donkey boy, in Sunday garb, stood grinning and blushing at their side.
'There, Lady ----! you said the only thing this place wanted to make it
perfect was deer; what do you say now? I have, you see, ordered my game
gamekeeper to drive my deer into the most picturesque point of view.
Excuse their long ears, a little peculiarity belonging to parsonic deer.
Their voices, too, are singular; but we do our best for you, and you are
too true a friend of the Church to mention our defects.' All this, of
course, amidst shouts of laughter, whilst his own merry laugh might be
heard above us all, ringing through the valley, and making the very
echoes laugh in chorus."

ASSES' DUTY FREE!

During the debate on Sir Robert Peel's tariff, the admission of asses'
duty free caused much merriment. Lord T., who had just read "Vestiges of
the Natural History of Creation," remarked that the House had, he
supposed, passed the donkey clause out of respect to its
ancestors.--"It is a wise measure," said a popular novelist, "especially
as it affects the importation of food; for, should a scarcity come, we
should otherwise have to fall back on the food of our
forefathers."--"And, pray, what is that?" asked an
archaeologist.--"Thistles," replied Lord T.[250]

THACKERAY AND THE EGYPTIAN DONKEY.

When the English author landed at Alexandria, there were many scenes and
sounds to dispel all romantic notions; among these "a yelling chorus of
donkey boys shrieking, 'Ride, sir!--donkey, sir!--I say, sir!' in
excellent English. The placid sphinxes, brooding o'er the Nile,
disappeared with that wild shriek of the donkey boys. You might be as
well impressed with Wapping as with your first step on Egyptian soil.

"The riding of a donkey is, after all, not a dignified occupation. A man
resists the offer first, somehow as an indignity. How is that poor
little, red-saddled, long-eared creature to carry you? Is there to be
one for you and another for your legs? Natives and Europeans, of all
sizes, passed by, it is true, mounted upon the same contrivance. I
waited until I got into a very private spot, where nobody could see me,
and then ascended--why not say descended at once?--on the poor little
animal. Instead of being crushed at once, as perhaps the writer
expected, it darted forward, quite briskly and cheerfully, at six or
seven miles an hour; requiring no spur or admonitive to haste, except
the shrieking of the little Egyptian _gamin_, who ran along