AFTER THE GERMAN.

THE last strains of "The Sirens" had died away along the corridors. All my fair enchanters - the sirens of the German - had died away along the corridors too. My celluloid collar was limp as a wet rag. The elevator, as usual, was "not running." The gas machine had given out, and the pale beams of the odoriferous kerosene lighted my lagging steps as I climbed the five flights. Claret lemonade was forthwith ordered; the boy left me alone with my straws, and I reflected over my first German. I had been playing tennis all the morning, and reading back volumes of the Lampoon to some young ladies on the piazza all the afternoon, - no wonder I had made so many blunders in the evening.

No harsh sound broke in on my reveries; in fact there was no need of any, because I was all broke up already. The sonorous snore of my next-door neighbor came to me as soothingly as the sound of the waves on the beach. As I lay communing with my inner consciousness there was a knock at the door. Without waiting for any summons in walked a form which I had seen before. As he came nearer I saw it was an old acquaintance, familiarly known at college as Lampy. Somewhat surprised at the unexpected apparition, I hesitated a moment; but then remembering previous experience I said, with a haughty tone, "I don't care to subscribe. Not this evening. S'm other."

"Hold up, old man," he cried, "I have n't asked you to subscribe. I merely came round to ask your advice on some manuscript I have here."

"Well," I said, "if that's all, go on. Unfold your tale."

"Sir," said Lampy, with dignity, "please make no insinuating references to my somewhat sinuous caudal appendage."

"I beg pardon, sir, - no harm meant. Proceed to expound the horns of your dilemma."

"This is quite too all but insufferable," Lampy cried, "but you shall 'o(r)nerously pay for your impertinence."

"Vengeance is yours, - I am at your mercy," I groaned, as I retired behind the bed; "pile it on gently, please."

Lampy unfolded the roll of paper. "This selection," said he, "was handed in by a Freshman who wanted to be an editor. The idea is not original, for it appeared in the last number of my sheet, having previously been worked up in Puck, Punch, the Advocate, and other so-called funny papers.

"An Annex maid in a lecture room,

Sing whey! Memorial milk!

Sat chewing gum in the danksome tomb,

And the jangling bell above did boom,

Alas, for the bottle-green silk!"

"That'll do," I moaned. "That's a little to (o scar)ious for me. Give us something else." With his ever-present sardonic grin he pityingly assented, and turned to an effusion by a Junior who had been to the latest opera. It also seems he got 39 once in Physics II.

"A magnet hung in old Lawrence,

And all around it were instruments, -

A spectroscope, an induction coil,

A Leyden jar, coated with tin-foil,

A thermometer and a huge sextant,

A barometer and an old quadrant,

An air-pump furnished with a glass bell jar,

A commutator, and an iron bar.

But for metals the magnet had no love,

He cared for nothing here above.

From jars and sounders and coils he'd turn,

For he'd set his love on a Pompeiian urn

which had recently been purchased by the Fine Arts Department at great expense."

"Very fair, but the author parades the parody a little too much, and the last line is a little too pompous."

"Well, then," Lampy replied, "as the story of the magnet does n't attract you, I will pass on to the next. I have here a few queries which may strike you as rather queer. Here is one: 'Did you see the ghost fan Tom?' "

I started for the door, but it was of no use. The fiend was in the way. "What was it the racquet?" Wellnigh stupefied, still I chanced to remember an old legend I had once heard. Perhaps the Lamia had reappeared in the form of Lampy. I caught on to the idea, and played the philosopher. I stared. Slowly but surely Lampy drooped. His legs elongated, his arms became wings, his nose became a beak. It was - it was the Ibis. Still he could talk. "Who did lemonade?" he squeaked. I took the only rope I had - my tennis net - and tied it to the bedpost. "Did you ever see tennis net?" he chuckled. I threw it out the window. "What was it kerosene?" I began to descend. The Ibis leaned far out the window and screeched, 'Will you subscribe?" - and I woke up.