "Cheap brooms!" O'erjoyed he meets
His brother brush, and thus the rascal greets :-
"How, how the devil, brother rogue, do I
Hear my old friends sing out a general cry

That I'm a knave! then growl like bears, and tell me,
That you do more

Than all the world could ever do before,

And in this self-same broom-trade undersell me.
I always thought I sold 'em cheap enough,
And well I might for why?
(Twixt you and I),

I

own, I now and then have stole the stuff!" "Ah!" (quoth his brother thief, a dog far deeper)

"I see, my boy, you haven't half learnt your trade, I go a cheaper way to work than that." "A cheaper ?" "Why, ah-I always steals mine ready made.”

THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY.

MARK TWAIN.

THERE was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49-or maybe it was the spring of '50-I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp; but any way, he was the curiosest man about, always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Anyway that suited the other man would suit himanyway, just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned

but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a

horse-race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a campmeeting, he would be there reg'lar, to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico, but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him-he would bet on any thing-the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable better-thank the Lord for his inf'nit mercy -and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway."

Thish-yer Smiley had a mare-the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that— and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking

up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose-and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.

And he had a little small bull pup, that to look at him you'd think he wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was upon him, he was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson-which was the name of the pup-Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg, and freeze to itnot chaw, you understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always came out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked. sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He gave Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take hold of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius-I know it, because he hadn't had no op

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