.

By the bye, I don't know a better application, in the present weather,
than claret punch. Apply yourself continually to that cooling beverage,
and apply it continually to your lips, and the result is a sort of
reciprocity treat, whose results are much more certain than those of the
reciprocity treaty, of which Congress has latterly had so much to say.

To contemplate _La Giselle_ in all its bearings is a pleasure which is
peculiarly appropriate to the season. KATHI LANNER and her companions
may not be really cool, but they look as though they were. They remind
one of the East Indian country houses that are built on posts, so as to
allow a free circulation of air beneath the foundation. Anyhow, they
look as if they took things coolly.

(A joke might be made on the words coolly and Coolie. The reader may mix
to his own taste. It's too hot for any one to make jokes for other
people.)

But _La Giselle_? Yes! yes! I am just ready to speak of it. _La Giselle_
is a grand ballet in which an elaborate plot is developed by the toes of
some fifty young ladies. There is a young woman in it who loves a man,
and there is another woman who also loves him, and another man who loves
the first woman, and meddles and mars as though he were a professional
philanthropist.

The woman--the first woman, I mean--goes crazy down to the extremity of
her feet, and dies, and then there are more women,--no; these last are
disembodied spirits, with nothing but light skirts on,--who dance in
graveyards, and make young men dance with them till they fall down
exhausted, calling in vain for BROWN to take them home in carriages, and
pay for their torn gloves. The first young woman, and a young man--not
the other young man, you understand--does a good deal of--Well, in
fact, things are rather mixed before the ballet comes to an end, but I
know that it's a good thing, for FISK sits in his private box and
applauds it, which he wouldn't do if he didn't.

And now, having placed _La Giselle_ plainly before your mental vision, I
desire to rise to a personal explanation. For the ensuing four weeks,
the places, in PUNCHINELLO, which have heretofore known me, will
know me no more. I am going to a quiet country place on Long Island to
write war correspondence for the--well, I won't mention the name of the
paper. You see the editor of the _Na----_ of the paper in question, I
should say,--wants to have an independent and unprejudiced account of
the great str