"Is it past, all prospect of love's increase? Is it time my rallying cry should cease-- 'Peace and Good-will! Good-will and Peace!'?
"Is it fled, the hope that my heart has buoyed? Is it finished, the labour in which I joyed? Am _I_ the chief of the Unemployed?"
THE DEAR DEPARTED.--He has departed, and he was dear--at the price, was the poor little Gorilla! He died at the Zoo just ten days ago. Was it owing to his being so generously dieted, and never getting "Monkey's allowance?" Jenny the Baboon refused to attend the funeral, which was strictly private. Her conduct has created some astonishment among the officials. A jarring note was struck by the Hyæna, which could not repress its laughter. He died intestate. The Gorilla's decease makes no change in the government of Monkey Island.
THE CONSCIENTIOUS APPARITION; OR, THE PHANTOM BILL OF COSTS.
I am a highly respectable family ghost. I appear usually at two in the morning, wearing, what I believe is called in theatrical circles, a disguise cloak, and carrying a long blood-stained sword. I have one serious drawback. I have a shocking memory, and have entirely forgotten my identity. For the death of me I cannot remember why I became a ghost, and what on earth I ought to haunt. I fancy it should be some sort of castle, as I have an indistinct recollection of once frightening a man carrying some huge keys, from what I take must have been a portcullis, into fits. But this is merely conjecture, and I can't in the least account for my blood-stained sword. As I am really conscientious, this state of things has caused me serious regret. I have no wish to alarm the wrong people, nor to haunt the wrong place. The first is improper, and the second is _infra dig_. But what can I do? I find that I must appear at least once in every four-and-twenty hours, and my difficulty has been to so suit my time and place, that the least inconvenience should be given to the smallest number. Consequently, for many years I have been a nightly _habitué_ of the South Kensington Museum. No doubt this arrangement would have continued for an indefinite period had I not been recently arrested by a Policeman for loitering in the picture-galleries, who only permitted me to vanish in blue fire (I prefer blue to red) on the condition that I did not re-enter the Institution.