world their oyster.
* * * * *
"OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.
"BOOT RACE TO BE ROWED THIS YEAR AT HENLEY REGATTA."--_Daily
Paper_.
A very suitable _venue_ for the contest, which, we presume, will be
conducted in pairs.
* * * * *
"---- CATTLE MARKET.
"Messrs. ---- beg to announce that they will hold their usual
Sale of Fat and Store Stock at above.
"Present Entries include:
"80 Pairs Men's, Women's and Children's New Boots, assorted
sizes."--_Provincial Paper_.
These, of course, will be entered with the calves.
* * * * *
TO A MARCH BROWN, SWALLOWED ALIVE.
Rash insect with your jaunty air
The troubled stream serenely riding,
How guessed you not that Death was there
Nor feared the hungry trout in hiding?
Did instinct, friend of helpless things,
Not bid you rise and use your wings?
Alas, the widening ripple showed
Around the spot which lately bore you,
And down you went the deadly road
Where many a fly has gone before you,
One victim more to swell the pride
Of golden tum and spotted side.
Yet know (if any ghost of you
Or delicate spirit's left to know it)
That I've a fly which never flew
(Your likeness) and the skill to throw it;
And I that saw the fatal rise
Marked where a fat half-pounder lies.
Thither will I with reel and rod
And cure his taste for dainty dishes
By favour of whatever god
Decides the destiny of fishes;
And that were vengeance passing sweet--
Your captor on your counterfeit!
* * * * *
DAISY.
He was always called Daisy. We hated the name, but the christening
"just happened" with the suddenness of influenza or an earthquake.
Percy was the culprit, for he knocked all our pre-arranged plans for
a name on the head by his passion for what he calls "apt quotation."
When he (Daisy) emerged from his basket we saw that, like NELSON,
he was blind of an eye. Percy, immediately inspired, quoted from
WORDSWORTH'S _Ode to the Daisy_, "A little Cyclops with one eye"--and
the result was inevitable. Daisy resented the name from the first, for
at the very font, so to speak, he drew blood from us both, and then,
utterly indifferent to our feelings, settled himself on the top of an
empty beer barrel and there performed his evening ablutions.
It was a curious
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