e dressing station, in a ruined village. "Bad case," said the docs.
"When he comes out of his swoon he'll need cheering up. Say something
heartening to him, boys. Tell him he's in Ireland." When the lad came to
he looked around (ruined church on one side, busted houses, etc., up
stage, and all that): "Where am I?" sez he. "'S all right, Pat; you're
in Ireland, boy." "Glory be to God!" sez he, looking around again. "How
long have yez had Home Rule?"

Tom Daly.

* * *

OUR BOYS.

[From the Sheridan, Wyo., Enterprise.]

Our boys are off for the borders
Awaiting further orders
From our president to go
Down into old Mexico,
Where the Greaser, behind a cactus,
Is waiting to attack us.

* * *

The skies they were ashen and sober, and the leaves they were crisped
and sere, as I sat in the porch chair and regarded our neighbor's patch
of woodland; and I thought: The skies may be ashen and sober, and the
leaves may be crisped and sere, but in a maple wood we may dispense with
the sun, such irradiation is there from the gold of the crisped leaves.
Jack Frost is as clever a wizard as the dwarf Rumpelstiltzkin, who
taught the miller's daughter the trick of spinning straw into gold. This
young ash, robed all in yellow--what can the sun add to its splendor?
And those farther tree-tops, that show against the sky like a tapestry,
the slenderer branches and twigs, unstirred by wind, having the
similitude of threads in a pattern--can the sun gild their refined gold?
How delicate is the tinting of that cherry, the green of which is fading
into yellow, each leaf between the two colors: this should be described
in paint.

No, I said; in a hardwood thicket, in October, though it were the misty
mid region of Weir, one would not know the sun was lost in clouds. At
that moment the sun adventured forth, in blazing denial. It was as if
the woodland had burst into flame.

* * *

As a variation of the story about the merchant who couldn't keep a
certain article because so many people asked for it, we submit the
following: A lady entered the rural drugstore which we patronize and
said, "Mr. Blank, I want a bath spray." "I'm sorry, Mrs. Jones," sezze,
"but the bath spray is sold."

* * *

_IN A DEPARTMENT STORE._

_Customer--"I want to look at some tunics."_

_Irish Floorwalker--"We don't carry musical instruments