Your costume is scanty, O Goddess;

A slip, with a shoestring begirt,
That boasts nothing much of a bodice,

And flaunts rather less of a skirt.
The imbecile stuff of your hose is

Sheer silk, of the thinnest of thins,
Whose gauze half conceals, half discloses

Your shapely young shins.

Your hair is bobbed off like a Fiji;

You're swaddled in furs in July!
Your hat is a bowl, put on skee-gee,

Entirely eclipsing one eye.
Your ears are as lost as Atlantis;

Yet out from that muddle of hair
Come earrings that shock and enchant us-

So ears must be there!

Your lips are the crudest vermilion,

While your cheeks have a cochineal tint
(More Indianlike than civilian

The paint you apply without stint).
Your nose is a powdered marshmallow

In the midst of the color display;
Your chin, like a round lump of tallow,

Oh, Girl of To-day!

Don't think I'm a rabid exhorter

Yet I hate to contemplate, my dear,
If your skirts should get very much shorter-

Or your stockings a trifle more sheer;
If you paint your face any more thickly,

Or don a more scanty array-
I pray that reform may come quickly,

Oh, Girl of To-day!

Incompatibility

“it worn't nothin' like dat. Yo' jest couldn't MOSES DIGGS, an old Alabama darky, git on with her onless yo' was somewhars

had been arrested for having more than else." one wife, the last woman being the complainant. He happened to be well known locally and considered an orderly character.

A Memorial Token “How many wives have you had?" de- WH

THEN his mother returned from a day's manded the examining judge.

absence she found seven-year-old Gar“Six, yo’ Honah," was the reply.

rett wearing a very mournful air. “Why couldn't you get on with them?” “My white rat died to-day!” he an

“Well, suh, de fust two sp’iled de white nounced. folks' clo's when dey washed 'em; de thu'd “Oh, I am sorry, son,” she sympathized. worn't no cook; de fo’th was jest nacherally “I held a funeral, and buried it in the back lazy; an' de fifth-I'll tell yo', jedge, de yard." He went on, “I put some flowers on fifth, she"

its grave, but I knew they would wither, and "Incompatibility?”

I was afraid I'd lose the place, so I just left “No, yo' Honah,” said the negro, slowly, its tail sticking out for a marker."

sent," said the president, doubt-
fully “What sort of work did
the man do before he came
here?"

"He was a sardine packer,"
said the friend.

"Well," said the president, gravely, “I think perhaps he might fill the place satisfacto rily. It is that of conductor on one of the park cars."

me.

a

The Thoughtful Wife
FOR
OR some time the holiday

shopper stood before the
pretentious display in a to-

bacconist's window. Finally A Suggestion

she entered and, after a great SHE: “How do you do! And, Gladys, that reminds

deal of searching in her bag,
We had the most delicious calves' brains she brought forth a little tin
for lunch to-day"

box. She opened this and
took out small stub of

a cigar, while the tobacco
In Simple Language

man watched her curiously. THE superintendent recently called upon “This,” said the lady, holding up the stub,

visitor to "say a few words” to “is a remnant of one of my husband's special the Sunday school, the members of which cigars. Have you anything to match it?” are mostly children of tender age.

The speaker, well known for his verbose and circumlocutory manner of speech, began his address as follows:

“This morning, children, I purpose to offer you an epitome of the life of Saint Paul. It may be, perhaps, that there are among you some too young to grasp the meaning of the word ‘epitome.' 'Epitome,' children, is in its signification synonymous with synopsis.”