These were the verses the Tame Rabbit recited:—­

  The Grand Old Man was on the stir;
    MORANT named me to him;
  He gave me a good character;
    I thought his meaning dim.

  He held me up; they thought it fun! 
    And laughed; he chid their glee. 
  If he should push this matter on,
    What will become of Me?

  He said I was a paying game,
    Commending me as such. 
  That’s the result of being tame,
    And living in a hutch.

  My notion is that it is vain
    For you, you Grand Old Fella,
  To rave of rabbits in the rain,
    Beneath a big umbrella.

  Don’t let them know we fatten best,
    For this should ever be
  A secret kept from all the rest,
    Between yourself and me!

* * * * *

[Illustration:  AMONG THE BUNNIES.]

* * * * *

LITERATURE AND LOTTERY.

(By a Patron of the Popular Press.)

  Yes, I’ve “a literary taste,”
    And patronise a weekly journal;
  ’Tis what is called Scissors and Paste,
    The paper’s poor, the print’s infernal. 
  But what of that, when, week by week,
    High at the sight of it hope rises? 
  What in my Magazine I seek
    Is just—­a medium for Prizes! 
  I can’t be bothered to read much,
    I like my literature in snippets. 
  My hope is, with good luck, to clutch
    Villas, gold watches, sable tippets. 
  A coupon and some weekly pence
    Give me a chance of an annuity. 
  Oh, the excitement is intense! 
    I read with ardent assiduity,
  Not what the poor ink-spillers say
    In sparkling “par,” or essay solemn;
  No, what I read, with triumph gay
    Or hope deferred, is—­the Prize Column! 
  On prose my time I seldom waste,
    And poetry is poor and pottery. 
  But oh!  I have an ardent taste
    For Literature when linked with Lottery!

* * * * *

ROBERT’S LITTLE HOLLERDAY.

My hollerday, or sum of it, was spent in Hopen Spaces.  Hif anybody as has got two eyes in his hed, and a hart in his buzzom, wants for to see what can be done with about 40 hakers of land—­witch the most respecfool Gardiner told me was about the size of the Queen’s Park at Kilburn—­let him go there on a fine Summer’s Arternoon, and see jest about five thowsen children a playing about there, all free, and hindependent, and appy, with two fountings to drink when they’re ot and thirsty, and a nice littel Jim Nasyum to climb up and down.  They ain’t allowed to play at Cricket coz there ain’t not room enuf, but I did see two bold littel chaps, about six a peace, a breaking of the Law, and a playing at the forbidden game, with a jacket for the wicket and a stick for a Bat, and the kind-arted Gardiner hadn’t got hart enuff to stop ’em.