LIGHTHOUSE, n. A tall building on the seashore in which the

government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.
LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.

'Twas a pair of boots that the lady bought,
And the salesman laced them tight

To a very remarkableheight --
Higher, indeed, than I think he ought --

Higher than _can_ be right.
For the Bible declares -- but never mind:

It is hardly fit
To censurefreely and fault to find

With others for sins that I'm not inclined
Myself to commit.

Each has his weakness, and though my own
Is freedom from every sin,

It still were unfair to pitch in,
Discharging the first censorious stone.

Besides, the truth compels me to say,
The boots in question were _made_ that way.

As he drew the lace she made a grimace,
And blushingly said to him:

"This boot, I'm sure, is too high to endure,
It hurts my -- hurts my -- limb."

The salesman smiled in a manner mild,
Like an artless, undesigning child;

Then, checking himself, to his face he gave
A look as sorrowful as the grave,

Though he didn't care two figs
For her paints and throes,

As he stroked her toes,
Remarking with speech and manner just

Befitting his calling: "Madam, I trust
That it doesn't hurt your twigs."

B. Percival Dike
LINEN, n. "A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp,

entails a great waste of hemp." -- Calcraft the Hangman.
LITIGANT, n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of

retaining his bones.
LITIGATION, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of

as a sausage.
LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be

bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary
anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to

infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side
of human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time

considered the seat of life; hence its name -- liver, the thing we
live with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it

that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg _pate_.
LL.D. Letters indicating the degree _Legumptionorum Doctor_, one

learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast
upon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly _LL.d._,

and conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished for their wealth. At
the date of this writing Columbia University is considering the

expediency of making another degree for clergymen, in place of the old
D.D. -- _Damnator Diaboli_. The new honor will be known as _Sanctorum

Custus_, and written _$$c_. The name of the Rev. John Satan has been
suggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who

points out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the
advantage of a degree.

LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization and
enlightenment.

LODGER, n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that
delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.

LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strictaccordance with
the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The

basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor
premise and a conclusion -- thus:

_Major Premise_: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as
quickly as one man.

_Minor Premise_: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds;
therefore --

_Conclusion_: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by

combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are
twice blessed.

LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds
punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem -- a kind of contest in

which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is
denied the reward of success.

'Tis said by divers of the scholar-men
That poor Salmasius died of Milton's pen.

Alas! we cannot know if this is true,
For reading Milton's wit we perish too.

LOGANIMITY, n. The disposition to endureinjury with meek forbearance
while maturing a plan of revenge.

LONGEVITY, n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death.
LOOKING-GLASS, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting

show for man's disillusion given.
The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso

looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king. A certain
courtier who had long enjoyed the king's favor and was thereby

enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king:
"Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of

thine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow,
prostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign

countenance, as which nothing has so divinesplendor, O Noonday Sun of
the Universe!"

Please with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be
conveyed to the courtier's palace; but after, having gone thither

without apprisal, he found it in an apartment where was naught but
idle lumber. And the mirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with

cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, shattering the
glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this mischance,

he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and
that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this

was done. But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his
image as before, but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody

bandage on one of its hinder hooves -- as the artificers and all who
had looked upon it had before discerned but feared to report. Taught

wisdom and charity, the king restored his courtier to liberty, had the
mirror set into the back of the throne and reigned many years with

justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep in death while
on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous figure

of an angel, which remains to this day.
LOQUACITY, n. A disorder which renders the suffererunable to curb

his tongue when you wish to talk.
LORD, n. In American society, an English tourist above the state of a

costermonger, as, lord 'Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth. The
traveling Briton of lesser degree is addressed as "Sir," as, Sir 'Arry

Donkiboi, or 'Amstead 'Eath. The word "Lord" is sometimes used, also,
as a title of the Supreme Being; but this is thought to be rather

flattery than true reverence.
Miss Sallie Ann Splurge, of her own accord,

Wedded a wandering English lord --
Wedded and took him to dwell with her "paw,"

A parent who throve by the practice of Draw.
Lord Cadde I don't hesitate to declare

Unworthy the father-in-legal care
Of that elderly sport, notwithstanding the truth

That Cadde had renounced all the follies of youth;
For, sad to relate, he'd arrived at the stage

Of existence that's marked by the vices of age.
Among them, cupidity caused him to urge

Repeated demands on the pocket of Splurge,
Till, wrecked in his fortune, that gentleman saw

Inadequate aid in the practice of Draw,
And took, as a means of augmenting his pelf,

To the business of being a lord himself.
His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed