t true that most of the prominent men of
England--"TOM BROWN" HUGHES, for instance--are proficient pugilists?

_Answer_.--We have never seen "TOM BROWN" spar, but we have often seen
JOHN STUART Mill.

_Abby Gansevoort_.--No, my dear, your name does not occur in any of
SHAKESPEARE'S plays.

_Figdrum_.--Born to the drudgery of commerce, I aspire to literature:
what am I to do to see my name in print?

_Answer_.--Put it in the City Directory.

_Voice-in-the-Fog_.--Why is it that all the queer isms of the day, such
as socialism, are more cultivated by Red Republicans than by any other
political sect?

_Answer_.--Red, as artists well know, is the complementary or opposite
color to green. The social phenomenon to which you refer, then, may be
accounted for on the principle that extremes meet.

_Clericus_.--Is it proper for me, as a clergyman, to wear moustaches?

_Answer_.--Quite so, unless they are red, in which case they might
interfere with your published sermons.

_Astrolabe_.--What is the exact distance between the Dog Star and
Roxbury, Mass.?

_Answer_.--We do not know. PUNCHINELLO is not a Sirius journal.

_Juniper Byles_.--My rent has just been raised, and I have had a
curtain-lecture from my wife for swearing about it. Would not you swear
if your rent was raised?

_Answer_.--Certainly not--at least not if it was raised by benevolent
subscription.

* * * * *

AN ACQUAINTANCE.

_Tom_.--"I say, JACK, what a beautiful complexion Miss SMITH has. Do you
know her?"

_Jack_.--"No, but I know a girl who buys her complexion at the same
store at which Miss SMITH buys hers."

* * * * *

"CUM GRANO SALIS."--Musk-melon.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A HORSE-CAR CONTINGENCY.

Gallant Tar (To horrified lady of uncertain age), "BELAY THERE, OLD
WOMAN! TAKE THIS SEAT."]

* * * * *

OUR PORTFOLIO.

PARIS, FOURTH WEEK OF THE REPUBLIC, 1870.

Dear Punchinello: You may not have heard that BISMARCK has been here,
had an interview with FAVRE, and is off again. I didn't suppose you
would know it, so I hasten to give you and your army of readers a brief
synopsis of what took place, as nearly as I can in the exact language
used by the distinguished diplomats upon the occasion.

The scene of the consultation was one of the Imperial wine-cellars under
that pavilion of the Tuileries palace wh