ountry cat is a different beast.
Petted, well-housed, demure, and sleek;
Three times a day he is called to feast,
And why should he not be quiet and meek?
No dreams of urchins, tin cans, and war,
Disturb his sensuous sleep on the mat;
Ah! cat life is a thing worth living for,
If he isn't a city cat.

And even when dead, the cat
With strident members uneasy lies
In some alley-way, and seems staring at
A coming foe with his wild wide eye,
Nobody owns him and nobody cares--
Another dead "Tom," and who mourns for that,
If he's only a city cat.

--_Providence Press._

AMUSING TRICKS.

THE FRUIT CANDLE.

Procure a good, large apple or turnip, and cut from it a piece of the
shape to resemble the butt-end of a tallow candle; then from a nut of
some kind--an almond is the best--whittle out a small peg of about the
size and shape of a wick end. Stick the peg in the apple and you have a
very fair representation of a candle. The wick you can light, and it
will burn for at least a minute. In performing you should have your
candle in a clean candlestick, show it plainly to the audience, and then
put it into your mouth, taking care to blow it out, and munch it up. If
you think best, you can blow the candle out and allow the wick to cool,
and it will look, with its burned wick, so natural that even the
sharpest eyes can not distinguish it from the genuine article.

Once, at a summer resort in Massachusetts, I made use of this candle
with considerable effect. While performing a few parlor tricks to amuse
some friends, I pretended to need a light. A confederate left the room,
and soon returned with a lantern containing one of these apple
counterfeits.

"Do you call that a candle?" I said.

"Certainly," he replied.

"Why, there is scarcely a mouthful."

"A mouthful? Rather a disagreeable mouthful, I guess."

"You have never been in Russia, I presume."

"Never."

"Then you don't know what is good."

"Good?"

"Yes, good. Why, candle ends, with the wick a little burned to give them
a flavor, are delicious. They always serve them up before dinner in
Russia as a kind of relish. It is considered bad taste in good society
there to ask a friend to sit down to dinner without offering him this
appetizer."

"The bad taste would be in the relish, I think."

"Not at all. Try a bit."

I took the candle out of the lantern,