T   T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks absurdly called _tau_.  In the alphabet whence ours comes it had the form of the rude corkscrew of the period, and when it stood alone (which was more than the Phoenicians could always do) signified _Tallegal_, translated by the learned Dr. Brownrigg, "tanglefoot." TABLE D'HOTE, n.  A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.     Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,         Took Madam P. to table,     And there deliriously fed         As fast as he was able.     "I dote upon good grub," he cried,         Intent upon its throatage.     "Ah, yes," said the neglected bride,         "You're in your _table d'hotage_."                                                       Associated Poets TAIL, n.  The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.  Excepting in its foetal state, Man is without a tail, a privation of which he attests an hereditary and uneasy consciousness by the coat-skirt of the male and the train of the female, and by a marked tendency to ornament that part of his attire where the tail should be, and indubitably once was.  This tendency is most observable in the female of the species, in whom the ancestral sense is strong and persistent.  The tailed men described by Lord Monboddo are now generally regarded as a product of an imagination unusually susceptible to influences generated in the golden age of our pithecan past. TAKE, v.t.  To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth. TALK, v.t.  To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose. TARIFF, n.  A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.     The Enemy of Human Souls     Sat grieving at the cost of coals;     For Hell had been annexed of late,     And was a sovereign Southern State.     "It were no more than right," said he,     "That I should get my fuel free.     The duty, neither just nor wise,     Compels me to economize --     Whereby my broilers, every one,     Are execrably underdone.     What would they have? -- although I yearn     To do them nicely to a turn,     I can't afford an honest heat.     This tariff makes even devils cheat!     I'm ruined, and my humble trade     All rascals may at will invade:     Beneath my nose the public press     Outdoes me in sulphureousness;     The bar ingeniously applies     To my undoing my own lies;     My medicines the doctors use     (Albeit vainly) to refuse     To me my fair and rightful prey     And keep their own in shape to pay;     The preachers by example teach     What, scorning to perform, I teach;     And statesmen, aping me, all make     More promises than they can break.     Against such competition I     Lift up a disregarded cry.     Since all ignore my just complaint,     By Hokey-Pokey!  I'll turn saint!"     Now, the Republicans, who all     Are saints, began at once to bawl     Against _his_ competition; so     There was a devil of a go!     They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete     In acrimonious debate,     Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,     Had hopes of coming by their own.     That evil to avert, in haste     The two belligerents embraced;     But since 'twere wicked to relax     A tittle of the Sacred Tax,     'Twas finally agreed to grant     The bold Insurgent-protestant     A bounty on each soul that fell     Into his ineffectual Hell.                                                             Edam Smith TECHNICALITY, n.  In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his neighbor of murder.  His exact words were:  "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder."  The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an inference. TEDIUM, n.  Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored.  Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source -- the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_.  In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens. TEETOTALER, n.  One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally. TELEPHONE, n.  An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. TELESCOPE, n.  A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details.  Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice. TENACITY, n.  A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm.  It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics.  The following illustrative lines were written of a Californian gentleman in high political preferment, who has passed to his accounting:     Of such tenacity his grip     That nothing from his hand can slip.     Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm     In tubs of liquid slippery-elm     In vain -- from his detaining pinch     They cannot struggle half an inch!     'Tis lucky that he so is planned     That breath he draws not with his hand,     For if he did, so great his greed     He'd draw his last with eager speed.     Nay, that were well, you say.  Not so     He'd draw but never let it go! THEOSOPHY, n.  An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science.  The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to wish to become.  To be absolutely wise and good -- that is perfection; and the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were last year.  The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had no cat. TIGHTS, n.  An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity. Public attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and many were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection.  It was Miss Hall's belief that nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs.  This theory was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the conception of a faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as to rank among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation! It is strange that in all the controversy regarding Miss Russell's aversion to tights no one seems to have thought to ascribe it to what was known among the ancients as "modesty."  The nature of that sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and possibly incapable of exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us.  The study of lost arts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts themselves recovered.  This is an epoch of _renaissances_, and there is ground for hope that the primitive "blush" may be dragged from its hiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the stage. TOMB, n.  The House of Indifference.  Tombs are now by common consent invested with a certain sanctity, but when they have been long tenanted it is considered no sin to break them open and rifle them, the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, explaining that a tomb may be innocently "glened" as soon as its occupant is done "smellynge," the soul being then all exhaled.  This reasonable view is now generally accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity has been greatly dignified. TOPE, v.  To tipple, booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the forefront of civilization and power.  When pitted against the hard-drinking Christians the absemious Mahometans go down like grass before the scythe.  In India one hundred thousand beef- eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection two hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan race.  With what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the temperate Spaniard out of his possessions!  From the time when the Berserkers ravaged all the coasts of western Europe and lay drunk in every conquered port it has been the same way:  everywhere the nations that drink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too righteously.  Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the canteen from the American army may justly boast of having materially augmented the nation's military power. TORTOISE, n.  A creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for the following lines by the illustrious Ambat Delaso:                           TO MY PET TORTOISE     My friend, you are not graceful -- not at all;     Your gait's between a stagger and a sprawl.     Nor are you beautiful:  your head's a snake's     To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.     As to your feet, they'd make an angel weep.     'Tis true you take them in whene'er you sleep.     No, you're not pretty, but you have, I own,     A certain firmness -- mostly you're [sic] backbone.     Firmness and strength (you have a giant's thews)     Are virtues that the great know how to use --     I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,     You lack -- excuse my mentioning it -- Soul.     So, to be candid, unreserved and true,     I'd rather you were I than I were you.     Perhaps, however, in a time to be,     When Man's extinct, a better world may see     Your progeny in power and control,     Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.     So I salute you as a reptile grand     Predestined to regenerate the land.     Father of Possibilities, O deign     To accept the homage of a dying reign!     In the far region of the unforeknown     I dream a tortoise upon every throne.     I see an Emperor his head withdraw     Into his carapace for fear of Law;     A King who carries something else than fat,     Howe'er acceptably he carries that;     A President not strenuously bent     On punishment of audible dissent --     Who never shot (it were a vain attack)     An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;     Subject and citizens that feel no need     To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;     All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,     And "Take your time" the word, in Church and State.     O Tortoise, 'tis a happy, happy dream,     My glorious testudinous regime!     I wish in Eden you'd brought this about     By slouching in and chasing Adam out. TREE, n.  A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or none at all.  When naturally fruited, the tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an important factor in public morals.  In the stern West and the sensitive South its fruit (white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general welfare.  That the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no discovery of Judge Lynch (who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the lamp-post and the bridge-girder) is made plain by the following passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two centuries:         While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof     I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in     it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as     followeth:         "Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall     see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affroynted ye     King his Majesty."         And I was furder tolde yt ye worde "Ghogo" sygnifyeth in yr     tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne.                                                _Trauvells in ye Easte_ TRIAL, n.  A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.  In order to effect this purpose it is necessary to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the defendant, the prisoner, or the accused.  If the contrast is made sufficiently clear this person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth.  In our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial.  A beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly arrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public executioner.  Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued _in contumaciam_ the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized.  In a street of Toledo, some pigs that had wickedly run between the viceroy's legs, upsetting him, were arrested on a warrant, tried and punished.  In Naples and ass was condemned to be burned at the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been executed.  D'Addosio relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks, dogs, goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their conduct and morals.  In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches infesting some ponds about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the faculty of Heidelberg University, directed that some of "the aquatic worms" be brought before the local magistracy.  This was done and the leeches, both present and absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested within three days on pain of incurring "the malediction of God."  In the voluminous records of this _cause celebre_ nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable jurisdiction. TRICHINOSIS, n.  The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.     Moses Mendlessohn having fallen ill sent for a Christian physician, who at once diagnosed the philosopher's disorder as trichinosis, but tactfully gave it another name.  "You need and immediate change of diet," he said; "you must eat six ounces of pork every other day."     "Pork?" shrieked the patient -- "pork?  Nothing shall induce me to touch it!"     "Do you mean that?" the doctor gravely asked.     "I swear it!"     "Good! -- then I will undertake to cure you." TRINITY, n.  In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely distinct deities consistent with only one.  Subordinate deities of the polytheistic faith, such as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of combination, and must urge individually their clames to adoration and propitiation.  The Trinity is one of the most sublime mysteries of our holy religion.  In rejecting it because it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of theological fundamentals.  In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible one.  In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter. TROGLODYTE, n.  Specifically, a cave-dweller of the paleolithic period, after the Tree and before the Flat.  A famous community of troglodytes dwelt with David in the Cave of Adullam.  The colony consisted of "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented" -- in brief, all the Socialists of Judah. TRUCE, n.  Friendship. TRUTH, n.  An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time. TRUTHFUL, adj.  Dumb and illiterate. TRUST, n.  In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies. TURKEY, n.  A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude.  Incidentally, it is pretty good eating. TWICE, adv.  Once too often. TYPE, n.  Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment, despite their obvious agency in this incomparable dictionary. TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n.  An African insect (_Glossina morsitans_) whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist (_Mendax interminabilis_).                                     U   UBIQUITY, n.  The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.  This important distinction between ubiquity and omnipresence was not clear to the mediaeval Church and there was much bloodshed about it.  Certain Lutherans, who affirmed the presence everywhere of Christ's body were known as Ubiquitarians.  For this error they were doubtless damned, for Christ's body is present only in the eucharist, though that sacrament may be performed in more than one place simultaneously.  In recent times ubiquity has not always been understood -- not even by Sir Boyle Roche, for example, who held that a man cannot be in two places at once unless he is a bird. UGLINESS, n.  A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility. ULTIMATUM, n.  In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.     Having received an ultimatum from Austria, the Turkish Ministry met to consider it.     "O servant of the Prophet," said the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk to the Mamoosh of the Invincible Army, "how many unconquerable soldiers have we in arms?"     "Upholder of the Faith," that dignitary replied after examining his memoranda, "they are in numbers as the leaves of the forest!"     "And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts of all Christian swine?" he asked the Imaum of the Ever Victorious Navy.     "Uncle of the Full Moon," was the reply, "deign to know that they are as the waves of the ocean, the sands of the desert and the stars of Heaven!"     For eight hours the broad brow of the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk was corrugated with evidences of deep thought:  he was calculating the chances of war.  Then, "Sons of angels," he said, "the die is cast!  I shall suggest to the Ulema of the Imperial Ear that he advise inaction.  In the name of Allah, the council is adjourned." UN-AMERICAN, adj.  Wicked, intolerable, heathenish. UNCTION, n.  An oiling, or greasing.  The rite of extreme unction consists in touching with oil consecrated by a bishop several parts of the body of one engaged in dying.  Marbury relates that after the rite had been administered to a certain wicked English nobleman it was discovered that the oil had not been properly consecrated and no other could be obtained.  When informed of this the sick man said in anger: "Then I'll be damned if I die!"     "My son," said the priest, "this is what we fear." UNDERSTANDING, n.  A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house.  Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.     His understanding was so keen     That all things which he'd felt, heard, seen,     He could interpret without fail     If he was in or out of jail.     He wrote at Inspiration's call     Deep disquisitions on them all,     Then, pent at last in an asylum,     Performed the service to compile 'em.     So great a writer, all men swore,     They never had not read before.                                                        Jorrock Wormley UNITARIAN, n.  One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian. UNIVERSALIST, n.  One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith. URBANITY, n.  The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York.  Its commonest expression is heard in the words, "I beg your pardon," and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.     The owner of a powder mill     Was musing on a distant hill --         Something his mind foreboded --     When from the cloudless sky there fell     A deviled human kidney!  Well,         The man's mill had exploded.     His hat he lifted from his head;     "I beg your pardon, sir," he said;         "I didn't know 'twas loaded."                                                                Swatkin USAGE, n.  The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality.  Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion. UXORIOUSNESS, n.  A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.                                     V   VALOR, n.  A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's hope.     "Why have you halted?" roared the commander of a division and Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; "move forward, sir, at once."     "General," said the commander of the delinquent brigade, "I am persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy." VANITY, n.  The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.     They say that hens do cackle loudest when         There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid;         And there are hens, professing to have made     A study of mankind, who say that men     Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen         Make the most clamorous fanfaronade         O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid     They're not entirely different from the hen.     Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,         His blazing breeches and high-towering cap --     Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,         Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!     Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue     Is that in battle he will never hurt you?                                                      Hannibal Hunsiker VIRTUES, n.pl.  Certain abstentions. VITUPERATION, n.  Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit. VOTE, n.  The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.                                     W   W (double U) has, of all the letters in our alphabet, the only cumbrous name, the names of the others being monosyllabic.  This advantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian is the more valued after audibly spelling out some simple Greek word, like _epixoriambikos_.  Still, it is now thought by the learned that other agencies than the difference of the two alphabets may have been concerned in the decline of "the glory that was Greece" and the rise of "the grandeur that was Rome."  There can be no doubt, however, that by simplifying the name of W (calling it "wow," for example) our civilization could be, if not promoted, at least better endured. WALL STREET, n.  A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke.  That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven.  Even the great and good Andrew Carnegie has made his profession of faith in the matter.     Carnegie the dauntless has uttered his call     To battle:  "The brokers are parasites all!"     Carnegie, Carnegie, you'll never prevail;     Keep the wind of your slogan to belly your sail,     Go back to your isle of perpetual brume,     Silence your pibroch, doff tartan and plume:     Ben Lomond is calling his son from the fray --     Fly, fly from the region of Wall Street away!     While still you're possessed of a single baubee     (I wish it were pledged to endowment of me)     'Twere wise to retreat from the wars of finance     Lest its value decline ere your credit advance.     For a man 'twixt a king of finance and the sea,     Carnegie, Carnegie, your tongue is too free!                                                          Anonymus Bink WAR, n.  A by-product of the arts of peace.  The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.  The student of history who has not been taught to expect the unexpected may justly boast himself inaccessible to the light.  "In time of peace prepare for war" has a deeper meaning than is commonly discerned; it means, not merely that all things earthly have an end -- that change is the one immutable and eternal law -- but that the soil of peace is thickly sown with the seeds of war and singularly suited to their germination and growth.  It was when Kubla Khan had decreed his "stately pleasure dome" -- when, that is to say, there were peace and fat feasting in Xanadu -- that he                         heard from afar     Ancestral voices prophesying war.     One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable.  Let us have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations.  War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night. WASHINGTONIAN, n.  A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government.  In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.     They took away his vote and gave instead     The right, when he had earned, to _eat_ his bread.     In vain -- he clamors for his "boss," pour soul,     To come again and part him from his roll.                                                        Offenbach Stutz WEAKNESSES, n.pl.  Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies. WEATHER, n.  The climate of the hour.  A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned.  The setting up official weather bureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments are accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.     Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,     And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be --     Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,     With a record of unreason seldom paralleled on earth.     While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incadescent youth,     From the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth.     He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote     On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote --     For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:     "Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow."                                                          Halcyon Jones WEDDING, n.  A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable. WEREWOLF, n.  A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man.  All werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane and is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.     Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and went to bed.  The next morning nothing was there!  Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night.  "The next time that you take a wolf," the good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning you will find a Lutheran." WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n.  In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.     Should you ask me whence this laughter,     Whence this audible big-smiling,     With its labial extension,     With its maxillar distortion     And its diaphragmic rhythmus     Like the billowing of an ocean,     Like the shaking of a carpet,     I should answer, I should tell you:     From the great deeps of the spirit,     From the unplummeted abysmus     Of the soul this laughter welleth     As the fountain, the gug-guggle,     Like the river from the canon [sic],     To entoken and give warning     That my present mood is sunny.     Should you ask me further question --     Why the great deeps of the spirit,     Why the unplummeted abysmus     Of the soule extrudes this laughter,     This all audible big-smiling,     I should answer, I should tell you     With a white heart, tumpitumpy,     With a true tongue, honest Injun:     William Bryan, he has Caught It,     Caught the Whangdepootenawah!     Is't the sandhill crane, the shankank,     Standing in the marsh, the kneedeep,     Standing silent in the kneedeep     With his wing-tips crossed behind him     And his neck close-reefed before him,     With his bill, his william, buried     In the down upon his bosom,     With his head retracted inly,     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 roasted.  A similar noted immunity was that of David when he incurred the wrath of Yahveh by numbering his people, seventy thousand of whom paid the penalty with their lives.  God is now Love, and a director of the census performs his work without apprehension of disaster.                                     X   X in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.  X is the sacred symbol of ten dollars, and in such words as Xmas, Xn, etc., stands for Christ, not, as is popular supposed, because it represents a cross, but because the corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet is the initial of his name -- _Xristos_.  If it represented a cross it would stand for St. Andrew, who "testified" upon one of that shape.  In the algebra of psychology x stands for Woman's mind.  Words beginning with X are Grecian and will not be defined in this standard English dictionary.                                     Y   YANKEE, n.  In Europe, an American.  In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander.  In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.) YEAR, n.  A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments. YESTERDAY, n.  The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.     But yesterday I should have thought me blest         To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak         Of middle life and look adown the bleak     And unfamiliar foreslope to the West,     Where solemn shadows all the land invest         And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak         Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak     The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.     Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame         To stay the shadow on the dial's face     At manhood's noonmark!  Now, in God His name         I chide aloud the little interspace     Disparting me from Certitude, and fain     Would know the dream and vision ne'er again.                                                       Baruch Arnegriff     It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was attended at different times by seven doctors. YOKE, n.  An implement, madam, to whose Latin name, _jugum_, we owe one of the most illuminating words in our language -- a word that defines the matrimonial situation with precision, point and poignancy. A thousand apologies for withholding it. YOUTH, n.  The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.         Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth     again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with     whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and     clows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never     is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and,     howling, is cast into Baltimost!                                                         Polydore Smith                                     Z   ZANY, n.  A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play.  The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the unhappiness to know him.  In the zany we see an example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission.  Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the devil. ZANZIBARI, n.  An inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa.  The Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best known in this country through a threatening diplomatic incident that occurred a few years ago.  The American consul at the capital occupied a dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy beach between.  Greatly to the scandal of this official's family, and against repeated remonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city persisted in using the beach for bathing.  One day a woman came down to the edge of the water and was stooping to remove her attire (a pair of sandals) when the consul, incensed beyond restraint, fired a charge of bird-shot into the most conspicuous part of her person. Unfortunately for the existing _entente cordiale_ between two great nations, she was the Sultana. ZEAL, n.  A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.  A passion that goeth before a sprawl.     When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward     He went away exclaiming:  "O my Lord!"     "What do you want?" the Lord asked, bending down.     "An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown."                                                             Jum Coople ZENITH, n.  The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage.  A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though from this view of the matter there was once a considerably dissent among the learned, some holding that the posture of the body was immaterial.  These were called Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists.  The Horizontalist heresy was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the philosopher-king of Abara, a zealous Verticalist.  Entering an assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, he cast a severed human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the heels outside.  Observing that it was the head of their leader, the Horizontalists hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever opinion the Crown might be pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its place among _fides defuncti_. ZEUS, n.  The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog.  Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he worships under many sacred names. ZIGZAG, v.t.  To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man's burden.  (From _zed_, _z_, and _jag_, an Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)     He zedjagged so uncomen wyde     Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;     So, to com saufly thruh, I been     Constreynet for to doodge betwene.                                                                Munwele ZOOLOGY, n.  The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly (_Musca maledicta_).  The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us.  Two of the science's most illustrious expounders were Buffon and Oliver Goldsmith, from both of whom we learn (_L'Histoire generale des animaux_ and _A History of Animated Nature_) that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years.