This was nominally a child's party, so we were to have some _performances_. The folding-doors into the adjoining parlor were closed, and one or two members of the company who were to be performers retired. In a few moments the doors opened and revealed an extempore stage. The kitchen clothes-horse, beautifully draped and decorated, formed the background; while on a line with the foot-lights were two heads, one at each side of the stage, intended to represent Tragedy and Comedy. They were simply two large pumpkins with grotesque faces marked on them with black and white paint. In less than no time a most remarkable-looking stranger stepped forward and began to address us. Every one stared, and wondered whence this singular-looking person could have come, for we hardly supposed that Nix could have had him secreted in the house all the evening for our special surprise. At last it dawned upon us, one by one, that the individual in question was no other than Mr. Graham, a very staid gentleman, who had been with us a moment before. The annexed brace of sketches will show the appearance of Mr. Graham off and on the stage. But how was this change effected? We will explain. In the first place he had procured a narrow strip of black silk, which he had drawn round one of his front teeth, with the two ends inside his mouth, which, at a very short distance, looked exactly as though he had lost one of his teeth. (A little piece of court-plaster stuck on the tooth will answer the same purpose.) Then he had made a loop of horse-hair or grey thread, and securing two of the ends to the lining inside his hat, had hooked up the end of his nose with the other; in fact, he had put his nose in a sling. This altered the character of his whole face, so that his own wife would not have known him had she not heard him speak. He now addressed the audience in a long, funny, showmanic rigmarole, of which we only remember the following:
"Ladies and gentlemen, you have all heard of the Ornithorhyncus, which, as you are aware, is a species of duck-billed Platypus. You are familiar with the habits and appearance of the Ororo Wow; and you have listened to the sweet notes of the Catomonsterbung; but you are entirely ignorant of the newly-discovered creature known to scientific men as the Long-nosed Night-Howler, or Vulgaris Pueris cum Papyrus Capitus. This extraordinary animal is chiefly sugariverous in its diet, though it will eat almost everything when driven by hunger. It is perfectly tame, and will only attack human beings when it feels like it. I will now proceed to exhibit this extraordinary creature, requesting you only not to run pins into the animal, as it does not like that style of thing. Bring in the Night-Howler!!"