re arguing noisily, and
disturbing less excitable conversationalists. At length the Jacobite, a
brawny Scot, brought his fist down heavily upon the table, and roared
at his adversary, "I tell you what it is, sir, I spit upon your King
William!" The friend of the Prince of Orange rose, and roared back to
the Jacobite, "And I, sir, spit upon your James the Second!" Jerrold,
who had been listening to the uproar in silence, hereupon rang the bell,
and shouted "Waiter, spittoons for two!"

At an evening party, Jerrold was looking at the dancers, when, seeing a
very tall gentleman waltzing with a remarkably short lady, he said to a
friend at hand, "Humph! there's the mile dancing with the milestone!"

An old lady was in the habit of talking to Jerrold in a gloomy, depressing
manner, presenting to him only the sad side of life. "Hang it," said
Jerrold, one day, after a long and sombre interview, "she would not
allow that there was a bright side to the moon."

Jerrold said to an ardent young gentleman, who burned with desire to
see himself in print: "Be advised by me, young man: don't take down the
shutters before there is something in the windows."

While Jerrold was discussing one day, with Mr. Selby, the vexed question
of adapting dramatic pieces from the French, that gentleman insisted
upon claiming some of his characters as strictly original creations. "Do
you remember my Baroness in _Ask No Questions_?" said Mr. Selby. "Yes,
indeed; I don't think I ever saw a piece of yours without being struck
by your _barrenness_," was the retort.--_Mark Lemon's Jest-book._

* * * * *

CONCEITED ALARMS OF DENNIS.

John Dennis, the dramatist, had a most extravagant and enthusiastic
opinion of his tragedy of _Liberty Asserted_. He imagined that there
were in it some strokes on the French nation so severe, that they would
never be forgiven; and that, in consequence, Louis XIV. would never make
peace with England unless the author was given up as a sacrifice to the
national resentment. Accordingly, when the congress for the negotiation
of the Peace of Utrecht was in contemplation, the terrified Dennis waited
on the Duke of Marlborough, who had formerly been his patron, to entreat
the intercession of his Grace with the plenipotentiaries, that they
should not consent to his surrender to France being made one of the
conditions of the treaty. The Duke gravely told the dramatist that he
was sorry to be una