Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-

To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—

Bells, bells, bells,

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

-Edgar A. Poe.

HUMOROUS AND SATIRICAL.

CLXXV.-DOUBLE MEANING.

THE English language abounds in words and phrases which may be understood in more than one way. This ambiguity occasions frequent mistakes, and suggests many catches and puzzles which afford a great deal of amusement. A familiar example is the word got, which is commonly used to mean was, as well as procured. For instance, one boy says to another, "Fred got shot this morning." "Where?" eagerly asks Fred's alarmed friend. "He bought it at Smith's hardware store," replies the joker.

A man told a merchant who hesitated to trust his companion for a purchase, "If he refuses to pay for it I will." His companion afterward refusing to pay the merchant, the speaker also refused as, in one sense, he had said he would. A sheriff once asked the wife of a Quaker, for whom he had a writ, if her husband was at home. She replied, "He is, and he will see thee in a moment." The sheriff waited some time, but the Quaker failed to make his appearance. He had been content with seeing the sheriff, and took good care that that officer should not see him.

The punctuation of a sentence and the arrangement of the words composing it often give it a meaning entirely different from that intended. Two examples will sufficiently illustrate this. A minister, introducing an anecdote into his sermon, said, "Many years I rode over the broad western

prairies with my dear wife, who has long since gone to Heaven in a buggy." A soldier writing a letter to his sweetheart, closed with the words, "May God bless you and keep you from your sincere lover Henry Brown."

Newspapers often contain sentences, among both advertisements and reading matter, the construction of which affords ludicrous examples of carelessness or ignorance. Among the advertisements we may sometimes read that a respectable widow wants washing. The proprietor of a bone-mill once advertised that parties sending him their own bones would have them promptly and thoroughly ground. One paper states that a child was run over by a runaway horse wearing a short red dress which never spoke afterward. Another one, giving the account of a shipwreck, says, "There were no passengers on board except William Nathan, who owned half the cargo and the Captain's wife."

A man traveling upon a railway train said to another sitting beside him, "I have six children and have never seen one of them." "Why, sir," said the other with some surprise, were you ever blind?" "No, sir." "Then how does it happen that you have never seen one of your children?" "The one I never saw was born since I left home," was the reply. A common puzzle is this: There was a blind beggar who had a brother; the brother died, but the man who died had no brother; what relation was the beggar to the man who died? We are apt to think that the blind beggar was a man, but when we remember that it might have been a woman the answer becomes quite plain.

We are told of two men who met at an inn, and greeted each other affectionately. The inn-keeper inquiring of one how he was related to the other, he replied,

Brothers and sisters have I none,

Yet this man's father was my father's son."

This is a plain statement, yet there are few whose minds

are sufficiently clear to see at once that this jingle of words is only a round-about way of saying that "this

man was the speaker's son.

CLXXVI.-EARLY RISING.

God bless the man who first invented sleep!"
So Sancho Panza said, and so say I;
And bless him also, that he didn't keep
His great discovery to himself, nor try
To make it, as the lucky fellow might,
A close monopoly by patent-right!

Yes, bless the man who first invented sleep
(I really can't avoid the iteration),

But blast the man with curses loud and deep,
Whate'er the rascal's name or age or station,
Who first invented, and went round advising,
That artificial cut-off, early rising.

"Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed,"
Observes some solemn, sentimental owl;

Maxims like these are very cheaply said;
But, ere you make yourself a fool or fowl,
Pray just inquire about his rise and fall,
And whether larks have any beds at all!

The time for honest folks to be abed
Is in the morning, if I reason right;
And he who can not keep his precious head
Upon his pillow till it's fairly light,
And so enjoy his forty morning winks,
Is up to knavery, or else—he drinks!

Thomson, who sung about the "Seasons," said
It was a glorious thing to rise in season;
But he said it lying in his bed

At ten o'clock A. M., the very reason

He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is,
His preaching was n't sanctioned by his practice.

'Tis doubtless well to be sometimes awake,

Awake to duty, and awake to truth,

But when, alas! a nice review we take

Of our best deeds and days, we find, in sooth,
The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep
Are those we passed in childhood, or asleep!
'Tis beautiful to leave the world awhile

For the soft visions of the gentle night;
And free, at last, from mortal care or guile,
To live as only in the angels' sight,
In sleep's sweet realm so cosily shut in,
Where, at the worst, we only dream of sin!
So let us sleep, and give the Maker praise.
I like the lad who, when his father thought
To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase

Of vagrant worm by early songster caught,
Cried, "Served him right! it's not at all surprising;
The worm was punished, sir, for early rising!"
-John G. Saxe.

CLXXVII.-GOSSIP.

POETS of old have sung of tea and scandal;
They go together, and they indicate
Refinement. It is true, no Goth nor Vandal
Was ever known to gossip; and of late

I have been thinking this place a nonsuch
For this same thing; it really "beats the Dutch."

"I didn't tell you, did I, what I heard

About a certain lady-you know who?
I would n't have it known I said a word.
It is a secret, but I'll just tell you.
I wouldn't have you mention it at all—
Not for the world-but pride must have a fall.
"I had it too from good authority.

Well-Madam X told me she really saw
That certain lady-you know-Mrs. Z-
She saw her just as tipsy as a squaw;