lections for the occasion. What will be acceptable to one audience may not please another. The sentiment and the length of selections depend upon the time and place where they are to be given. When an audience expects to be entertained with humorous recitations, to announce in a sepulchral voice that you will give them a poem of your own composition, entitled "The Three Corpses," of melancholy character, is likely to send a chill of disappointment through them.

Never keep your audience waiting. If an encore is demanded, return and bow, or if the demand is insistent, give another number, preferably a short one. Do not be too eager to give encores; if the applause is not insistent, a bow will suffice.

PART II

HUMOROUS HITS

THE TRAIN-MISSER

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

'Ll where in the world my eyes has bin-
Ef I haint missed that train agin!

Chuff! and whistle! and toot! and ring!
But blast and blister the dasted train !—
How it does it I can't explain!

Git here thirty-five minutes before

The dern thing's due!-and, drat the thing!
It'll manage to git past-shore !

And let it beat me! 'Ll ding my melts!
I got no gumption, ner nothin' else!
Ticket-agent's a dad-burned bore!-
Sell you a ticket's all they keer!-
Ticket-agents ort to all be

Prosecuted-and that's jes' what!-
How'd I know which train's fer me?
And how'd I know which train was not?-
Goern and comin' and gone astray,
And backin' and switchin' ever'-which-way!

Ef I could jes' sneak round behind
Myse'f, where I could git full swing,
I'd lift my coat, and kick, by jing!
Till I jes' got jerked up and fined!-
Fer here I stood, as a dern fool's apt
To, and let that train jes' chuff and choo
Right apast me—and mouth jes' gapped

Like a blamed old sandwitch warped in two!

"Afterwhiles," copyright 1898, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Used by

special permission of the publishers.

23