When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot
The power of suction to resist,
And claret-bottles harber not
Such dimples as would hold your fist, -

When publishers no longer steal,
And pay for what they stole before, -
When the first locomotive's wheel
Rolls through the Hoosac tunnel's bore; -

TILL then let Cumming a blaze away,
And Miller's saints blow up the globe;
But when you see that blessed day,
THEN order your ascension robe!


The company seemed to like the verses, and I promised them to read
others occasionally, if they had a mind to hear them. Of course
they would not expect it every morning. Neither must the reader
suppose that all these things I have reported were said at any one
breakfast-time. I have not taken the trouble to date them, as
Raspail, pere, used to date every proof he sent to the printer; but
they were scattered over several breakfasts; and I have said a good
many more things since, which I shall very possibly print some time
or other, if I am urged to do it by judicious friends.

I finished off with reading some verses of my friend the Professor,
of whom you may perhaps hear more by and by. The Professor read
them, he told me, at a farewell meeting, where the youngest of our