Mr. Lamb's Perplexity

of Great Smith Street, so that some of the windows look into one street, and the back windows into another round the corner.

Dilke had some old people to dinner-I know not who, but there were two old ladies among them. Brown was there they had known him from a child.

Brown is very pleasant with old women, and on that day it seems behaved himself so winningly that they became hand and glove together, and a little complimentary.

Brown was obliged to depart early. good-bye and passed into the passage. his back turned than the old women him.

He bid them No sooner was began lauding

When Brown had reached the street door, and was just going, Dilke threw up the window and call'd: "Brown! Brown! They say you look younger than ever you did." Brown went on, and had just turned the corner into the other street when Dilke appeared at the back window, crying: "Brown! Brown! By God, they say you're handsome!” You see what a many words it requires to give any identity to a thing I could have told you in half a minute.

You have made an uncle of me, you have, and I don't know what to make of myself. I suppose next there'll be a nevey. You say in May last, write directly. I have not received your letter above ten days. The thought of your little girl puts me in mind of a thing I heard Mr. Lamb say. A child in arms was passing by his chair toward its mother, in the nurse's arms. Lamb took hold of the long clothes, saying: "Where, God bless me, where does it leave off?"

If you would prefer a joke or two to anything else, I have two for you, fresh hatched, just ris, as the bakers'

Adonais jokes

wives say of the rolls. The first I played off on Brown; the second I played on myself. Brown, when he left me, "Keats," says he, "my good fellow" (staggering upon his left heel and fetching an irregular pirouette with his right); "Keats," says he (depressing his left eyebrow and elevating his right one), though by the way at the moment I did not know which was the right one; "Keats," says he (still in the same posture, but furthermore both his hands in his waistcoat pockets and jutting out his stomach), "Keats, — my — go-o-ood fell-0-0-00h," says he (interlarding his exclamation with certain ventriloquial parentheses), no, this is all a lie he was as sober as a judge, when a judge happens to be sober, and said: "Keats, if any letters come for me, do not forward them, but open them and give me the marrow of them in a few words." At the time I wrote my first to him no letter had arrived. I thought I would invent one, and as I had not time to manufacture a long one, I dabbed off a short one, and that was the reason of the joke succeeding beyond my expectations. Brown let his house to a Mr. Benjamin a Jew. Now, the water which furnishes the house is in a tank, sided with a composition of lime, and the lime impregnates the water unpleasantly.

Taking advantage of this circumstance, I pretended that Mr. Benjamin had written the following short note:

"SIR,- By drinking your damn'd tank water I have got the gravel.

"What reparation can you make to me and my family? "NATHAN BENJAMIN "

By a fortunate hit, I hit upon his right-heathen name his right prenomen. Brown in consequence, it appears, wrote to the surprised Mr. Benjamin the following:

The New Grandfather

"SIR, I cannot offer you any remuneration until your gravel shall have formed itself into a stone- when I will cut you with pleasure. C. BROWN"

This of Brown's Mr. Benjamin has answered, insisting on an explanation of this singular circumstance. B. says: "When I read your letter and his following, I roared; and in came Mr. Snook, who on reading them seemed likely to burst the hoops of his fat sides." So the joke has told well.

Shirley Brooks congratulates W. P. Frith, R.A., on arriving at the status of a grandfather, and adds counsel

"PUNCH" OFFICE, November 21, 1865

FRITH, EVEN GRANDFATHER FRITH, — With

my whole soul do I congratulate thee and the Grandmama, and the venerable Aunt Sissy, and all the small uncles and infinitesimal aunts, or emmets. But chiefly I congratulate thee, O reverent and reverend, for the opportunity now afforded thee for the mending of thy ways. Henceforth we look for no frivolity from thee, no unseemly gibes and jests to which thou alone addest, "That's good," and echo is silent. Henceforth thou must study to live at peace with all men, as becomes white hairs, and let us hear no more when nounceth his "last exhibition," that thou didst hope it would begin at three minutes to eight a.m.; and be at Newgate. Truly this is a great chance for thee, O man of palettes, and aërial prospectives, and conscientious work, such as the Athenæum loves to indicate with the gesture called "taking a sight."

an

Learn psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, to

"L'art d'être grandpère

be chanted unto thy Grandchild; and endeavour to obtain some knowledge of geography, etymology, tintacks, and prosody, that thou mayest not be put utterly to shame when the child shall demand information of thee.

Leave off smoking, yet keep a box for thy younger friends who are not Grandfathers.

Scoff not at architects, for where wouldst thou be but for houses? Nay, art not thou the founder of a house?

and

Look no longer at the ankles of the other sex, save in the way of thy calling, and speak no soft words unto the maidens, saying, "Lo, I adore thee," when thou dost nothing of the kind. Abjure the society of low Bohemians like virtuous, like Brooks, and, in so far as thou mayest, imitate him. Do not eat too much ham at breakfast, for temperance becometh the aged. Read few novels, but let those thou readest be of the best, as, Broken to Harness, The Silver Cord, An Artist's Proof, and Blount Tempest. Likewise, begin to dress less jauntily, and wear a high waistcoat like the Right Reverend Bellew, and the Right Reverend Brooks's.

but cultivate the honest and

When thou goest to the Academy dinner, avoid, so far as thou canst, the taking too much wine, for what thing is less dignified than a swipey Grandfather?

Cherish these counsels in the apple of thine eye, and in the pineapple of thy rum; and be thankful that at a time of life when other young men may not ungracefully indulge in youthful levity, thou art called to a higher and a graver sphere.

Buy a stick, and practise walking with it, bending thy back, and not perking up elegantly when a comely female passeth by.

Have grave men to thy feasts, notably him who ex

Sarah Ann Dunn

pecteth the interview with Mrs. Cottle, and to suffer as he never suffered before. So I greet thee, Grandfather, and hope that thou wilt have many grandsons and granddaughters, and wilt ask me to the christening of them all.

S. B.

A mother informs the Controller of the London "Guild of Play" of the good it has done to Sarah Ann

DERE

ERE AND HONERABLE MAAM, I make so bold aster arsk if there can be a Guild of Play at every skule this winter, as I gets more work out of our Sarah Ann now she goes to that ther one of yours than ever I did afore. Her head's full of fairies, and sich like truck, but it makes her twice the gal she was, and she was anything but a hangel I kin tell yer, but if yer can turn er inside out like that with an hour a week I wishes as ow all the children could ave it too. - From yours obliging, MRS. DUNN

Thomas Hayley (aged twelve) points out defects in William Cowper's translation of Homer

HONORED KING

EARTHAM, March 4, 1793

OF BARDS, - Since you deign to demand the observations of an humble and unexperienced servant of yours, on a work of one who is so much his superior (as he is ever ready to serve you with all his might) behold what you demand! but let me desire you not to censure me for my unskilful and perhaps (as they will undoubtedly appear to you) ridicu