ver had known defeat!
The stoutest suckers had given in, beat,
When he sucked up a quart of apple-jack, neat,
By touching his lips to the measure!
He'd suck an oyster out of its shell,
Suck shrimps or lobsters equally well;
Suck cider till inward the barrel-heads fell,--
And seemed to find it a pleasure.

Well, after thinking a day or two,
This doughty sucker imagined he knew
About the best thing he could possibly do,
To secure the bivalvular hermit.
"I'll bore through his shell, as they bore for coal,
With an auger fixed on the end of a pole,
And then, through a tube, I'll suck him out whole,--
A neat little swallow, I term it!"

The very next day, he returned to the place
Where his failure had thrown him into disgrace;
And there, with a ghastly grin on his face,
Began his submarine boring.
He worked for a week, for the shell was tough,
But reached the interior soon enough
For the oyster, who found such surgery rough,--
Such grating, and scraping, and scoring!

The shell-fish started, the water flew,
The cap'n turned decidedly blue,
But thrust his auger still further through,
To quiet the wounded creature.
Alas! I fear my tale grows sad,
The oyster naturally felt quite bad
In spite of its peaceful nature.

It arose, and, turning itself on edge,
Exposed a ponderous shelly wedge,
All covered with slime, and sea-weed, and sedge,--
A conchological wonder!
This wedge flew open, as quick as a flash,
Into two great jaws, with a mighty splash
One scraunching, crunching, crackling crash,--
And the smack was gone to thunder.

A PRECIOUS PICKLE.

(FOR FEMALE CHARACTERS ONLY.)

CHARACTERS.

MISS REBECCA PEASE.
MRS. GABBLE.
JENNY FROST, } City girls on a vacation
BESSY SNOW, } in the country.
SADIE BEAN, }
SISSY GABBLE.
JUNO, Miss Pease's coloured help.

SCENE.--MISS PEASE'S _best room. Table_, C., _back. Chairs_, R. _and_
L. _Rocking-chair_, C. _Chair directly in front of the table._

_Enter_, L., JUNO; _costume, calico dress, handkerchief about her head
in shape of a turban, broom in her hand._

_Juno._ Bress my soul! Nebber see, in de whole co'se ob my life, sich
a galloping set as dem are city gals--nebber! For all de worl', jes
like a flock ob sheep. Shoo! away dey go, from de cellar to de top
ob de house--pell-mell inter de barn. Skipterty shoo, ober de fields;
skersplash into