“Then he puts out a fin like a big barndoor—­
Now this ’ere is real straight truth—­
It sounds like a fable, but he tuk my bloomin’ cable,
And he tied it to his left front tooth!

“In another second more, at the bottom of the sea
The Crazy Jane was aground; Sez I,
’You oughter be ashamed of yerself,
It’s a one-der as I wasn’t drowned.’

“Then he calls on a porkeypine a-standin’ quite near,
Sez he, ‘Look arter this barge,’
‘A-begging your pardon that’s a wessel’ I sez: 
Sez he:  ‘Werry fine and large!’

“With one of hiz eye-lashes, thick as a rope,
He ties me on to his knoze,
Then down in a cave right under the sea
Like a flash of light we goes.

“He tuk me up to his wife, who was
A murmyaid with three tails;
She was havin’ of her dinner, and perlitely she sez,
‘Will you have some o’ these ‘ere snails?’

“So I sits me down by her buteful side—­
She’d a face like a sunset sky;
Her hair was a sort of a scarlety red,
And her knoze was strait as a die.

“I hadn’t sot a minit wen sez she to me,
’Sammy, don’t yer know me agane? 
Why, I’m the wife arter wot yer call’d yer ship;
Sure enuf, it was Craizy Jane—­

“The wife as had bother’d me all my life,
Until she got drown’d one day,
When a-bathin’ out o’ one of them there masheens
In this wery same Margit Bay.

“The Sarpint was a-havin’ of his dinner, and so
She perposed as how we should fly—­
But, sez I to meself, ’What, take you back? 
Not if I knose it,’ sez I.

“‘But how about them there tails?’ I sez—­
‘On shore them will niver doo;’
She sez, ’Yer silly, why, karn’t yer see,
They’re only fixed on wi’ a screw?’

“So I tells her as how I’ll go fetch the old ship
Wile she’s a-unscreuing of her tails;
But when I gets back to the Crazy Jane
I finds there a couple of wales.

“I jist had time to see the biggest of the two
A-swallerin’ of the ship right whole,
And in one more momint he swallered me too,
As true as I’m a livin’ sole.

“But when he got to the surfis of the sea,
A summat disagreed with that wale,
And he up with me and the Crazy Jane and all—­
And this ’ere’s the end of my tail.”

* * * * *

Then this old ainshunt mariner, he sez unto me—­
And ‘onesty was shinin’ in hiz eyes—­
“It’s jist the sort o’ story wot no one won’t beleeve—­
But it’s true, little nipper, if I dies,”

THE AMATEUR ORLANDO.

BY GEORGE T. LANIGAN.

It was an Amateur Dram.  Ass.,
(Kind hearer, although your
Knowledge of French is not first-class,
Don’t call that Amature.)
It was an Amateur Dram.  Ass.,
The which did warfare wage
On the dramatic works of this
And every other age.