Truth.—­Your information is not authentic.  LOUIS NAPOLEON never played marbles in Central Park, nor took his little Nap in the vestibule of WOOD’S Museum.

Fanny inquires whether “ballot girls” are wanted in New York.  Wyoming is a better field for them than this city.

Maine Chance has been paying his devoirs with great impartiality to two young ladies.  One of them has red hair and a Roman nose, but the paternal income is very handsome.  The other is witty and pretty, but can bring no rocks, except possibly “Rock the cradle.”  Recently he called on the golden girl, and a menial rudely repulsed him from the door.  This hurt his feelings.  He then went to the dwelling of the Fair, when a big dog attacked him “on purpose,” and lacerated his trousers.  He wants to know whether he has any remedy in the courts.  His best way is the way home.

Rifleman.—­You are right; the rival guns—­the Dreyse and the Chassepot—­are also rifle-guns.  Both of them are provided with needles, as you suppose, but, so far as there is any chance of their being put to the test under present circumstances, in Europe, it rather appears that both of them will prove Needless.

Piscator.—­No; the weak-fish is not so called on account of any supposed feebleness attributable to it.  If you take a round of the markets one of these roaring hot days, your senses will tell you that the weakfish is sometimes very strong.

* * * * *

THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

As a good many persons know, LA GISELLE is a ballet whose hundred legs are nightly displayed on the stage of the GRAND OPERA HOUSE.

The Twelve Temptations have ceased to tempt, and the familiar legs of LUPE no longer allure.  But in their place we have KATHI LANNER, and BERTHA LIND, and nearly a gross of assorted legs of the very best quality.

Why do the women clamor for the ballot, when they have almost exclusive possession of the ballet?  The latter is much nicer and more useful than the former.  The average repeater can obtain only a dollar for his ballot, but the average ballet will find any quantity of enthusiastic admirers at one dollar and a half a head.  Would any man pay KATHI LANNER a dollar for the privilege of seeing her with a ballot in her hand?

On the other hand, lives there a man with eyes so dead that he would not cheerfully pay twice that sum to see her in the mazes of the ballet?

But La Giselle?  Certainly.  I am coming to that in a moment.  I have often thought that nature must have intended me for a writer of sermons.  I have such a facility for beginning an article with a series of general remarks that have nothing whatever to do with the subject.

Though how can any one be rationally expected to stick to anything in this weather, except, perhaps, the newly varnished surface of his desk?  And how can even the firmest of resolutions be prevented from melting and vanishing away, with the thermometer at more degrees than one likes to mention?  You remember the old proverb:  “Man proposes, but his mother-in-law finally disposes.”  The bearing of this observation lies in its application.