“O!  Gemini!” he said, when he
“O!  Pisces!” should have cried;
And tremblingly the wriggling fish
Haul’d to the bridge’s side.

When, lo! just as he stretched his hand
To grasp the perch’s fin,
The slender line was snapp’d in twain,
The perch went tumbling in!

“Gone! gone! by gosh!” scream’d Nobbs, while Tom
Too eager forward bent,
And, with a kick, their basket quick
Into the river sent.

The practical joker.—­No.  I.

Those wags who are so fond of playing off their jokes upon others, require great skill and foresight to prevent the laugh being turned against themselves.

Jim Smith was an inveterate joker, and his jokes were, for the most part, of the practical kind.  He had a valuable tortoiseshell cat, whose beauty was not only the theme of praise with all the old maids in the neighbourhood, but her charms attracted the notice of numerous feline gentlemen dwelling in the vicinity, who were, nocturnally, wont to pay their devoirs by that species of serenades, known under the cacophonous name of caterwauling.

One very ugly Tom, (who, it was whispered abroad, was a great—­grandfather, and scandalously notorious for gallantries unbecoming a cat of his age) was particularly obnoxious to our hero; and, in an unlucky moment, he resolved to ‘pickle him,’ as he facetiously termed it.  Now his process of pickling consisted in mixing a portion of prussic acid in milk.  Taking the precaution to call in his own pet and favorite, he placed the potion in the accustomed path of her long-whiskered suitor.  Tom finding the coast clear slipped his furry body over the wall, and dropped gently as a lady’s glove into the garden, and slily smelling the flower-borders, as if he were merely amusing himself in the elegant study of botany, stealthily approached the house, and uttering a low plaintive ‘miau,’ to attract the attention of his dear Minx, patiently awaited the appearance of his true-love.

Minx heard the voice she loved so well, and hurried to meet her ancient beau.  A slight noise, however, alarmed his timidity, and he scaled the wall in a twinkling.

Presently the screams of the maid assured him that ’something had taken place;’ and when he heard the words, “Oh! the cat! the cat!” he felt quite certain that the potion had taken effect.  He walked deliberately down stairs, and behold! there lay Miss Minx, his own favorite, struggling in the agonies of death, on the parlor rug.  The fact is, he had shut the doors, but forgotten that the window was open, and the consequence was, the loss of poor Minx, who had drunk deep of the malignant poison designed for her gallant.

This was only one of a thousand tricks that had miscarried.

Having one day ascertained that his acquaintance, Tom Wilkins, was gone out ‘a-shooting,’ he determined to way-lay him on his return.

It was a beautiful moonlight night in the latter end of October.  Disguising himself in a demoniac mask, a pair of huge wings, and a forked tail, he seated himself on a stile in the sportsman’s path.