a salt-water
shower."

AN EXPLANATION

I know why the elephant by a thick skin
And a tough one is ever begirt:
It is so when he's struck by the trainer's crowbar,
He can laugh in his trunk all unhurt.

THE WHALE'S SPOUT.

"Mr. Tompkins," said Willie Smith to his teacher the other day, "when
the whale spouts does he do it to bale himself out?"

I'm very fond of buckwheat cakes,
I'm very fond of pumpkin-pie,
I love the cookies mommy makes,
I love upon the grass to lie.

I dote upon a lot of things,
Like toys and apples, curtain-rings,
But like must boys
I think that noise
Is just the best thing known to man,
And that is why an old tin pan,
And battered spoon,
This afternoon,
Have kept me busy as a bee;
Bang! bang! Boom! boom! Hurrah for me,
I don't need toys
When I have noise.

A STAMP-ALBUM GEOGRAPHER.

Nobody can deny that postage-stamp collecting is a great help in
teaching boys geography. Jack showed this at school when his teacher
asked him where Nicaragua was, and what it produced chiefly.

"It's on page ninety-eight," said Jack, "and it produces more sets o'
stamps than any other country of its size in the world."

A PUZZLER.

"What I can't understand about the sun's light," said Wallie, when he
first heard how many millions of miles away from the earth the sun is,
"is how it manages to get here so early in the morning without
travelling all night."

A GREAT FEAT.

"Mamma," sobbed Bessie, "make Willie stop smellin' my roses. He's took
all the perfloomery out of one of 'em already."

A REPLY.

Jimmieboy's small brothers had both got out of bed on the wrong side, as
the saying goes, and their differences had been frequent.

"What are those babies fighting about?" finally asked Jimmieboy's mamma.

"About all the time," said Jimmieboy.

A BETTER ONE.

"MY daddy's got a little watch on his bicycle that shows how far he
goes. Every time he goes a mile this thing marks a mile," said Tommie.

"My pa has a better one than that," retorted Bobbie. "Every time he goes
a mile his registers two miles."

A BAD RULE.

"What has become of your club, Harry?"

"Oh, it's broken up," said Harry. "We made a rule that no boy could be
President twice, and after we'd been President once we couldn't go on
with it."