irst-rate churchyard circus--everything necessary but the corpse.
That had been disposed of by the monkey, and the undertaker meanly
withheld the use of his own.

MORAL.--A lamb foaled in March makes the best pork when his horns have
attained the length of an inch.

CXV.

"Pray walk into my parlour," said the spider to the fly.
"That is not quite original," the latter made reply.
"If that's the way you plagiarize, your fame will be a fib--
But I'll walk into your parlour, while I pitch into your crib.
But before I cross your threshold, sir, if I may make so free,
Pray let me introduce to you my friend, 'the wicked flea.'"
"How do you?" says the spider, as his welcome he extends;
"'How doth the busy little bee,' and all our other friends?"
"Quite well, I think, and quite unchanged," the flea said; "though I learn,
In certain quarters well informed, 'tis feared 'the worm will turn.'"
"Humph!" said the fly; "I do not understand this talk--not I!"
"It is 'classical allusion,'" said the spider to the fly.

CXVI.

A polar bear navigating the mid-sea upon the mortal part of a late
lamented walrus, soliloquized, in substance, as follows:

"Such liberty of action as I am afflicted with is enough to embarrass
any bear that ever bore. I can remain passive, and starve; or I can
devour my ship, and drown. I am really unable to decide."

So he sat down to think it over. He considered the question in all its
aspects, until he grew quite thin; turned it over and over in his mind
until he was too weak to sit up; meditated upon it with a constantly
decreasing pulse, a rapidly failing respiration. But he could not make
up his mind, and finally expired without having come to a decision.

It appears to me he might almost as well have chosen starvation, at a
venture.

CXVII.

A sword-fish having penetrated seven or eight feet into the bottom of
a ship, under the impression that he was quarrelling with a whale, was
unable to draw out of the fight. The sailors annoyed him a good deal,
by pounding with handspikes upon that portion of his horn inside; but
he bore it as bravely as he could, putting the best possible face
upon the matter, until he saw a shark swimming by, of whom he inquired
the probable destination of the ship.

"Italy, I think," said the other, grinning. "I have private reasons
for believing her cargo consists mainly of consumptives."

"Ah!" exclaimed the captive; "Italy, delightful clime