* * * * *

THE CHOICE OF PARIS (IN AMERICA.)

One drink, dear friend, before we part--
Before I tempt the shining sea;
One drink to pledge each constant heart--
Yet stay, what shall the tipple be?

My eyes are dazed with bar-room "signs"
In which, I pray, shall friendship conquer?
Can alien I drink "native" wines?
Are Jew-lips Christian tipple, _mon coeur_?

This "cobbler"--is't a heeling drink?
A "smash" were surely inauspicious;
_Toute de-suite_, two "sours"--yet I think
Ah! _qu'est-ce-qui c'est!_--acetate is vicious!

_Garcon!_ two "skins"--the name is 'cute---
You Yankees "twig" the pharmaceutical;
But hold! art sure the flay-vor'll suit?
Will it not smack too much of cuticle?

No, boy, no "skins." Let's try some beer,
A milder fluid for to-day;
Ottawa bring us--_c'est a dire_,
Some beer that keeps the 'ot away.

No? Well, some ale: in limpid Bass
We'll drown our thirst and parting grief;
Come drink--_arretez!_ this _must_ pass--
'Twould look too much like bas-relief!

The hour arrives; our lips are dry;
What _shall_ it be? Oh, name it for me!
A _tasse_ of gin? I drink and fly
To toss upon the ocean stormy.

* * * * *

"NOTHING LIKE LEATHER."

Freedom of action is one of the greatest boons enjoyed by mankind in
modern days. Its rate of progress is encouraging, especially since the
Liberal Club of this city has taken it under its protection. It is a
very significant association, is the Liberal Club; rather iconoclastic,
to be sure, but only a little ahead of the times, perhaps, in that
respect; Some of our cherished forms of speech have already been
rendered obsolete by the Liberal Club. It used to be such a clincher to
say, when one wanted to enforce a point by indicating an impossibility,
"I will eat my boots unless"--etc., etc. That clincher has gone to the
place whither good clinchers go, forever. At a late meeting of the
Liberal Club, Professor VAN DER WEYDE contributed to the evening
collation a pudding made of an old boot. The pudding was garnished with
the wooden pegs that had kept the boot together, sole and body, while it
walked the earth. The boot-jack with which the original source of the
pudding used to be pulled off was also exhibited, and excited great
interest. It is the intention, of