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"Vy zounds and zounds!" he cries, "I sall no

pay;

Vat, charge ten shelangs for vat I've mangé? A leetel sup of portar, dis vile bed,

Vare all de rats do run about my head ?" "Plague on those rats!" the landlord muttered out;

"I wish, upon my word, that I could make 'em

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pray :

"Vat's dat you

"Attend to me,

Vill you dis charge forego, vat I am at,
If from your house I drive away de rat?"
"With all my heart," the jolly host replies,
"Ecoutez donc, ami;" the Frenchman cries.
"First, den,-Regardez, if you please,
Bring to dis spot a leetel bread and cheese,
Eh bien! a pot of portar too;

And den invite de rats to sup vid you;
And after-no matter dey be villing-

For vat dey eat, you charge dem just ten shelang:

And I am sure, ven dey behold de score,
Dey'll quit your house, and never come no

more.

XIX.

The Best of Wives.-ANONYMOUS.

A MAN had once a vicious wife
(A most uncommon thing in life);

His days and nights were spent in strife

Unceasing.

Her tongue went glibly all day long,
Sweet contradiction still her song,
And all the poor man did was wrong,

And ill done.

A truce without doors or within,
From speeches long as tradesmen spin,
Or rest from her eternal din,

He found not.

He every soothing art displayed;
Tried of what stuff her skin was made:
Failing in all, to Heaven he prayed

To take her.

Once walking by a river's side,
In mournful terms, "My dear," he cried,
"No more let feuds our peace divide,

I'll end them.

"Weary of life, and quite resigned, To drown I have made up my mind, So tie my hands as fast behind

As can be:

"Or Nature may assert her reign, My arms assist, my will restrain, And swimming, I once more regain

My troubles."

With eager haste the dame complies,
While joy stands glistening in her eyes;
Already in her thoughts he dies

Before her.

"Yet, when I view the rolling tide,
Nature revolts," he said; "beside,
I would not be a suicide,

And die thus:

"It would be better far, I think, While close I stand upon the brink, You push me in-nay, never shrink,

But do it."

To give the blow the more effect,
Some twenty yards she ran direct,
And did what she could least expect

She should do.

He slips aside, himself to save,
So souse she dashes in the wave,
And gave what ne'er before she gave,

Much pleasure.

"Dear husband, help! I sink!" she cried; "Thou best of wives!" the man replied, "I would-but you my hands have tied, God help ye!"

XX.

The Doctor and his Apprentice.-COLMAN.

A PUPIL of the Esculapian school
Was just prepared to quit his master's rule:
Not that he knew his trade, as it appears,
But that he then had learnt it seven years.

One morn he thus addressed his master:
"Dear sir, my honoured father bids me say,
If I could now and then a visit pay,
He thinks, with you,
To notice how you do,

My business I might learn a little faster.”

"The thought is happy," the preceptor cries; "A better method he could scarce devise;

So Bob," (his pupil's name) "it shall be so;
And when I next pay visits, you shall go.'

To bring that hour, alas! time briskly fled :
With dire intent,

Away they went,

And now behold them at a patient's bed.

The master-doctor solemnly perused

His victim's face, and o'er his symptoms mused;
Looked wise, said nothing-an unerring way,
When people nothing have to say:
Then felt his pulse, and smelt his cane,
And paused, and blinked, and smelt again,
And briefly of his corps performed each motion;
Manœuvres that for Death's platoon are meant :
A kind of a Make-ready-and-Present,

Before the fell discharge of pill and potion.

At length the patient's wife he thus addressed:
"Madam, your husband's danger's great,
And (what will never his complaint abate)
The man's been eating oysters, I perceive."
"Dear! you're a witch, I verily believe,"
Madam replied, and to the truth confessed.

Skill so prodigious Bobby too admired;
And home returning, of the sage inquired
How these same oysters came into his head?
"Psha! my dear Bob, the thing was plain-
Sure that can ne'er distress thy brain;

I saw the shells lie underneath the bed."

So wise, by such a lesson grown,
Next day Bob ventured forth alone,

And to the self-same sufferer paid his courtBut soon, with haste and wonder out of breath, Returned the stripling minister of death,

And to his master made this dread report:

"Why, sir, we ne'er can keep that patient un

der;

Zounds! such a maw I never came across! The fellow must be dying, and no wonder, For ne'er believe me if he has n't eat a horse!"

"A horse!" the elder man of physic cried,
As if he meant his pupil to deride-
"How got so wild a notion in your head?"
"How! think not in my duty I was idle;
Like you, I took a peep beneath the bed,
And there I saw a saddle and a bridle!"

XXI.

Right of Discovery.--IRVING.

THE first source of right, by which property is acquired in a country, is discovery. For as all mankind have an equal right to any thing which has never before been appropriated, so any nation that discovers an uninhabited country, and takes possession thereof, is considered as enjoying full property, and absolute, unquestionable empire therein.

This proposition being admitted, it follows clearly, that the Europeans who first visited America, were the real discoverers of the same; nothing being necessary to the establishment of this fact, but simply to prove that it was totally uninhabited by man. This would at first appear to be a point of some difficulty: for it is well known, that this quarter of the world abounded with certain animals, that walked erect on two feet, had something of the human countenance, uttered certain unintelligible

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