country_. The proposal was submitted to Mr. Pitt; who said he had no
objection to the terms, if they would permit him to add, "_except_, in
case of _invasion_."


THE GENTLE READER
[Sidenote: _Anon._]

No British Museum the fisherman needs:
He simply goes down to the river and reeds.


CLERGYMEN AND CHICKENS
[Sidenote: _Samuel Butler_]

Why, let me ask, should a hen lay an egg, which egg can become a chicken
in about three weeks and a full-grown hen in less than a twelvemonth,
while a clergyman and his wife lay no eggs, but give birth to a baby
which will take three-and-twenty years before it can become another
clergyman? Why should not chickens be born and clergymen be laid and
hatched? Or why, at any rate, should not the clergyman be born
full-grown and in Holy Orders, not to say already beneficed?


MELCHISEDEC
[Sidenote: _Samuel Butler_]

He was a really happy man. He was without father, without mother, and
without descent. He was an incarnate bachelor. He was a born orphan.