hinn--
Jest drap that whisky-skin."

No man high-toneder could be found
Than old Jedge Phinn the country round.
Says he, "Young man, the tribe of Phinns
Knows their own whisky-skins!"

He went for his 'leven-inch bowie-knife:--
"I tries to foller a Christian life;
But I'll drap a slice of liver or two,
My bloomin' shrub, with you."

They carved in a way that all admired,
Tell Blood drawed iron at last, and fired.
It took Seth Bludso 'twixt the eyes,
Which caused him great surprise.

Then coats went off, and all went in;
Shots and bad language swelled the din;
The short, sharp bark of Derringers,
Like bull-pups, cheered the furse.

They piled the stiffs outside the door;
They made, I reckon, a cord or more.
Girls went that winter, as a rule,
Alone to spellin'-school.

I've sarched in vain, from Dan to Beer-
Sheba, to make this mystery clear;
But I end with hit as I did begin,--
WHO GOT THE WHISKY-SKIN?

THE GUSHER

BY CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS

Of course an afternoon tea is not to be taken seriously, and I hold that
any kind of conversation goes, as long as it is properly vacuous and
irrelevant.

One meets many kinds of afternoon teas--the bored, the bashful, the
intense, and once in a while the interesting, but for pure delight there
is nothing quite equals the gusher. She is generally very pretty. Nature
insists upon compensations.

When you meet a real gusher--one born to gush--you can just throw all
bounds of probability aside and say the first thing that comes into your
head, sure that it will meet with an appreciative burst of enthusiasm,
for your true gusher is nothing if she is not enthusiastic. There are
those who listen to everything you say and punctuate it with "Yes-s-s,
yes-s-s, yes-s-s," until the sibilance gets on your nerves; but the
attention of the Simon-pure gusher is purely subconscious. She could not
repeat a thing of what you have told her a half minute after hearing it.
Her real attention is on something else all the while--perhaps on the
gowns of her neighbors, perhaps on the reflection of her pretty
face--but never on the conversation. And why should it be? Is a tea a
place for the exercise of concentration? Perish the thought.

You are presented to her as "Mr. Mmmm," and she is "delighted," and
smiles so ravishingly that you wish you were twenty years younger. You
do not yet know that she is a gusher. Bu