anybody that wants to trade a good double-barrel shotgun
for a small portable worm and retort that is too small for my business,
I can give him a good trade on it if he will let you know. This is a
good machine for experimental purposes, and being no larger than a
Babcock fire-extinguisher it can be readily conveyed to a place of
safety at a very rapid rate.

You might say to your friends that we shall try in the future as we have
in the past to keep up the standard of our goods, so as to merit a
continued patronage.

Citizens of the United States, or those who have declared their
intention to become such, will always be welcome at our works, provided
they are not office-holders in any capacity. We have no use for those
who are in any way connected with the public teat.

Dictated letter.

I. B. MOONSHINE.

I hope that any one will feel perfectly free to address me in relation
to anything referred to in the above letter. All communications
containing remittances will be regarded as strictly confidential.

[Illustration]

His Crazy-Bone

The man that struck his crazy-bone,
All suddenly jerked up one foot
And hopped three vivid hops, and put
His elbow straight before him--then
Flashed white as pallid Parian stone,
And clinched his eyes, and hopped again.

He spake no word--he made no moan--
He muttered no invective--but
Just gripped his eyelids tighter shut,
And as the world whizzed past him then,
He only knew his crazy-bone
Was stricken--so--he hopped again.

Prying Open the Future

[Illustration]

"Ring the bell and the door will open," is the remark made by a small
label over a bell-handle in Third avenue, near Eighteenth street, where
Mme. La Foy reads the past, present and future at so much per read.
Love, marriage, divorce, illness, speculation and sickness are there
handled with the utmost impunity by "Mme. La Foy, the famous scientific
astrologist," who has monkeyed with the planets for twenty years, and if
she wanted any information has "read it in the stars."

I rang the bell the other day to see if the door would open. It did so
after considerable delay, and a pimply boy in knee pants showed me
upstairs into the waiting-room. After a while I was removed to the
consultation-room, where Mme. La Foy, seated behind a small oil-cloth
covered table, rakes up old personalities and pries into t