t, and rushed in. The joke was
'contaminated' round among them, and they enjoyed it. He had disgusted
them all.

'Golly! what a big head!' cried a bystander.

The legislator took another look at the glass. They held it about a yard
from him.

'It's gittin' smaller, ain't it?' he groaned.

'Yes, it's wiltin',' said the landlady. 'Now go to bed.'

He went, and on rising departed. Whether he ever became an honest man is
not known, but the legend says he has from that day avoided 'bust-head
whiskey.'

* * * * *

Don't you _see_ it, reader? The landlady had shown him his face in a
convex mirror--one of those old-fashioned things, which may occasionally
be found in country taverns.

* * * * *

WAR-WAIFS.

The chronicles of war in all ages show us that this internecine strife
into which we of the North have been driven by those who will eventually
rue the necessity, is by no manner of means the first in which brother
has literally been pitted against brother in the deadly 'tug of war.'
The fiercest conflict of the kind, however, which we can at present call
up from the memory of past readings, was one in which THEODEBERT, king
of Austria, took the field against his own brother, THIERRI, king of
Burgundy. Historians tell us that, so close was the hand-to-hand
fighting in this battle, slain soldiers did not fall until the _melee_
was over, but were borne to and fro in an upright position amid the
serried ranks.

* * * * *

Although many and many of England's greatest battles have been won for
her by her Irish soldiers, it is not always that the latter can be
depended upon by her. With the Celt, above all men, 'blood is thicker
than water;' and, although he is very handy at breaking the head of
another Celt with a blackthorn 'alpeen,' in a free faction fight, he
objects to making assaults upon his fellow countrymen with the 'pomp and
circumstance of war.' A striking instance of this occurred during the
Irish rebellion of 1798. The 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons refused to
charge upon a body of the rebels when the word was given. Not a man or
horse stirred from the ranks. Here was a difficult card to play, now,
for the authorities, because it would have been inconvenient to try the
whole regiment by court martial, and the soldiers were quite too
valuable to be mowed down _en masse_. The only course left was to
disband the