hemselves by indulging in exemplary relaxation,
indicatory of implacable detestation of integral tergiversation and
exoteric intrigue. They fraternized with a phrenological harlequin who
was a connoisseur in mezzotint and falconry. The piquant person was
heaping contumely and scathing raillery on an amateur in jugular
recitative, who held that the Pharaohs of Asia were conversant with
his theory that morphine and quinine were exorcists of bronchitis.

4. Meanwhile, the leisurely Augustine of Cockburn drank from a
tortoise-shell wassail cup to the health of an apotheosized recusant,
who was his supererogatory patron, and an assistant recognizance
in the immobile nomenclature of interstitial molecular phonics. The
contents of the vase proving soporific, a stolid plebeian took from
its cerements a heraldic violoncello, and, assisted by a plethoric
diocesan from Pall Mall, who performed on a sonorous piano-forte,
proceeded to wake the clangorous echoes of the Empyrean. They bade
the prolyx Caucasian gentlemen not to misconstrue their inexorable
demands, while they dined on acclimated anchovies and apricot
truffles, and had for dessert a wiseacre's pharmacopoeia. Thus the
truculent Pythagoreans had a novel repast fit for the gods.

5. On the subsidence of the feast they alternated between soft
languors and isolated scenes of squalor, which followed a mechanist's
reconnaissance of the imagery of Uranus, the legend of whose incognito
related to a poniard wound in the abdomen received while cutting
a swath in the interests of telegraphy and posthumous photography.
Meantime an unctuous orthoepist applied a homeopathic restorative
to the retina of an objurgatory spaniel (named Daniel) and tried to
perfect the construction of a behemoth which had got mired in pygmean
slough, while listening to the elegiac soughing of the prehistoric
wind.

SELECT READING.

1. Geoffrey, surnamed Winthrop, sat in the depot at Chicago, waiting
for his train and reading the Tribune, when a squadron of street Arabs
(incomparable for squalor) thronged from a neighboring alley,
uttering hideous cries, accompanied by inimitable gestures of heinous
exultation, as they tortured a humble black-and-tan dog.

2. "You little blackguards!" cried Winthrop, stepping outside and
confronting them, adding the inquiry, "Whose dog is that?"

3. "That audacious Caucasian has the bravado to interfere with
our clique," tauntingly shrieked the indisputable little