snatched off some way, so’s I could walk around on this one.  Or, it you hate to go to the expense of amputation, why not get your pantaloons altered, and mount this beautiful work of art just as you stand?  A centipede, a mere ridicklous insect, has half a bushel of legs, and why can’t a man, the grandest creature on earth, own three?  You go around this community on three legs, and your fortune’s made.  People will go wild over you as the three-legged grocer; the nation will glory in you; Europe will hear of you; you will be heard of from pole to pole.  It’ll build up your business.  People’ll flock from everywheres to see you, and you’ll make your sugar and cheese and things fairly hum.  Look at it as an advertisement!  Look at it any way you please, and there’s money in it—­there’s glory, there’s immortality.  Now, look at it that way; and if it strikes you, I tell you what I’ll do:  I’ll actually swap that imperishable leg off to you for two pounds of water-crackers and a tin cupful of Jamaica rum.  Is it a go?”

Then Brown weighed out the crackers, gave him a drink of rum, and told him if he would take them as a present and quit he would confer a favour.  And he did.  After emptying the crackers in his pockets, and smacking his lips over the rum, he went to the door, and as he opened it said,—­

“Good-bye.  But if you ever really do want a leg, Old Reliable is ready for you; it’s yours.  I consider that you’ve got a mortgage on it, and you kin foreclose at any time.  I dedicate this leg to you.  My will shall mention it; and if you don’t need it when I die, I’m going to have it put in the savings bank to draw interest until you check it out.”

THE ENCHANTED SHIRT.

BY COLONEL JOHN HAY.

        The King was sick.  His cheek was red,
          And his eye was clear and bright;
        He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
          And peacefully snored at night.

        But he said he was sick, and a king should know,
          And doctors came by the score,
        They did not cure him.  He cut off their heads,
          And sent to the schools for more.

        At last two famous doctors came,
          And one was as poor as a rat,—­
        He had passed his life in studious toil,
          And never found time to grow fat.

        The other had never looked in a book;
          His patients gave him no trouble: 
        If they recovered they paid him well;
          If they died their heirs paid double.

        Together they looked at the royal tongue,
          As the King on his couch reclined;
        In succession they thumped his august chest,
          But no trace of disease could find.

        The old sage said, “You’re as sound as a nut.” 
          “Hang him up,” roared the King in a gale—­
        In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
          The other leech grew a shade pale;