"REASONS FOR NOT MARRYING.

"'The lovely Miss S.
Will surely say "yes,"
You've only to ask and try;'
'That subject we'll quit;'
Says Georgy the wit,
'I'VE A MUCH BETTER SPEC IN MY EYE!'"

This last epigram especially was voted so killing that it flew
like wildfire; and I know for a fact that our Charge-d'Affaires at
Kalbsbraten sent a courier express with it to the Foreign Office in
England, whence, through our amiable Foreign Secretary, Lord P-lm-rston,
it made its way into every fashionable circle: nay, I have reason to
believe caused a smile on the cheek of R-y-lty itself. Now that Time has
taken away the sting of these epigrams, there can be no harm in giving
them; and 'twas well enough then to endeavor to hide under the lash of
wit the bitter pangs of humiliation: but my heart bleeds now to think
that I should have ever brought a tear on the gentle cheek of Dorothea.

Not content with this--with humiliating her by satire, and with wounding
her accepted lover across the nose--I determined to carry my revenge
still farther, and to fall in love with somebody else. This person was
Ottilia v. Schlippenschlopp.

Otho Sigismund Freyherr von Schlippenschlopp, Knight Grand Cross of
the Ducal Order of the Two-Necked Swan of Pumpernickel, of the
Porc-et-Siflet of Kalbsbraten, Commander of the George and Blue-Boar of
Dummerland, Excellency, and High Chancellor of the United Duchies, lived