"What's the wages?" "Wages are good; we pay $1,000 to a man in that situation." "What's a feller got to do?" Oh! merely to test medicines, that's all. It requires a stout man, one of good constitution; and after he gets used to it he does n't mind it. You see, we are very particular about the quality of our medicines, and before we sell any we test every parcel. You would be required to take, say, six or seven ounces of castor oil some days, with a few doses of rhubarb, aloes, croton oil, and similar preparations. Some days you would not be required to test anything; but as a general thing, you can count upon, say from six to ten doses of something daily. As to the work, that does not amount to much; the testing department simply would be the principal labor required of you; and, as I said before, it requires a person of very healthy organization to endure it. But you look hearty, and I guess you would suit us. That young man (pointing to a very palefaced, slim-looking youth, who happened to be present) has filled the post the past two weeks; but he is hardly stout enough to stand it; we should like to have you take right hold, if you are ready; and, if you say so, we'll begin to-day. Here is a new barrel of castor-oil just come in. I'll go and draw an ounce Here Verdant, who had been gazing intently upon the slim youth, interrupted him with: "N-no, no; I g-u-e-s-s not,-not to-day, anyhow. I'll go down and see my aunt; and, ef I 'clude to come, I'll come up termorrer and let yer know." He has not yet turned up. YAWCOB STRAUSS. I HAF von funny leetle poy, Vot gomes schust to my knee, He runs, und schumps, und schmashes dings In all barts off der house : He get der measles und der mumbs, He dakes der milk-ban for a dhrum, To make der schticks to beat it mit,- I dinks mine hed vas schplit abart, He asks me questions sooch as dese: How gan I all dose dings eggsblain ANECDOTE OF THIERS. DURING the Franco-Prussian war, M. Thiers was walking one morning alone in the new camp which he had established near Versailles. He saw a soldier stationed on guard, and at the moment vigorously engaged in eating bread and cheese. "Good morning, mon garçon," said M. Thiers. "Good morning, ma petite vieille" (my little old woman), replied the soldier. "Eh bien! You don't get tired, do you, of your camp life?" "That depends on the hour. At present, not. I am off duty, and am eating my bread and cheese, as you see." 99 "And the camp bread, it's good, is n't it? I find it far superior to that they gave us before." "Tiens! Do you eat it? What are you, then? Are you an oil merchant or a hos pital nurse?" "Better than that," re ARTEMUS WARD VISITS THE "MR. SHAKER," sed I, "You see before you a Babe in the Woods, so to speak, and he axes a shelter of you." "Yay," said the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another bein sent to put my horse and wagon under kiver. A solum female, lookin somewhat like a last year's bean-pole stuck into a long meal-bag, cum in and axed me was I athirst and did I hunger? To which I asserted, "A few." She went orf, and I endeavored to open a conversation with the old man. 66 Elder, I spect," sed I. "Health 's good, I reckon?" Yay." meal-bags like the old one I'd met previsly, and their shiny, silky hair was hid from sight by long, white caps, such as I suppose female ghosts wear; but their eyes sparkled like diamonds, their cheeks was like roses, and they was charmin enuff to make a man throw stuns at his grandmother, if they axed him to. They commenst clearing away the dishes, casting shy glances at me all the time. I got excited. I forgot Betsey Jane in my rapter, and sez Ï, My pretty dears, how air you?" "We air well," they solumly sed. "Where is the old man?" said I, in a soft voice. "Of whom dost thou speak-Brother Uriah?" "I mean that gay and festive cuss who calls me a man of sin. Should n't wonder if his name was n't Uriah." "He has retired." "Wall, my pretty dears," sez I, “let's have some fun. Let's play puss in the corner. What say?" "Air you a Shaker, sir?" they asked. 'Wall, my pretty dears, I haven't arrayed my proud form in a long weskit yet, but if they wus all like you perhaps I'd jine em. As it is, I am willing to be a Shaker protemporary." They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a little skeery. I tawt 'em puss in the corner, and sich like plase, and we had a nice time, keepin quiet, of course, so that the old man shouldn't hear. When we broke "If the storm continues there'll be a up, sez I: mess underfoot, hay?" "Yay." I pawsed a minit, and, thinkin I'd be fasechus with him and see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, burst into a hearty larf, and told him that as a yayer he had no living ekel. He jumped up as if bilin water had been squirted into his ears, groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin, and sed: "You're a man of sin!" He then walked out of the room. Directly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick lookin gals as I ever met. It is troo they was drest in "My pretty dears, ear I go, you have no objections, have you, to a innersent kiss at partin? "Yay," they said, and I-yayed. CHARLES F. BROWNE, 1832-1867. GENEALOGY OF HUMOR. character that I have: and I would teach these nineteen the special rules-as your punto, your reverso, your stoccata, your Ir is indeed much easier to describe till they could all play very near, or imbroccato, your passado, your montanto what is not humor, than what is; and altogether as well as myself. This done, very difficult to define it otherwise than say the enemy were forty thousand as Cowley has done it, by negatives. strong, we twenty would come into the Were I to give my own notions of it, I field the tenth of March, or thereabouts; would deliver them after Plato's manner, and we would challenge twenty of the in a kind of allegory, and by supposing enemy; they could not in their honor reHumor to be a person, deduce to him all fuse us; well, we would kill them: chalhis qualifications, according to the follow- lenge twenty more, kill them; twenty ing genealogy: Truth was the founder of more, kill them; twenty more, kill them the family, and the father of Good Sense. too; and thus would we kill every man Good Sense was the father of Wit, who his twenty a day, that's twenty score; married a lady of collateral line called twenty score, that's two hundred; two Mirth, by whom he has issue Humor. hundred a day, five days a thousand; Humor, therefore, being the youngest of forty thousand; forty times five, five times the illustrious family, and descended forty, two hundred days kills them all up from parents of such different dispositions, by computation. And this will I venture is very various and unequal in his temper; my poor gentleman-like carcass to persometimes you see him putting on grave form, provided there be no treason looks and a solemn habit, sometimes airy practised upon us, by fair and discreet in his behavior and fantastic in his dress; manhood; that is, civilly by the sword. insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a judge and as jocular as a Merry Andrew. But as he has a great deal of the mother in his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh. JOSEPH ADDISON, 1672-1719. BOBADIL'S PLAN FOR SAVING THE EXPENSE OF AN ARMY. Bobadil. I will tell you, sir, by the way of private, and under seal, I am a gentleman, and live here obscure, and to myself; but were I known to her majesty and the lords (observe me), I would undertake, upon this poor head and life, for the public benefit of the state, not only to spare the entire lives of her subjects in general, but to save the one-half, nay, three parts of her yearly charge in holding war, and against what enemy soever. And how would I do it, think you? E. Knowell. Nay, I know not, nor can I conceive. Bob. Why, thus, sir. I would select nineteen more, to myself, throughout the land; gentlemen they should be of good spirit, strong and able constitution; I would choose them by an instinct, a BEN JONSON, 1574-1637. A NOVEL FRENCHMAN. DURING the war, an officer in the Army of the Potomac was surprised, on receiving a draft of men to fill up the gaps in the ranks, to find that one of the names on the list was Fitz-Herbert de Percy. Still greater was his astonishment at the discovery that the owner of this aristocratic name was an Irishman, a man in whose features Nast would have delighted, and whose broad accent, as Brougham would phrase it, could have only been made with a broad-axe. The possession of this clearly impossible title exercised a dreadful fascination on all the officers of the regiment, and numberless were the attempts made to discover what the wearer's real name was, and why he had adopted such an alias. All were baffled. Drunk or. sober, to orders or entreaties, artfully pumped or abruptly questioned, he made but one reply: "Me naame is Fitz-Horboort de Porrey." At last his term of service expired, and he received his discharge. "And now, De Percy," said his commanding officer, " 'you are out of the army, and whatever your real name may be or your reasons Capting," answered the man, "I will not desave yez. Fitz-Horboort de Porrcy was not me raal naame. That, sor, I consaled for family raisons." "I understand, I understand," said the officer, eagerly; "and your true name SWALLOWING AN OYSTER AT a late hour one night (1843), the door of an oyster house in our city was thrust open, and in stalked a hero from the Sucker State [Illinois]. He was six is-" feet high, spare, somewhat stooped, with a "Me raal naame, sor, answered the ex-hungry, anxious countenance, and his soldier," me raal naame is not FitzHorboort de Porrcy; it is Fitz-Clarence de Montmorenshy." AN ORIENTAL ESCULAPIUS. MR. OSCANYAN, in his book The Sultan and his People, tells the following anecdote of a Turkish physician: A person exceedingly ill of typhus fever called in one of these medical gentlemen, who, although he considered the case quite hopeless, prescribed for his patient, and took his leave. The next day, in passing by, he inquired of a servant at the door if his master was not dead. "Dead! No; he is much better." Whereupon the doctor proceeded up stairs to obtain the solution of this miracle. Why," said the convalescent, "I was consumed with thirst, and I drank a pailful of the juice of pickled cabbage." 66 "Wonderful!" quoth the doctor. And out came the tablets, on which the physician made this inscription, "Cured of typhus fever, Mehemed Agha, an upholsterer, by drinking a pailful of pickled cabbage juice." Soon after, the doctor was called to another patient, a yaghlikgee, or dealer in embroidered handkerchiefs, suffering from the same malady. He forthwith prescribed "a pailful of pickled cabbage juice." hands pushed clear down to the bottom of his breeches pockets. His outer covering was hard to define, but after surveying it minutely, we came to the conclusion that his suit had been made in his boyhood, of a dingy yellow linseywolsey, and that, having sprouted up with astonishing rapidity, he had been forced to piece it out with all colors, in order to keep pace with his body. In spite of his exertions, however, he had fallen in arrears about a foot of the necessary length, and, consequently, stuck that far through his inexpressibles. His crop of hair was surmounted by the funniest little sealskin cap imaginable. After taking a position, he indulged in a long stare at the man opening the bivalves, and slowly ejaculated "isters?" Yes, sir," responded the attentive operator,-" and fine ones they are, too." "Well, I've heard of isters afore," says he, "but this is the fust time I've seed 'em, and pre-haps I'll know what thar made of afore I git out of town." Having expressed this desperate intention, he cautiously approached the plate, and scrutinized the uncased shell-fish with a gravity and interest which would have done honor to the most illustrious searcher into the hidden mysteries of nature. At length he began to soliloquize on the difficulty of getting them out, and how queer they looked when out. "I never seed any thin' hold on sotakes an amazin' sight of screwin, hoss, to On calling the next day to congratulate get them out, and aint they slick and his patient on his recovery, he was aston-slip'ry when they does come? Smooth ished to be told the man was dead. The Oriental Esculapius, in his bewilderment at these phenomena, came to the safe conclusion, and duly noted it in his memoranda, that "although in cases of typhus fever pickled cabbage juice is an efficient remedy, it is not, however, to be used unless the patient be by profession an upholsterer." as an eel! I've a good mind to give that feller lodgin', jist to realize the effects, as uncle Jess used to say about speckalation." aint nothin', to a chicken, and there's no | perately wrenching out the cork, swalgettin' more 'n a picayune apiece for them. lowed half the contents at a draught He I've only realized forty-five picayunes on fairly squealed from its effects, and gasped my first ventur' to St. Louis. I'll tell you and blowed, and pitched, and twisted, what, I'll gin you two chickens for a doz- as if it were coursing through him with en, if you 'll conclude to deal." electric effect, while at the same time his eyes ran a stream of tears. At length becoming a little composed, his waggish adviser approached, almost bursting with suppressed laughter, and inquired, A wag, who was standing by, indulging in a dozen, winked to the attendant to shell out, and the offer was accepted. Now mind," repeated the Sucker, "all fair-two chickens for a dozenyou 're a witness, mister," turning at the same time to the wag; none of your tricks, for I've heard that your city fellers are mighty slip'ry coons." The bargain being fairly understood, our Sucker squared himself for the onset; deliberately put off his seal-skin, tucked up his sleeves, and, fork in hand, awaited the appearance of No. 1. It came-he saw-and quickly it was bolted! A moment's dreadful pause ensued. The wag dropped his knife and fork, with a look of mingled amazement and horror-something akin to Shakspeare's Hamlet on seeing his daddy's ghost-while he burst into the exclamation "Swallowed alive, as I'm a Christian !" Our Sucker hero had opened his mouth with pleasure a moment before, but now it stood open. Fear-a horrid dread of he didn't know what-a consciousness that all was n't right, and ignorant of the extent of the wrong-the uncertainty of the moment was terrible. Urged to desperation, he faltered out— "What on earth's the row?" "Did you swallow it alive?" inquired the wag. "I swallowed it jest as he gin it to me!" shouted the Sucker. "You're a dead man!" exclaimed his anxious friend, "the creature is alive, and will eat right through you," added he in a most helpless tone. 66 Get a pizen pump and pump it out!" screamed the Sucker, in a frenzy, his eyes fairly starting out of their sockets. gracious!-what 'll I do?—It's got hold of my innards already, and I'm dead as a chicken!-do something for me, dodon't let the infernal sea-toad eat me afore your eyes." "Why don't you put some of this on it?" inquired the wag, pointing to a bottle of strong pepper sauce. The hint was enough-the Sucker, upon the instant, seized the bottle, and des "How are you now, old fellow-did you kill it?" "Well, I did, hoss,-ugh, ugh 0-0-0 my innards. If that ister critter's dyin' agonies did n't stir a 'ruption in me equal to a small arthquake, then 'taint no use sayin' it-it squirmed like a sarpent, when that killin' stuff touched it; hu!"-and here with a countenance made up of suppressed agony and present determination, he paused to give force to his words, and slowly and deliberately remarked, " If you git two chickens from me for that live animal, I'm d-d!" and seizing his sealskin he vanished. The shout of laughter, and the contortions of the company at this finale, would have made a spectator believe that they had all been swallowing oysters alive. JOHN S. ROBB ("Solitaire"). THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS. A BRACE of sinners, for no good, Were order'd to the Virgin Mary's shrine, Who at Loretto dwelt, in wax, stone, wood, And in a fair white wig look'd wond'rous fine. Fifty long miles had those sad rogues to travel, With something in their shoes much worse In short, their toes so gentle to amuse, A nostrum, famous in old popish times, The knaves set off on the same day, |