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THE DOG IN THE MANGER.
Crispin won't do the work himself, and won't let John Chinaman do it.

OUR PORTFOLIO.

We have just received from "DICK TINTO," our special correspondent at the seat of war, the following metrical production said to have been written by HENRI ROCHEFORT in prison, but suppressed in obedience to orders from the Emperor. PUNCHINELLO felicitates his readers upon the enterprise which enables him to lay it before them, and flatters himself that the enormous trouble and expense involved in hauling it to this side of the Atlantic, will not prevent him from doing it again—if necessary.

AU PRINCE IMPERIAL.

SCENE.—A square fronting the Bureau of the chemin de fer for Chalons and Metz. Time, Midi.

The Prince Imperial, en route for the seat of war, is seated upon a milk-white steed. Beneath his left arm he convulsively carries a struggling game-cock, with gigantic gaffs, while his right hand feebly clutches a lance, the napping of whose pennant in his face appears to give him great annoyance and suggests the services of a "Shoo-fly." Around him throng the ladies of the Imperial bed-chamber and a cohort of nurses, who cover his legs with kisses, and then dart furtively between his horse's jambes as if to escape the pressure of the crowd. Just beyond these a throng of hucksters, market-women, butchers, bakers, etc., vociferously urge him to accept their votive offerings of garden truck, carrots, cabbages, parsnips, haunches of beef, baskets of French rolls and the like, all of which the Prince proudly declines, whereupon the vast concourse breaks forth into this wild chant to the air of

BINGEN ON THE RHINE.

From fountains bright at fair Versailles,
And gardens of St. Cloud—
With a rooster of the Gallic breed
To cock-a-doodle-do—

Behold! our Prince Imperial comes,
And in his hands a lance,
That erst he'll cross with German spears
For glory and for France.

They've ta'en his bib and tucker off,
And set him on a steed;
That he may ride where soldiers ride,
And bleed where soldiers bleed.

They've cut his curls of jetty hair,
And armed him cap à pie,
Until he looks as fair a knight
As France could wish to see.

Ho! ladies of the chamber,
Ho! nurses, gather near;
Your charge upon a charger waits
To shed the parting tear.

Come! kiss him for his mother,
Et pour sa Majesté,
And twine his brow with garlands of
The fadeless fleurs de lis.

Voila! who but a few moons gone
Of babies held the van,
Now wears his spurs and draws his blade
Like any other man!

Then come, ye courtly dames of France,
Oh! take him to your heart,
And cheer as only woman can
Our beardless BONAPARTE;

For ere another sun shall set,
Those lips cannot be kissed;
And through the grove and in the court
Their prattling will be missed.

The light that from those soft blue eyes
Now kindly answers thine,
Will flash where mighty armies tread,
Upon the banks of Rhine.

Yea, hide from him, as best you can,
All womanly alarms,
Nor smile with those who mocking cry,
"Behold! A babe-in-arms!"

A babe indeed! Oh! sland'rous tongues,
A Prince fresh from his smock,
Shows manly proof if he can stand
The battle shout and shock.

And this is one on whom the gods
Have put their stamp divine:
The latest, and perchance the last
Of Corsica's dread line.

Then for the Prince Imperial
Citoyens loudly cheer:
That his right arm may often bring
Some German to his bier;

That distant Rhineland, trembling,
May hear his battle-cry,
And neutral nations wondering ask,
"Oh! how is this far high?"

Our private dispatches from the seat of war in Europe are very confusing. The "Seat" appears to be considerably excited, but the "War" takes things easily, and seems to have "switched off" for an indefinite time. It is observed by many that there never was a war precisely like this war, and if it hadn't been for a Dutch female, the Duchess of Flanders, it is fair to suppose that PUNCHINELLO wouldn't have been out of pocket so much for cablegrams. The Duchess took it into her head (and her head appears to have had room for it,) that her blood relative, LEOPOLD, couldn't get his blood up to accept the Spanish Crown. Well, as it turned out, the Duchess was right. Anyhow, she went for L., (a letter by the way, which few Englishman can pronounce in polite society,) and told him that there was

"* * * a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

LEOPOLD said he had heard of that tide; but he didn't believe in always "follerin' on it," no matter what betided. Then the Duchess got up her Dutch spunk, and spoke out pretty freely, saying as much as if LEOPOLD were a tame sort of poodle, and that she ought to have been born to wear breeches, just to show him how a man should act in a great crisis like the present.

"Just so," says LEOPOLD, "but you see the 'crisis' is what's the matter. If it wasn't for the 'crisis,' I'd go in for ISABELLA'S old armchair faster than a hungry pig could root up potatoes." FLANDERS saw at a glance how the goose hung, and that her bread would all be dough if something wasn't done, and that quickly. She knew LEOPOLD'S weakness for Schnapps, when he was a boy at Schiedam, and, producing a bottle of the Aromatic elixir, with which she had previously armed herself in expectation of his obstinacy, poured out a glassful and requested him to clear his voice with it. Fifteen minutes after his vocal organs had been thus renewed, LEOPOLD was in a condition to see things in an entirely new light, and hesitated no longer to write the following note to General PRIM:

Dear PRIM: The thing has been satisfactorily explained to me, and I accept. Enclosed find a bottle of Schnapps. You never tasted Schnapps like this. The Duchess says she don't care a cuss for NAP, and that I mustn't neither.

—LEOPOLD, SIGMARINGEN-HOHENZOLLERN.

This is a veritable account of the origin of the European "unpleasantness," and can be certified to any one who will call upon us and examine the original dispatches.