,
Yet only put a _Duffer in_!

* * * * *

THE BISHOP AND THE SEA-SERPENT.

["The Bishop of Adelaide, in writing to a colonial friend,
states that while riding along the sea-beach he came across
a dead sea-serpent, about 60 feet in length.... The Bishop
describes his 'find' as the most peculiar animal he has ever
seen."--_Daily Paper_.]

The Bishop saw the Serpent
A lying very near--
"Now, in the name of truth," says he,
"We'll have no lying here."
It was the Great Sea-Serpent,
Stretched out upon the shore--
It measured--well, no matter what,
It was all that, and more.

"He's dead! the Great Sea-Serpent!"
The Bishop cried, with glee,
"And now there is no Serpent
Within my present See."
'Tis scotched, not killed; for, sure as fate,
We'll fifty bet to five,
That, when the Season's dead, The Great
Sea-Serpent will revive.

* * * * *

HIS GREATEST PLEASURE.

["My greatest pleasure will be to think of you, Mr.
ROGERS."--_Grossly unfair extract from the Newspaper Report of
Mr. Goschen's Speech on Girls' Education._]

In gilded halls some take their ease,
In song and dance they find delight;
And there are those whom banquets please,
And masques and revelry by night.
Such gauds are wearisome to me;
And wilder lures of dice or drink
Attract me not; my maddest glee
Is to sit still and think.

I think and think; the world grows less,
And Budgets seem but worthless toys;
For I am lost in happiness,
In my ecstatic joy of joys.
Ah, Mr. ROGERS, blessed name,
Let me think on till all is blue,
For pow'r is naught, nor wealth, nor fame,
Compared with thoughts of you.

* * * * *

THE TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.

NO. XX.

SCENE--_The interior of a covered gondola, which is conveying
CULCHARD and PODBURY from the Railway Station to the Hotel
Dandolo, Venice. The gondola is gliding with a gentle sidelong
heave under shadowy bridges of stone and cast-iron, round
sharp corners, and past mysterious blank walls, and old
scroll-work gateways, which look ghostly in the moonlight_.

_Culch._ (_looking out of the felze window, and quoting
conscientiously_).

"I saw from out the wave her structures rise,
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand.";

_Podb._ For rest, s