allow awful fondness? That it leads to | eyes, but I shall never get over that hole awful chumming, I have seen with my in your stocking." She had said enough eyes." and heard enough, and she left the room. "Smoke your cigar," she said as she left, "and then come down to me. I presume you can light it without the assistance of your chum."

444

66

part to-morrow, you will oblige. I am occasioned by amazement.
sorry to say this, but-it is quite impos- powers!
sible for me to have my nephew and you
under the same roof together. I have
the greatest reliance on his discretion;
wish I could say the same of yours. You
shall receive, as is your due, a month's
wage, because you leave to suit my con-
venience. There is an excellent refuge
for domestics and governesses out of
place at Bath, to which I subscribe, and
you can go there till you hear of a situa-
tion."

you married! Who would
have thought it! And so young, and so
pretty! It hardly seems possible. But
I -if you are married it is not so dread-
fully improper that you should know men
have feet under their boots. I do not say
it is right; but it is not so very wrong that

"Thank you, Miss Otterbourne, but I shall not stay in Bath."

"Will you go back to Hanford ?" Josephine shook her head.

--

I am sorryI am sincerely sorry. There is so much good about you, so much that I have liked; but, under the It circumstances, I cannot retain you. would not be right; and in this house from myself down, I believe, to the scullery-maid and the boy who cleans the knives I trust we all try to do that which is right. Mr. Vickary is a burning and a shining light and Mrs. Grundy de the sun. ha dis

that you should have seen a hole in my nephew's stocking, because married women do know that such things occur.

Josephine smiled; she thought Miss Otterbourne was about to retract her discharge, so she said: "Madam, I cannot stay here. I have explained my reasons to Captain Sellwood, who will tell you after I am gone. Now I have made my resolve, I go direct to my husband."

The door of the drawing-room opened and the butler came in. He advanced deferentially towards Miss Otterbourne, and stood awaiting her permission to speak.

"What is it, Vickary? Do you want anything?". "It is Cable, madam.' "Well-what of Cable, Vickary?" "Please, madam, Cable's husband have come to fetch her away."

From The Spectator.

A JEWISH HUMORIST.

H humor is hardly a prominent
the Jews, and many are possibly
opinion, that they have no
f the humorous, there is a
ore drollery in the sayings
those reared in the syna-
siders generally suppose.
r, as it may, the Jewish
have produced in the
Gottlieb Saphir, an Aus-
little known in this
wit and humorist of
people. As ready
brilliant a conver-
r as Sheridan, he
ctive a punster as
1. The right of
to rank among
d in German
ir's pre-emi-
ponderous
on." The
he was

Ghetto

he

עד

odd things he did, that he is chiefly remembered by his countrymen and his sometime co-religionists.

spicuous journalist in Germany, as much | gadfly of true genius that stings to the
hated as admired, and had become the highest form of literary expression; and
founder of that lighter school of journal- it is for the good things he said and the
istic criticism that makes the ephemeral
literature of the fatherland tolerable. He
came to Berlin in 1825, or thereabouts,
and started the Courier, the wit and au- Innumerable are the anecdotes told of
dacity of which took the capital by storm. him. A few culled from the collections
But the Prussian censors did not appre- of "Saphiriana," published in Germany,
ciate a writer who, instead of grumbling are characteristic, and well illustrate the
at them, made them the butt of his irrever-readiness of his wit and the peculiar form
ent jokes, and actually poked fun at them. of humor for which he was noted. Jerr-
Six weeks' imprisonment for an acrostic man, his colleague on the Humorist, often
on Madame Sontag, the singer, and a asked him to dinner; but as Madame Jerr-
month for calling a would-be dramatist man was reputed to be one of the meanest
named Cosmar a 66 creature that writes women in the capital, the humorist gener-
plays, convinced Saphir that his peculiar ally managed to excuse himself. At last,
form of humor was not likely to have fair though, he was trapped into an accept-
play where Count Granow wielded the ance. The dinner consisted, as he antici-
censor's pencil. So he removed to Mu-pated, of more table-cloth than meat, and
nich, where in 1828-29 he published the Saphir, who was a big man with a propor-
Bazaar. He was also converted to Prot- tionate appetite, rose from table as hungry
estantism, and was made Hof-Theatre In- as he had sat down. As he was taking
tendant. But he soon got into trouble his leave, the hostess came up to him, and
again, and this time with a more important playfully tapping him on the shoulder with
personage than a press censor. King Lud- her fan, said, "And now, Herr Saphir,
wig was addicted to writing bad verse and when will you dine with me again?
making bad jokes, and Saphir did not hes-"At once, Madame Jerrman, at once!"
itate to express very freely his opinion as responded the hungry wit in his deepest
to the quality of both. It would not do bass. The old Rothschild, at an evening
to punish the critic for this, but his sins gathering, requested Saphir to write some-
were laid up against him; and when he thing in his autograph-book, but it was to
ventured subsequently to make some re-be something characteristic. In two min-
marks about the notorious Lola Montes,
he received a peremptory order to quit the
Bavarian capital within four-and-twenty
hours. The court chamberlain, commis-
sioned by the king, waited on him, and
asked if he could manage to get away in
so short a time. "Yes," replied the una-
bashed journalist; "and if my own legs
can't take me quickly enough, I'll borrow
some of the superfluous feet in his Majes-
ty's last volume of verse.' He never for-
got this expulsion from Munich. When,
one day, some one congratulated him on
his erect carriage and walk, he remarked
he had had a good master of deportment:
'King Ludwig had taught him to step
out." He went to Vienna in 1835, and
after becoming a Catholic started the
Humorist, the chief organ of its kind in
Germany, with which he was connected
until his death in 1850. Saphir was a
voluminous writer, and his "Dumme
Briefe" and "Album für Witz und Hu-
mor are never-failing sources upon
which his imitators to this day draw. His
works are not much read by the general
public, despite their undoubted brilliancy
and humor, and the extraordinary "word-
play in which they abound. He was
deficient in depth, and lacked the creative

utes the financier received the volume
back with the following entry: "Oblige
me, Dear Baron, with the loan of 10,000
gulden; and Forget, forever after, your
obedient servant, M. G. SAPHIR."
The
man of money saw the point of the joke,
and paid generously for the humorist's
signature. Equally brief was the retort
he made to some one against whom he ac
cidentally knocked when turning the cor
ner of a street in Munich. Beast," cried
the offended person, without waiting for
an apology. "Thank you," said the jour-
nalist, "and mine is Saphir." Cosmar, a
relative of the bookseller, was an amateur
author who thought a good deal more of
himself than the public could be per-
suaded to think. Meeting Saphir in a
mixed company, he made the silly remark
that Saphir "was a Jew who wrote for
money, while he wrote for fame."
"Quite
so," remarked the wit; we each write
for what we lack and need." His friend
Jerrman was always warning him about
getting into debt, for he was extremely
careless in money matters, and explaining
the advantages to be derived from paying
cash for everything. Once he wound up
his usual caution with the remark that
"making debts ruins many a man.” Oh,

66

of disagreeables we encounter and have
to submit to. Don't you, Herr Saphir,
think it excusable in a man to drink some-
times?"
"Oh, yes 99
! replied the wit;
"quite excusable, if he happen to sit next
to you at dinner." A wealthy relative, of
whom he wished to borrow a little money,
reproached him with his incapacity for
business. "Why, you cannot even add!
exclaimed the fewish money-bags, sum-
ming up the writer's delinquencies. "No,"
retorted the other; "but I can subtract,
and if one were to subtract your money
from you, there would be only a nothing
left."

no!" responded Saphir; "it's paying | who should have known better, remarked them that does the mischief." When in that she "felt as though she were stewtroduced for the first time to the prompter ing." "But still quite raw," observed of the Leipziger Stadt-Theatre, a pompous the wit, in a stage aside. Another young personage too much in evidence at times, person once asked him which was the Saphir remarked, "I heard a good deal greatest miracle in the Bible, and then, of you, Herr A- ," the prompter without waiting for an answer, added, bowed his acknowledgments of the ex- "that Elijah did not burn in the fiery pected compliment, while the wit added, chariot that appeared and took him to "in the course of a performance last heaven." "No," said Saphir, "it was evening." Balaam's ass; the ass that made answer Saphir mortally offended the Munich before it was questioned." A great bore, citizens by speaking of them as being seated next to him at dinner, was excus"beer-barrels in the morning, and barrels ing his evident fondness for the bottle. of beer in the evening." One of the most "Good wine," said the personage, "makes charming girls in that capital, a girl who us forget trouble and vexation, and enenjoyed some reputation as an artist, mar-ables us to bear up against the thousands ried a young man of the "long and lanky " type, and very wooden-headed into the bargain. Some friends were discussing the match, and one lady happened to say, "I wonder what Fraulein Wahrmann will do with him." "Oh!" exclaimed Saphir, who was listening, "she is fond of painting, and may find him useful as a mahlstick." He was crossing the market-place with a friend, when a member of the comedy troupe of the Court Theatre stopped and exchanged a few words with him. "Who was that?" said Saphir's companion, when the player had gone. Oh, that is Waldeck, the actor." "He does not look much like an actor off the stage," said the other. "Still less when he's on the stage, ," retorted Saphir. Of another 'poor" player, a low comedian, he once remarked that, "jesting apart, he was not a bad actor." There was some difficulty, owing to the nature of the soil, in digging the foundation for a statue to be erected in honor of an important grand duke, famous for nothing in particular. The humorist and a friend passed the men at work. "What are they doing?" asked the latter. "Oh, they are trying to find ground for raising a monument to the Gross Herzog," was the reply. Driving out in the suburbs of Vienna one day, his coachman, a peppery Mieth-kutscher, got into an altercation with a rival Jehu. Words soon led to oaths, and oaths to blows, and the pair set to in good earnest to decide which was the better man. Popping his head out of the fiacre window, Saphir mildly implored the pair to oblige him, and drub each other as quickly as they could, for he had "engaged the carriage by the hour." But Saphir could be extremely rude, and was not unfrequently as coarse as Swift, of whom, by the way, he was a diligent student, for he was a master of English. At a ball, a young lady, heated with dancing, and one

Saphir was no respecter of persons, and nothing could abash him. King Ludwig of Bavaria, the verse-maker to whom he owed his expulsion from Munich, walked up to him one day, and tapping the felt hat he wore uttered the single word Fils. Now, Fils, which means "felt," is also a most opprobrious epithet, and the king's conduct was grossly insulting. In reply, Saphir merely touched the overcoat he wore, with the remark, Wasser-dichter, -that is to say, "waterproof." But as Dichter also means a poet, the term signified water-poet, a Germanism applied to one who is no poet at all. He could be as rude in an amiable fashion too. A young couple, newly engaged, were favored with a letter of introduction to him, which they duly presented. Now, the gentleman was notorious for his effeminate habits and ways, and his appearance at once struck the eye of the observant journalist, who had heard about him. He said nothing, received the pair with empressement, insisted upon their being seated in his most comfortable easy-chairs,. assured them how pleased he was to hear of their engagement, and wound up with, "Now, pray, you must, you really must, tell me which of you is the bride.' elling in a second-class carriage between

Trav

wwwww

the dust-fiend demon even more diabolical in some of his attributes than his chief. You may know when the terror is coming by various indescribable tokens. Sometimes by an ominous silence; Nature seems to listen with bated breath, and hushed whisper; the distance darkens, a lurid glow gradually overspreads the blue-vaulted sky, closing in rapidly, while blasts of heated air strike against the cheek as if just escaped from a fiery furnace. This is but a preliminary canter; soon the viewless presence falls into swift, full-measured paces, keeping up a continuous current of scorching wind that withers up the freshness of youth, and extinguishes the vitality of the most energetic worker. Be sure the attendant demon is not far off! Erelong a vast driving volume of dark clouds, densely opaque, draws nearer; there is a rush, a giddy whirl, a noise as of wings in the air, and then it leaps down upon you like an avalanche, only not of pure white snow, but dust-loathsome, gritty, choking, spluttering, ear-filling, eye-blinding dust! It gets down your neck, up your coat-sleeves, and into your boots, your pockets-where does it not penetrate?

Hamburg and Berlin, he had a little mis- accompanied by a faithful henchman-
understanding with a lady, the only occu-
pant of the compartment beside himself,
in reference to the opening of a window.
"You don't appear to know the differ-
ence, mein Herr, between the second and
third class," said the lady cuttingly. "Oh,
madame ! " replied Saphir, "I am an old
railway traveller; I know all the class dis-
tinctions. In the first class, the passen-
gers behave rudely to the guard; in the
third, the guards behave rudely to the
passengers; in the second (with a bow to
his fellow-traveller), the passengers be-
have rudely to each other." Some of his
briefer sayings are extremely droll. He
once described a theatre as being so full
that people were obliged to laugh perpen-
dicularly, there was no room to do so
horizontally. Of a dull townlet he vis-
ited, he remarked it was so quiet that but
for an occasional death there would really
be no life in the place. He was a big
man, and when a little poet once threat-
ened to run him through for an adverse
criticism, he merely observed that he
would thenceforth have to pull his boots
up higher when he went abroad. His
Jewishness was not often apparent in
what he said or did. On one occasion,
though, he showed that he was not un-
When on the rampage, there is nothing
mindful of his origin. Dining at Roth- sacred to the dust-fiend. On Sundays,
schild's some fine lachryma Christi was about the time of morning service, is a
placed on the table. "Whence," asked favorite hour for its dreaded appearance.
the financier, "does the wine get so It rushes past the disconcerted pew-open-
strange a name?" "I suppose,' an-ers, sweeps up the church aisles, bedecks
swered Saphir, "it is because good Chris-
tians must weep to think that a Jew should
be able to treat his friends to such a su-
perb beverage." It must be admitted,
though, that, like Heine, whom he bitterly
hated, he had little sympathy with those

of his own race.

From Murray's Magazine.
A HOT-WIND DAY IN AUSTRALIA.

"BRICKFIELDERS" they are called in
Sydney; but then Sydney people are less
æsthetic, less exigeant, and generally not
so superfine as the people of Melbourne.
Is not Melbourne a full day and a half
nearer London and Paris, and its inhab-
itants therefore grander, more distin-
guished by the Vere de Vere repose, and
a larger share of aplomb?

This dreaded wind is a northernerwe are, be it remembered, in the southern hemisphere-and comes raging from the heated interior like another Æolus, always

the cushions, and scatters the printed notices right and left. With strict impartiality it speeds alike down the hutter's chimney, formed of old kerosene-tins, and the Elizabethan stacks of fashionable suburban mansions; charges up the busy streets, flashes through the omnibuses, in at one window and out of the other, like the clown in a pantomime. But not all of it! not the six bushels! Shake yourself and see. Then it spins along the suburban highways, pounces down on the scavengers' heaps of dead leaves and other odds and ends of unconsidered trifles, and they are gone, and their place knows them no more. Poets seeking new tropes and figures of speech should try what can be made of an Australian dust-storm.

Every window in the cities is closed, and the heated blast chafes and howls about the casements in a frenzy of impotent rage. Should any one incautiously turn a street-corner particularly sprucely dressed, straightway it makes for him. The air soon becomes a combination of atoms as lively as aerated waters. The