read all the rigmarole
they paint on the outside. Finally, consider an omnibus as a carriage, a
bed, a public-house, a place of amusement, or a boxing-ring, where you may
ride, sleep, smoke, chaff, or quarrel, as it may suit you.

* * * * *

PETER THE GREAT (FOOL?)

The following colloquy occurred between a candidate for suicidal fame and
the City's Peter Laureate:--

"So, sir, you tried to hang yourself, did you?"

"In course I did, or I should not have put my head in the noose."

"You had no business to do so."

"I did it for my pleasure, not for business."

"I'll let you see, sir, you shan't do it either for fun or earnest."

"Are you a Tory, Sir Peter?"

"A Tory, sir! No, sir; I'm a magistrate."

"Ah, that's why you interfere; you must be a low Rad, or you wouldn't
prevent a man from

[Illustration: DOING WHAT HE LIKES WITH HIS HONE."]

* * * * *

THE WISE MAN OF THE EAST.

SIR PETER LAURIE begs Punch to inform him, which of Arabia's Children is
alluded to in Moore's beautiful ballad,

"Farewell to thee, Araby's daughter."

He presumes it is Miss Elizabeth, commonly called _Bess-Arabia_.

* * * * *

SONGS OF THE SEEDY.--No. VII.

I love the night with its mantle dark,
That hangs like a cloak on the face of the sky;
Oh what to me is the song of the lark?
Give me the owl; and I'll tell you why.
It is that at night I can walk abroad,
Which I may not do in the garish day,
Without being met in the streets, and bored
By some cursed dun, that I cannot pay.
No! no! night let it ever be:
The owl! the owl! the owl! is the bird for me!

Then tempt me not with thy soft guitar,
And thy voice like the sound of a silver bell,
To take a stroll, where the cold ones are
Who in lanes, not of trees but of fetters[1], dwell.
But wait until night upsets its ink
On the earth, on the sea, and all over the sky,
And then I'll go to the wide world's brink
With the girl I love, without feeling shy.
Oh, then, may it night for ever be!
The owl! the owl! the owl! is the bird for me!

But you turn aside! Ah! did you know,
What by searching the office you'd plainly see,
That I'm hunted down, like a (Richard) Roe,
You'd not thus avert your eyes from me.
Oh never did giant look