hill--
Something his mind foreboded--
When from the cloudless sky there fell
A deviled human kidney! Well,
The man's mill had exploded.
His hat he lifted from his head;
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said;
"I didn't know 'twas loaded."

Swatkin

USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and
Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent
reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to
produce books that will live as long as the fashion.

UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own
wife.

V

VALOR, n. A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's
hope.

"Why have you halted?" roared the commander of a division and
Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; "move forward, sir, at once."

"General," said the commander of the delinquent brigade, "I am
persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring
them into collision with the enemy."

VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.

They say that hens do cackle loudest when
There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid;
And there are hens, professing to have made
A study of mankind, who say that men
Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen
Make the most clamorous fanfaronade
O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid
They're not entirely different from the hen.
Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,
His blazing breeches and high-towering cap--
Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,
Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!
Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue
Is that in battle he will never hurt you?

Hannibal Hunsiker

VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.

VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as
suffer from an impediment in their wit.

VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a
fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

W

W (double U) has, of all the letters in our alphabet, the only
cumbrous name, the names of the others being monosyllabic. This
advantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian is the more valued
after audibly spelling out some simple Greek word, like
_epixoriambikos_. Still, it is now thought by the learned that other
agencies than the difference of the two alphabets may have been
concerned in the decline of "the glory that was Greece"