“Euchre!  Oh, don’t ask me to play euchre,” said he; “I’m so mixed up, Miss BRUMMET, I couldn’t tell the King of Ten-spots from the Ace of Jacks.  Oh, won’t BELINDA grab hold of my hair when she hears of this!”

“Yes, she’ll pull it till she makes her ARCHIE-bald,” said ANN, laughing.

ARCHIBALD sat down, and looked at her in a supplicating manner.

“I’ll do anything you say,” said he, “if you please won’t get off any more puns.  It’s awful.  I knew a fellow once who had it chronic.  He doubled every word that he could lay his tongue to.  When he was going to a party, he’d take the dictionary and pick out a lot of words that could be twisted, and set ’em down and study on ’em, so he could be ready with a lot of puns, and when he got ’em off folks would laugh, but all the time they’d wish he’d died young.  And that’s the way he’d go on.  He finally drove his mother into a consumption, and at her funeral, instead of taking on as he ought to, he only just looked at the body, and said, ‘Well, that’s the worst coffin-fit the old lady ever had.’  And then he turned round and began to get off puns on the mourners.  Wasn’t it dreadful?—­But what’s that?”

Somebody was knocking at the door.

“What’s wanted?” said ANN.

“It’s your minister as has come, mum,” said TEDDY, from the outside.  “What word shall I give him?”

“Tell him I shan’t want him,” said ANN.

In a few minutes TEDDY came back.

“He says, mum, as he won’t go without marryin’ somebody, or a gittin’ his pay anyway, for it’s a nice buryin’ job as he’s lost by comin’.”

“But,” said ANN, “I can’t—­” She hesitated, and seemed to form a sudden resolution.  “Tell him,” she continued, “tell him—­”

(To be continued.)

* * * * *

BIOGRAPHICAL.

    There was an agriculturist, philosopher, and editor,
    Who thought the world his debtor and himself, of course, its creditor;
    A man he was of wonderful vitup’rative fertility,
    Though seeming an embodiment of mildness and docility,
    This ancient agriculturist, philosopher, and editor.

    The clothes he wore were shocking to the citizen aesthetical,
    Assuredly they would not pass in circles which were critical,
    So venerable were they, and so distant from propriety,
    So utterly unsuited to respectable society,
    Which numbers in its membership some citizens aesthetical.

    He kept a model farm for every sort of wild experiment. 
    Which was to all the neighborhood a source of constant worriment;
    For every one who passed that way pretended to be eager to
    Discover pumpkin vines that ran across the fields a league or two,
    So queer was the effect of each preposterous experiment.

    He had a dreadful passion, which was not at all professional,
    For going for an office, either local or congressional. 
    But though often nominated, yet the people wouldn’t ratify,
    Because they thought, quite properly, it would be wrong to gratify
    The all-consuming passion that was not at all professional.