Fell the flat of his dart on the rump
  Of the charger, which galloped away.

  Faster and faster and faster it flew,
  Till the rocks and the flocks and the trees that grew
  By the road were dim and blended and blue
      To the wild, wild eyes
      Of the rider -- in size
      Resembling a couple of blackberry pies.
  Death laughed again, as a tomb might laugh
      At a burial service spoiled,
      And the mourners' intentions foiled
      By the body erecting
      Its head and objecting
  To further proceedings in its behalf.

  Many a year and many a day
  Have passed since these events away.
  The monk has long been a dusty corse,
  And Death has never recovered his horse.
      For the friar got hold of its tail,
      And steered it within the pale
  Of the monastery gray,
  Where the beast was stabled and fed
  With barley and oil and bread
  Till fatter it grew than the fattest friar,
  And so in due course was appointed Prior.

G.J.


CARNIVOROUS, adj.  Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous
vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.

CARTESIAN, adj.  Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author
of the celebrated dictum, _Cogito ergo sum_ -- whereby he was pleased
to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence.  The dictum
might be improved, however, thus:  _Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum_ --
"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an
approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.

CAT, n.  A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be
kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

  This is a dog,
      This is a cat.
  This is a frog,
      This is a rat.
  Run, dog, mew, cat.
  Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.

Elevenson


CAVILER, n.  A critic of our own work.

CEMETERY, n.  An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies,
poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.  The
inscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained
in these Olympian games:

      His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to
  overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives
  they were a rebuke, represented them as vices.  They are here
  commemorated by his family, who shared them.
      In the earth we here prepare a
      Place to lay our little Clara.

Thomas M. and Mary Frazer

      P.S. -- Gabriel will raise her.

CENTAUR, n.  One of a race of persons who lived before the division of
labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who
followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse."  The
best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse
added the fleetness of man.  The scripture story of the head of John
the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat
sophisticated sacred history.

CERBERUS, n.  The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the
entrance -- against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody,
sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the
entrance.  Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the
poets have credited him with as many as a hundred.  Professor
Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give
his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes
the number twenty-seven -- a judgment that would be entirely
conclusive is Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs,
and (b) something about arithmetic.

CHILDHOOD, n.  The period of human life intermediate between the
idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin
of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

CHRISTIAN, n.  One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely
inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not
inconsistent with a life of sin.