ead the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth; he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.

WHEN LOVELY WOMAN

BY PHOEBE CARY

When lovely woman wants a favor,
And finds, too late, that man won't bend,
What earthly circumstance can save her
From disappointment in the end?

The only way to bring him over,
The last experiment to try,
Whether a husband or a lover,
If he have feeling is--to cry.

UNSATISFIED YEARNING

BY R. K. MUNKITTRICK

Down in the silent hallway
Scampers the dog about,
And whines, and barks, and scratches,
In order to get out.

Once in the glittering starlight,
He straightway doth begin
To set up a doleful howling
In order to get in.

THE INVISIBLE PRINCE[2]

BY HENRY HARLAND

At a masked ball given by the Countess Wohenhoffen, in Vienna, during
carnival week, a year ago, a man draped in the embroidered silks of a
Chinese mandarin, his features entirely concealed by an enormous Chinese
head in cardboard, was standing in the Wintergarten, the big,
dimly-lighted conservatory, near the door of one of the gilt-and-white
reception-rooms, rather a stolid-seeming witness of the multi-coloured
romp within, when a voice behind him said, "How do you do, Mr.
Field?"--a woman's voice, an English voice.

The mandarin turned round.

From a black mask, a pair of blue-gray eyes looked into his broad, bland
Chinese face; and a black domino dropped him an extravagant little
curtsey.

"How do you do?" he responded. "I'm afraid I'm not Mr. Field; but I'll
gladly pretend I am, if you'll stop and talk with me. I was dying for a
little human conversation."

"Oh you're afraid you're not Mr. Field, are you?" the mask replied
derisively. "Then why did you turn when I called his name?"

"You mustn't hope to disconcert me with questions like that," said he.
"I turned because I liked your voice."

He might quite reasonably have liked her voice, a delicate, clear, soft
voice, somewhat high in register, with an accent, crisp, chiselled,
concise, that suggested wit as well as distinction. She was rather
tall, for a woman