(To be Continued.)

[Footnote 1:  “Buffer” is the term used in the English story.  Its nearest native equivalent is, probably, our Dead-Beat;” meaning, variously, according to circumstances, a successful American politician; a wife’s male relative; a watering-place correspondent of a newspaper, a New York detective policeman; any person who is uncommonly pleasant with people, while never asking them to take anything with him; a pious boarder; a French revolutionist.]

[Footnote 2:  In both conception and execution, the original of the above Chapter, in Mr. DICKENS’s work, is, perhaps, the least felicitous page of fiction ever penned by the great novelist; and, as this Adaptation is in no wise intended as a burlesque, or caricature, of the style at the original, (but rather as a conscientious imitation of it, so far as practicable,) the Adapter has not allowed himself that license of humor which, in the most comically effective treatment of said Chapter, might bear the appearance of such an intention.]

* * * * *

PUNCHINELLO CORRESPONDENCE

Answers to correspondents.

Patchouli.—­What is the substance which enables flies to adhere to the ceiling? Answer.—­Ceiling wax.

Rosalie.—­What is the meaning of the term “suspended animation?” Answer.—­If you remain at any fashionable watering-place after the close of the season you’ll find out.

Zanesvillian.—­Your pronunciation of the French word bois is incorrect, else you could not have fallen into the blunder of supposing that the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes are gamins of Paris.

Blunderbore.—­Your suggestion is ingenious, but the refined sentiment of cruelty revealed in it is deserving of the severest censure.  It is true that the introduction of German cookery into France by the Prussians, as you propose, would in a short time decimate the population, but what a fearful precedent it would be!  You can best realize it by imagining Massachusetts cookery introduced into New York, and the consequent desolation of her purliens.

Mrs. Gamp.—­No; neither the French nor the Prussians are armed with air guns.  Your mistake arose from puzzling over those distracting war reports, in which the word Argonnes figures so conspicuously.

R.G.W.—­What is the origin of the term “Bezonian,” which occurs in the Shaksperean drama? Answer.—­Some trace it to Ben Zine, an inflammable friend of “ancient Pistol’s.”  It is far more probable, however, that the word was originally written “Bazainian,” and was merely prophetic of the well-known epithet now bestowed by Prussian soldiers on the French troops serving under BAZAINE.

Earl Russel—­In reply to your question as to whether the thumb nail of HOGARTH on which he made his traditional sketch of a drunken man, is now in an American collection, we can only state that, of course, it once formed a leading object of interest in BARNUM’S Museum.  As that building was destroyed by fire in 1865, however, it is to be presumed that the HOGARTH nail perished with all the other nails, or was sold with them, as “junk.”