bit of swearing,
I can't but be slightly profane
To hear these New Yorkers declaring
Their names have been taken in vain.

* * * * *

The most appropriate kind of dish on which to serve up Horseflesh

A Charger.

* * * * *

[Illustration: SEVERE ON BYRON BUBBS.

_Bubbs_. "DOES YOUR SISTER NETTIE EVER TALK ABOUT ME?"

_Little Rose_. "OH, YES! I HEARD HER TELL MA, YESTERDAY, YOU HAD SUCH A
BEAUTIFUL NECK, SO LONG THAT IT WOULD DO TO TIE IN A DOUBLE BOW-KNOT!"]

* * * * *

BY GEORGE!

(_Concluded_.)

LAKE GEORGE, N. Y., Sept. 12.

DEAR PUNCHINELLO: "SLUKER," continued the long-haired man in an
absent-minded manner, "was a _corker_! there is no mistake about that.

Like the Ghost at BOOTH'S, he was a terror to the peaceful Hamlet. He
was always getting up shindys without the slightest provocation, and was
evidently possessed of the unpleasant ambition, as well as ability, to
whale the entire township in detachments of one.

Things got to be so bad after a while that the bark was rubbed off every
tree in town on account of the people incontinently shinning up them
whenever SLUKER came in sight.

It was no unusual thing to see business entirely suspended for hours,
while SLUKER marched up and down the main street, whistling, with his
hands in his pockets, and every soul in the place, from the minister
down, roosting as high as they could get, six on a branch, sometimes.

Matters went on in this way until one day a little incident occurred
that somewhat discouraged this gentle youth. He had just returned from a
discussion with a butcher, (from the effects of which the latter now
sleeps in the valley,) when a party of his fellow-townsmen entered the
store in which he was loafing, and ordered a coil of half-inch rope from
New York by the morning's train.

It was the Overland route that SLUKER took for California, and when his
aged mother heard that three eyes had been gouged out in one day in the
Golden City, she wept tears of joy. Her fond heart told her that the
perilous journey was over, and her darling boy was safe.

After ten years of a brilliant career he bethought him again of the
place of his birth. His heart yearned for the gentle delights,--the
heavy laden trees--of his boyhood's home. He said he must go.

His friends said he must go, too. In fact they had already appointed a
select and