* * * * *

New Way out of a Wager.

  DESMOND, Theosophist Colonel, now thinks better
    Of his rash vow his gift to “demonstrate,”
  Receiving a “precipitated letter”
    Warning him not to be—­precipitate. 
  Many a Betting Man who’d hedge or tack
  Must wish he had Mahatmas at his back.

* * * * *

The Beggar’s Petition.

(New Version.)

  Life must not be lost, Sir, with lightness,
    To labour for life gives me pain;
  My exchequer’s affected with tightness,
  But begging’s the pink of politeness,
    Like Scribes, Sir, “I beg—­to remain!” *

* And didn’t CHARLES LAMB, in his most delightful essay On the Decay of Beggars, deplore their gradual disappearance?

* * * * *

DOCTOR LAURIE.

Song by a Scotch Student.  AIR—­“Annie Laurie.”

["According to Dr. LAURIE, of Edinburgh University, the “teaching of Greek, so far as it is attempted in our secondary schools, is positively harmful.”—­Daily News.]

  Pedagogue brays are bonnie,
    When Greek they’d fain taboo;
  And ’tis here that Doctor LAURIE
    Gi’es utterance strictly true,
    Gi’es utterance strictly true,
    Which ne’er forgot should be,
  And for bonnie Doctor LAURIE,
    A Scottish boy would dee.

  Auld HOMER is a humbug,
    ANACREON is an ass;
  Sumphs scrape enoo o’ baith o’ them,
    The “Little-go” to pass,
    The Little-go to pass—­
    It affects them “harmfullee.” 
  Ah! but bonnie Doctor LAURIE,
    He kens Greek’s a’ my ee!

  Like diplomas fause and lying,
    Are “passes” such as this. 
  Why should Scotch lads sit sighing
    O’er the Anabasis?—­
    O’er the Anabasis? 
    XENOPHON’s fiddle-de-dee? 
  Oh, for bonnie Doctor LAURIE,
  I’d shout with three times three!

* * * * *

UNDER-LYNE’D.—­Said Sir W. VERNON HARCOURT, at Ashton-under-Lyne, “I am very glad to be enabled to come here from the hospitable roof of Mr. RUPERT MASON.” ...  And again, “I have come here also from the roof of Mr. MATHER.”  Quite a Sir WILLIAM ROOFUS!  But what was he doing on the roof?  Was there a tile off in each case?  Something wrong with the first house that a Mason couldn’t set right?  And with the second, did Sir ROOFUS sing, “Oh dear, what can the Mather be?” And why the invidious distinction between the two roofs?  The first being hospitable, and the second having no pleasant epithet to recommend it.

* * * * *

PROPOSED NEW TITLE FOR LORD GR-M-TH-RPE.—­Baron (H)ALTER EGO.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  A LANCASHIRE WATERING-PLACE.]