While his shoulders overlook it?
  Does the sandhill crane, the shankank,
  Shiver grayly in the north wind,
  Wishing he had died when little,
  As the sparrow, the chipchip, does?
  No 'tis not the Shankank standing,
  Standing in the gray and dismal
  Marsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep.
  No, 'tis peerless William Bryan
  Realizing that he's Caught It,
  Caught the Whangdepootenawah!

WHEAT, n.  A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can with some
difficulty be made, and which is used also for bread.  The French are
said to eat more bread _per capita_ of population than any other
people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff
palatable.

WHITE, adj. and n.  Black.

WIDOW, n.  A pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to
take humorously, although Christ's tenderness towards widows was one
of the most marked features of his character.

WINE, n.  Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union
as "liquor," sometimes as "rum."  Wine, madam, is God's next best gift
to man.

WIT, n.  The salt with which the American humorist spoils his
intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

WITCH, n.  (1)  Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league
with the devil.  (2)  A beautiful and attractive young woman, in
wickedness a league beyond the devil.

WITTICISM, n.  A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom
noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a "joke."

WOMAN, n.

      An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a
  rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.  It is credited by
  many of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility
  acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the
  postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion,
  deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld,
  it roareth now.  The species is the most widely distributed of all
  beasts of prey, infesting all habitable parts of the globe, from
  Greeland's spicy mountains to India's moral strand.  The popular
  name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind.
  The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the
  American variety (_felis pugnans_), is omnivorous and can be
  taught not to talk.

Balthasar Pober


WORMS'-MEAT, n.  The finished product of which we are the raw
material.  The contents of the Taj Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the
Granitarium.  Worms'-meat is usually outlasted by the structure that
houses it, but "this too must pass away."  Probably the silliest work
in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb for
himself.  The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by
contrast the foreknown futility.

  Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!
  How profitless the labor you bestow
      Upon a dwelling whose magnificence
  The tenant neither can admire nor know.

  Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,
  The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
      By shouldering asunder all the stones
  In what to you would be a moment's span.

  Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
  That when your marble is all dust, arise,
      If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn --
  You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.

  What though of all man's works your tomb alone
  Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?
      Would it advantage you to dwell therein
  Forever as a stain upon a stone?

Joel Huck


WORSHIP, n.  Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and
fine finish of Deus Creatus.  A popular form of abjection, having an
element of pride.

WRATH, n.  Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to
exalted characters and momentous occasions; as, "the wrath of God,"
"the day of wrath," etc.  Amongst the ancients the wrath of kings was
deemed sacred, for it could usually command the agency of some god for
its fit manifestation, as could also that of a priest.  The Greeks
before Troy were so harried by Apollo that they jumped out of the
frying-pan of the wrath of Cryses into the fire of the wrath of
Achilles, though Agamemnon, the sole offender, was neither fried nor