"Pat," he said, "the devil seems to have a great deal of property in this district!"

"He has, sir," replied the guide, "but, sure, he's like all the landlords—he lives in England!"



LANGUAGES

George Ade, with a fellow American, was traveling in the Orient, and his companion one day fell into a heated argument with an old Arab. Ade's friend complained to him afterward that although he had spent years in studying Arabic in preparation for this trip he could not understand a word that the native said.

"Never mind," replied Ade consolingly. "You see, the old duffer hasn't a tooth in his head, and he was only talking gum-Arabic."

Milton was one day asked by a friend whether he would instruct his daughters in the different languages.

"No, sir," he said; "one tongue is sufficient for any woman."

Prince Bismarck was once pressed by a certain American official to recommend his son for a diplomatic post. "He is a very remarkable fellow," said the proud father; "he speaks seven languages."

"Indeed!" said Bismarck, who did not hold a very high opinion of linguistic acquirements. "What a wonderful headwaiter he would make!"



LAUGHTER

TEACHER—"Freddie, you musn't laugh out loud in the schoolroom."

FREDDIE—"I didn't mean to do it. I was smiling, and the smile busted."

Laugh and the world laughs with you, Weep, and the laugh's on you.

About the best and finest thing in this world is laughter.—Anna Alice Chapin.



LAW

See Punishment.



LAWYERS

Ignorance of the law does not prevent the losing lawyer from collecting his bill.—Puck.

George Ade had finished his speech at a recent dinner-party, and on seating himself a well-known lawyer rose, shoved his hands deep into his trousers' pockets, as was his habit and laughingly inquired of those present:

"Doesn't it strike the company as a little unusual that a professional humorist should be funny?"

When the laugh had subsided, Ade drawled out:

"Doesn't it strike the company as a little unusual that a lawyer should have his hands in his own pockets?"

A man was charged with stealing a horse, and after a long trial the jury acquitted him. Later in the day the man came back and asked the judge for a warrant against the lawyer who had successfully defended him.

"What's the charge?" inquired the judge.

"Why, Your Honor," replied the man, "you see, I didn't have the money to pay him his fee, so he took the horse I stole."—J.J. O'Connell.

An elderly darky in Georgia, charged with the theft of some chickens, had the misfortune to be defended by a young and inexperienced attorney, although it is doubtful whether anyone could have secured his acquittal, the commission of the crime having been proved beyond all doubt.

The darky received a pretty severe sentence. "Thank you, sah," said he cheerfully, addressing the judge when the sentence had been pronounced. "Dat's mighty hard, sah, but it ain't anywhere what I 'spected. I thought, sah, dat between my character and dat speech of my lawyer dat you'd hang me, shore!"

"You have a pretty tough looking lot of customers to dispose of this morning, haven't you?" remarked the friend of a magistrate, who had dropped in at the police court.

"Huh!" rejoined the dispenser of justice, "you are looking at the wrong bunch. Those are the lawyers."

"Did youse git anyt'ing?" whispered the burglar on guard as his pal emerged from the window.

"Naw, de bloke wot lives here is a lawyer," replied the other in disgust.

"Dat's hard luck," said the first; "did youse lose anyt'ing?"

The dean of the Law Department was very busy and rather cross. The telephone rang.

"Well, what is it?" he snapped.

"Is that the city gas-works?" said a woman's soft voice.

"No, madam," roared the dean; "this is the University Law Department."

"Ah," she answered in the sweetest of tones, "I didn't miss it so far, after all, did I?"—Carl Holliday.

A lawyer cross-examining a witness, asked him where he was on a particular day; to which he replied that he had been in the company of two friends. "Friends.'" exclaimed his tormentor; "two thieves, I suppose." "They may be so," replied the witness, dryly, "for they are both lawyers."

An impecunious young lawyer recently received the following letter from a tailor to whom he was indebted:

"Dear Sir: Kindly advise me by return mail when I may expect a remittance from you in settlement of my account.

Yours truly,

J. SNIPPEN."

The follower of Blackstone immediately replied:

"Dear Sir: I have your request for advice of a recent date, and beg leave to say that not having received any retainer from you I cannot act in the premises. Upon receipt of your check for $250 I shall be very glad to look the matter up for you and to acquaint you with the results of my investigations.

I am, sir, with great respect, your most obedient servant,

BARCLAY B. COKE."

A prisoner was brought before the bar in the criminal court, but was not represented by a lawyer.

"Where is your lawyer?" asked the judge who presided.

"I have none, sir," replied the prisoner.

"Why not?" queried the judge.

"Because I have no money to pay one."

"Do you want a lawyer?" asked the judge.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, there are Mr. Thomas W. Wilson, Mr. Henry Eddy, and Mr. George Rogers," said the judge, pointing to several young attorneys who were sitting in the room, waiting for something to turn up, "and Mr. Allen is out in the hall."

The prisoner looked at the attorneys, and, after a critical survey, he turned to the judge and said:

"If I can take my choice, sir, I guess I'll take Mr. Allen."—A.S. Hitchcock.

"What is that little boy crying about?" asked the benevolent old lady of the ragged boy.

"Dat other kid swiped his candy," was the response.

"But how is it that you have the candy now?"

"Sure I got de candy now. I'm de little kid's lawyer."

A man walking along the street of a village stepped into a hole in the sidewalk and broke his leg. He engaged a famous lawyer, brought suit against the village for one thousand dollars and won the case. The city appealed to the Supreme Court, but again the great lawyer won.

After the claim was settled the lawyer sent for his client and handed him one dollar.

"What's this?" asked the man.

"That's your damages, after taking out my fee, the cost of appeal and other expenses," replied the counsel.

The man looked at the dollar, turned it over and carefully scanned the other side. Then looked up at the lawyer and said: "What's the matter with this dollar? Is it counterfeit?"

Deceive not thy Physician, Confessor nor Lawyer.

A Sergeant of the Lawe, war and wys Ther was also, ful riche of excellence. Discreet he was, and of greet reverence: He seemed swich, his wordes weren so wyse. * * * No-wher so bisy a man as he ther nas, And yet he seemed bisier than he was.

—Chaucer.



LAZINESS

A tourist in the mountains of Tennessee once had dinner with a querulous old mountaineer who yarned about hard times for fifteen minutes at a stretch.

"Why, man," said the tourist, "you ought to be able to make lots of money shipping green corn to the northern market."

"Yes, I otter," was the sullen reply.

"You have the land, I suppose, and can get the seed."

"Yes, I guess so."

"Then why don't you go into the speculation?"

"No use, stranger," sadly replied the cracker, "the old woman is too lazy to do the plowin' and plantin'."

While the train was waiting on a side track down in Georgia, one of the passengers walked over to a cabin near the track, in front of which sat a cracker dog, howling. The passenger asked a native why the dog was howling.

"Hookworm," said the native. "He's lazy."

"But," said the stranger, "I was not aware that the hookworm is painful."

"'Taint," responded the garrulous native.

"Why, then," the stranger queried, "should the dog howl?"

"Lazy."

"But why does laziness make him howl?"

"Wal," said the Georgian, "that blame fool dawg is sittin' on a sand-bur, an' he's too tarnation lazy to get off, so he jes' sets thar an' howls 'cause it hurts."

"How's times?" inquired a tourist.

"Oh, pretty tolerable," responded the old native who was sitting on a stump. "I had some trees to cut down, but a cyclone come along and saved me the trouble."

"Fine."

"Yes, and then the lightning set fire to the brush pile and saved me the trouble of burnin' it."

"Remarkable. But what are you going to do now?"

"Oh, nothin' much. Jest waitin' for an earthquake to come along and shake the potatoes out of the ground."

A tramp, after a day or two in the hustling, bustling town of Denver, shook the Denver dust from his boots with a snarl.

"They must be durn lazy people in this town. Everywhere you turn they offer you work to do."

An Atlanta man tells of an amusing experience he had in a mountainous region in a southwestern state, where the inhabitants are notoriously shiftless. Arriving at a dilapidated shanty at the noon hour, he inquired as to the prospects for getting dinner.

The head of the family, who had been "resting" on a fallen tree in front of his dwelling, made reply to the effect that he "guessed Ma'd hev suthin' on to the table putty soon."

With this encouragement, the traveler dismounted. To his chagrin, however, he soon discovered that the food set before him was such that he could not possibly "make a meal." He made such excuses as he could for his lack of appetite, and finally bethought himself of a kind of nourishment which he might venture to take, and which was sure to be found in any locality. He asked for some milk.

"Don't have milk no more," said the head of the place. "The dawg's dead."

"The dog!" cried the stranger. "What on earth has the dog to do with it?"

"Well," explained the host meditatively, "them cows don't seem to know 'nough to come up and be milked theirselves. The dog, he used to go for 'em an' fetch 'em up."—Edwin Tarrisse.

Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.—Spurgeon.



LEAP YEAR

A girl looked calmly at a caller one evening and remarked:

"George, as it is leap year—"

The caller turned pale.

"As it is leap year," she continued, "and you've been calling regularly now four nights a week for a long, long time, George, I propose—"

"I'm not in a position to marry on my salary Grace" George interrupted hurriedly.

"I know that, George," the girl pursued, "and so, as it is leap year, I thought I'd propose that you lay off and give some of the more eligible fellows a chance."—L.F. Clarke.



LEGISLATORS

Thomas B. Reed was one of the Legislative Committee sent to inspect an insane asylum. There was a dance on the night the committee spent in the investigation, and Mr. Reed took for a partner one of the fair unfortunates to whom he was introduced.

"I don't remember having seen you here before," said she; "how long have you been in the asylum?"

"Oh, I only came down yesterday," said the gentleman, "as one of the Legislative Committee."

"Of course," returned the lady; "how stupid I am! However, I knew you were an inmate or a member of the Legislature the moment I looked at you. But how was I to know? It is so difficult to know which."



LIARS

There are three kinds of liars:

1. The man whom others can't believe. He is harmless. Let him alone.

2. The man who can't believe others. He has probably made a careful study of human nature. If you don't put him in jail, he will find out that you are a hypocrite.

3. The man who can't believe himself. He is a cautious individual. Encourage him.

Two Irishmen were working on the roof of a building one day when one made a misstep and fell to the ground. The other leaned over and called:

"Are yez dead or alive, Mike?"

"Oi'm alive," said Mike feebly.

"Sure you're such a liar Oi don't know whether to belave yez or not."

"Well, then, Oi must be dead," said Mike, "for yez would never dare to call me a liar if Oi wor aloive."

FATHER (reprovingly)—"Do you know what happens to liars when they die?"

JOHNNY—"Yes, sir; they lie still."

A private, anxious to secure leave of absence, sought his captain with a most convincing tale about a sick wife breaking her heart for his absence. The officer, familiar with the soldier's ways, replied:

"I am afraid you are not telling the truth. I have just received a letter from your wife urging me not to let you come home because you get drunk, break the furniture, and mistreat her shamefully."

The private saluted and started to leave the room. He paused at the door, asking: "Sor, may I speak to you, not as an officer, but as mon to mon?"

"Yes; what is it?"

"Well, sor, what I'm after sayin' is this," approaching the captain and lowering his voice. "You and I are two of the most iligant liars the Lord ever made. I'm not married at all."

A conductor and a brakeman on a Montana railroad differ as to the proper pronunciation of the name Eurelia. Passengers are often startled upon arrival at his station to hear the conductor yell:

"You're a liar! You're a liar!"

And then from the brakeman at the other end of the car:

"You really are! You really are!"

MOTHER—"Oh, Bobby, I'm ashamed of you. I never told stories when I was a little girl."

BOBBY—"When did you begin, then, Mamma?"—Horace Zimmerman.

The sages of the general store were discussing the veracity of old Si Perkins when Uncle Bill Abbott ambled in.

"What do you think about it, Uncle Bill?" they asked him. "Would you call Si Perkins a liar?"

"Well," answered Uncle Bill slowly, as he thoughtfully studied the ceiling, "I don't know as I'd go so far as to call him a liar exactly, but I do know this much: when feedin' time comes, in order to get any response from his hogs, he has to get somebody else to call 'em for him."

A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and an ever present help in time of trouble.

An Idaho guide whose services were retained by some wealthy young easterners desirous of hunting in the Northwest evidently took them to be the greenest of tenderfoots, since he undertook to chaff them with a recital something as follows:

"It was my first grizzly, so I was mighty proud to kill him in a hand-to-hand struggle. We started to fight about sunrise. When he finally gave up the ghost, the sun was going down."

At this point the guide paused to note the effect of his story. Not a word was said by the easterners, so the guide added very slowly, "for the second time."

"I gather, then," said one young gentleman, a dapper little Bostonian, "that it required a period of two days to enable you to dispose of that grizzly."

"Two days and a night," said the guide, with a grin. "That grizzly died mighty hard."

"Choked to death?" asked the Bostonian.

"Yes, sir," said the guide.

"Pardon me," continued the Hubbite, "but what did you try to get him to swallow?"

When by night the frogs are croaking, Kindle but a torch's fire; Ha! how soon they all are silent; Thus Truth silences the liar.

—Friedrich von Logan.

See also Epitaphs; Husbands; Politicians; Real estate agents; Regrets.



LIBERTY

Liberty is being free from the things we don't like in order to be slaves of the things we do like.

A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.

—Addison.

Where liberty dwells, there is my country.—Benjamin Franklin.



LIBRARIANS

A country newspaper printed the following announcement: "The Public Library will close for two weeks, beginning August 3, for the annual cleaning and vacation of the librarians."

The modern librarian is a genius. All the proof needed is the statement that the requests for books with queer titles are filled with ones really wanted. The following are instances:

AS ASKED FOR CORRECT TITLE

Indecent Orders In Deacon's Orders She Combeth Not Her Head She Cometh Not, She Said Trial of a Servant Trail of the Serpent Essays of a Liar Essays of Elia Soap and Tables AEsop's Fables Pocketbook's Hill Puck of Pook's Hill Dentist's Infirmary Dante's Inferno Holy Smoke Divine Fire

One librarian has the following entries in a card catalog:

Lead Poisoning Do, Kindly Light.

A distinguished librarian is a good follower of Chesterton. He says: "To my way of thinking, a great librarian must have a clear head, a strong hand and, above all, a great heart. Such shall be greatest among librarians; and when I look into the future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who will achieve this greatness will be women."

Many catalogers append notes to the main entries of their catalogs. Here are two:

An Ideal Husband: Essentially a work of fiction, and presumably written by a woman (unmarried).

Aspects of Home Rule: Political, not domestic.

In a branch library a reader asked for The Girl He Married (by James Grant.) This happened to be out, and the assistant was requested to select a similar book. Presumably he was a benedict, for he returned triumphantly with His Better Half (by George Griffith).

"Have you A Joy Forever?" inquired a lady borrower.

"No," replied the assistant librarian after referring to the stock. "Dear me, how tiresome," said the lady; "have you Praed?" "Yes, madam, but it isn't any good," was the prompt reply.



LIFE

Life's an aquatic meet—some swim, some dive, some back water, some float and the rest—sink.

I count life just a stuff To try the soul's strength on.

—Robert Browning.

May you live as long as you like, And have what you like as long as you live.

"Live, while you live," the epicure would say, "And seize the pleasures of the present day;" "Live, while you live," the sacred Preacher cries, "And give to God each moment as it flies." "Lord, in my views let both united be; I live in pleasure, when I live to Thee."

—Philip Doddridge.

This world that we're a-livin' in Is mighty hard to beat, For you get a thorn with every rose— But ain't the roses sweet!

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.—Benjamin Franklin.



LISPING

"Have you lost another tooth, Bethesda?" asked auntie, who noticed an unusual lisp.

"Yes'm," replied the four-year-old, "and I limp now when I talk."



LOST AND FOUND

"I ain't losing any faith in human nature," said Uncle Eben, "but I kain't he'p noticin' dat dere's allus a heap mo' ahticles advertised 'Lost' dan dar is 'Found.'"

"What were you in for?" asked the friend.

"I found a horse."

"Found a horse? Nonsense! They wouldn't jug you for finding a horse."

"Well, but you see I found him before the owner lost him."

"Party that lost purse containing twenty dollars need worry no longer—it has been found."—Brooklyn Life.

A lawyer having offices in a large office building recently lost a cuff-link, one of a pair that he greatly prized. Being absolutely certain that he had dropped the link somewhere in the building he posted this notice:

"Lost. A gold cuff-link. The owner, William Ward, will deeply appreciate its immediate return."

That afternoon, on passing the door whereon this notice was posted, what were the feelings of the lawyer to observe that appended thereto were these lines:

"The finder of the missing cuff-link would deem it a great favor if the owner would kindly lose the other link."

CHINAMAN—"You tellee me where railroad depot?"

CITIZEN—"What's the matter, John? Lost?"

CHINAMAN—"No! me here. Depot lost."



LOVE

Love is an insane desire on the part of a chump to pay a woman's board-bill for life.

MR. SLIMPURSE—"But why do you insist that our daughter should marry a man whom she does not like? You married for love, didn't you?"

MRS. SLIMPURSE—"Yes; but that is no reason why I should let our daughter make the same blunder."

MAUDE—"Jack is telling around that you are worth your weight in gold."

ETHEL—"The foolish boy. Who is he telling it to?"

MAUDE—"His creditors."

RICH MAN—"Would you love my daughter just as much if she had no money?"

SUITOR—"Why, certainly!"

RICH MAN—"That's sufficient. I don't want any idiots in this family."

'Tis better to have lived and loved Than never to have lived at all.

—Judge.

May we have those in our arms that we love in our hearts.

Here's to love, the only fire against which there is no insurance.

Here's to those that I love; Here's to those who love me; Here's to those who love those that I love. Here's to those who love those who love me.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.—Thackeray.

Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, Hast thou more of pain or pleasure! * * * * * * * * * Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!

—Addison.

O, love, love, love! Love is like a dizziness; It winna let a poor body Gang about his biziness!

—Hogg.

Let the man who does not wish to be idle, fall in love.—Ovid.



LOYALTY

Jenkins, a newly wedded suburbanite, kissed his wife goodby the other morning, and, telling her he would be home at six o'clock that evening, got into his auto and started for town.

At six o'clock no hubby had appeared, and the little wife began to get nervous. When the hour of midnight arrived she could bear the suspense no longer, so she aroused her father and sent him off to the telegraph office with six telegrams to as many brother Elks living in town, asking each if her husband was stopping with him overnight.

Morning came, and the frantic wife had received no intelligence of the missing man. As dawn appeared, a farm wagon containing a farmer and the derelict husband drove up to the house, while behind the wagon trailed the broken-down auto. Almost simultaneously came a messenger boy with an answer to one of the telegrams, followed at intervals by five others. All of them read:

"Yes, John is spending the night with me."—Bush Phillips.

BOY—"Come quick, there's a man been fighting my father more'n half an hour."

POLICEMAN—"Why didn't you tell me before?"

BOY—"'Cause father was getting the best of it till a few minutes ago."



LUCK

Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.—Douglas Jerrold.

O, once in each man's life, at least, Good luck knocks at his door; And wit to seize the flitting guest Need never hunger more. But while the loitering idler waits Good luck beside his fire, The bold heart storms at fortunes gates, And conquers its desire.

—Lewis J. Bates.

"Tommy," said his brother, "you're a regular little glutton. How can you eat so much?"

"Don't know; it's just good luck," replied the youngster.

A negro who was having one misfortune after another said he was having as bad luck as the man with only a fork when it was raining soup.

See also Windfalls.



MAINE

The Governor of Maine was at the school and was telling the pupils what the people of different states were called.

"Now," he said, "the people from Indiana are called 'Hoosiers'; the people from North Carolina 'Tar Heels'; the people from Michigan we know as 'Michiganders.' Now, what little boy or girl can tell me what the people of Maine are called?"

"I know," said a little girl.

"Well, what are we called?" asked the Governor.

"Maniacs."



MAKING GOOD

"What's become ob dat little chameleon Mandy had?" inquired Rufus.

"Oh, de fool chile done lost him," replied Zeke. "She wuz playin' wif him one day, puttin' him on red to see him turn red, an' on blue to see him turn blue, an' on green to see him turn green, an' so on. Den de fool gal, not satisfied wif lettin' well enough alone, went an' put him on a plaid, an' de poor little thing went an' bust himself tryin' to make good."

See also Success.



MALARIA

The physician had taken his patient's pulse and temperature, and proceeded to ask the usual questions.

"It—er—seems," said he, regarding the unfortunate with scientific interest, "that the attacks of fever and the chills appear on alternate days. Do you think—is it your opinion—that they have, so to speak, decreased in violence, if I may use that word?"

The patient smiled feebly. "Doc," said he, "on fever days my head's so hot I can't think, and on ague days I shake so I can't hold an opinion."



MARKS(WO)MANSHIP

An Irishman who, with his wife, is employed on a truck-farm in New Jersey, recently found himself in a bad predicament, when, in attempting to evade the onslaughts of a savage dog, assistance came in the shape of his wife.

When the woman came up, the dog had fastened his teeth in the calf of her husband's leg and was holding on for dear life. Seizing a stone in the road, the Irishman's wife was about to hurl it, when the husband, with wonderful presence of mind, shouted:

"Mary! Mary! Don't throw the stone at the dog! throw it at me!"

Mary had a little lamb, It's fleece was gone in spots, For Mary fired her father's gun, And lamby caught the shots!

—Columbia Jester.



MARRIAGE

MRS. QUACKENNESS—"Am yo' daughtar happily mar'd, Sistah Sagg?"

MRS. SAGG—"She sho' is! Bless goodness she's done got a husband dat's skeered to death of her!"

"Where am I?" the invalid exclaimed, waking from the long delirium of fever and feeling the comfort that loving hands had supplied. "Where am I—in heaven?"

"No, dear," cooed his wife; "I am still with you."

Archbishop Ryan was visiting a small parish in a mining district one day for the purpose of administering confirmation, and asked one nervous little girl what matrimony is.

"It is a state of terrible torment which those who enter are compelled to undergo for a time to prepare them for a brighter and better world," she said.

"No, no," remonstrated her rector; "that isn't matrimony: that's the definition of purgatory."

"Leave her alone," said the Archbishop; "maybe she is right. What do you and I know about it?"

"Was Helen's marriage a success?"

"Goodness, yes. Why, she is going to marry a nobleman on the alimony."—Judge.

JENNIE—"What makes George such a pessimist?"

JACK—"Well, he's been married three times—once for love, once for money and the last time for a home."

Matrimony is the root of all evil.

One day Mary, the charwoman, reported for service with a black eye.

"Why, Mary," said her sympathetic mistress, "what a bad eye you have!"

"Yes'm."

"Well, there's one consolation. It might have been worse."

"Yes'm."

"You might have had both of them hurt."

"Yes'm. Or worse'n that: I might not ha' been married at all."

A wife placed upon her husband's tombstone: "He had been married forty years and was prepared to die."

"I can take a hundred words a minute," said the stenographer.

"I often take more than that," said the prospective employer; "but then I have to, I'm married."

A man and his wife were airing their troubles on the sidewalk one Saturday evening when a good Samaritan intervened.

"See here, my man," he protested, "this sort of thing won't do."

"What business is it of yours, I'd like to know," snarled the man, turning from his wife.

"It's only my business in so far as I can be of help in settling this dispute," answered the Samaritan mildly.

"This ain't no dispute," growled the man.

"No dispute! But, my dear friend—"

"I tell you it ain't no dispute," insisted the man. "She"—jerking his thumb toward the woman—"thinks she ain't goin to get my week's wages, and I know darn well she ain't. Where's the dispute in that?"

HIS BETTER HALF—"I think it's time we got Lizzie married and settled down, Alfred. She will be twenty-eight next week you know."

HER LESSER HALF—"Oh, don't hurry, my dear. Better wait till the right sort of man comes along."

HIS BETTER HALF—"But why wait? I didn't!"

O'Flanagan came home one night with a deep band of black crape around his hat.

"Why, Mike!" exclaimed his wife. "What are ye wearin' thot mournful thing for?"

"I'm wearin' it for yer first husband," replied Mike firmly. "I'm sorry he's dead."

"What a strangely interesting face your friend the poet has," gurgled the maiden of forty. "It seems to possess all the elements of happiness and sorrow, each struggling for supremacy."

"Yes, he looks to me like a man who was married and didn't know it," growled the Cynical Bachelor.

The not especially sweet-tempered young wife of a Kaslo B.C., man one day approached her lord concerning the matter of one hundred dollars or so.

"I'd like to let you have it, my dear," began the husband, "but the fact is I haven't that amount in the bank this morning—that is to say, I haven't that amount to spare, inasmuch as I must take up a note for two hundred dollars this afternoon."

"Oh, very well, James!" said the wife, with an ominous calmness, "If you think the man who holds the note can make things any hotter for you than I can—why, do as you say, James!"

A young lady entered a book store and inquired of the gentlemanly clerk—a married man, by-the-way—if he had a book suitable for an old gentleman who had been married fifty years.

Without the least hesitation the clerk reached for a copy of Parkman's "A Half Century of Conflict."

Smith and Jones were discussing the question of who should be head of the house—the man or the woman.

"I am the head of my establishment," said Jones. "I am the bread-winner. Why shouldn't I be?"

"Well," replied Smith, "before my wife and I were married we made an agreement that I should make the rulings in all major things, my wife in all the minor."

"How has it worked?" queried Jones.

Smith smiled. "So far," he replied, "no major matters have come up."

A poor lady the other day hastened to the nursery and said to her little daughter:

"Minnie, what do you mean by shouting and screaming? Play quietly, like Tommy. See, he doesn't make a sound."

"Of course he doesn't," said the little girl. "That is our game. He is papa coming home late, and I am you."

The stranger advanced toward the door. Mrs. O'Toole stood in the doorway with a rough stick in her left hand and a frown on her brow.

"Good morning," said the stranger politely. "I'm looking for Mr. O'Toole."

"So'm I," said Mrs. O'Toole, shifting her club over to her other hand.

TIM—"Sarer Smith (you know 'er—Bill's missus), she throwed herself horf the end uv the wharf larst night."

TOM—"Poor Sarer!"

TIM—"An' a cop fished 'er out again."

TOM—"Poor Bill!"

The cooing stops with the honeymoon, but the billing goes on forever.

"Well, old man, how did you get along after I left you at midnight. Get home all right?"

"No; a confounded nosey policeman haled me to the station, where I spent the rest of the night."

"Lucky dog! I reached home."

STRANGER—"What's the fight about?"

NATIVE—"The feller on top is Hank Hill wot married the widder Strong, an' th' other's Joel Jenks, wot interdooced him to her."—Life.

A colored man had been arrested on a charge of beating and cruelly misusing his wife. After hearing the charge against the prisoner, the justice turned to the first witness.

"Madam," he said, "if this man were your husband and had given you a beating, would you call in the police?"

The woman addressed, a veritable Amazon in size and aggressiveness, turned a smiling countenance towards the justice and answered: "No, jedge. If he was mah husban', and he treated me lak he did 'is wife, Ah wouldn't call no p'liceman. No, sah, Ah'd call de undertaker."

We admire the strict impartiality of the judge who recently fined his wife twenty-five dollars for contempt of court, but we would hate to have been in the judge's shoes when he got home that night.

"How many children have you?" asked the census-taker.

The man addressed removed the pipe from his mouth, scratched his head, thought it over a moment, and then replied:

"Five—four living and one married."

SHE—"How did they ever come to marry?"

HE—"Oh, it's the same old story. Started out to be good friends, you know, and later on changed their minds."—Puck.

Nat Goodwin and a friend were walking along Fifth Avenue one afternoon when they stopped to look into a florist's window, in which there was an artistic arrangement of exquisite roses.

"What wonderful American Beauties those are, Nat!" said the friend delightedly.

"They are, indeed," replied Nat.

"You see, I am very fond of that flower," continued the friend. "In fact, I might say it is my favorite. You know, Nat, I married an American beauty."

"Well," said Nat dryly, "you haven't got anything on me. I married a cluster."

"Are you quite sure that was a marriage license you gave me last month?"

"Of course! What's the matter?"

"Well, I thought there might be some mistake, seeing that I've lived a dog's life ever since."

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in.—Emerson.

HOUSEHOLDER—"Here, drop that coat and clear out!"

BURGLAR—"You be quiet, or I'll wake your wife and give her this letter I found in your pocket."

The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.—Swift.

See also Church discipline; Domestic finance; Trouble.



MARRIAGE FEES

A poor couple who went to the priest to be wedded were met with a demand for the marriage fee. It was not forth-coming. Both the consenting parties were rich in love and in their prospects, but destitute of financial resources. The father was obdurate. "No money, no marriage."

"Give me l'ave, your riverence," said the blushing bride, "to go and get the money."

It was given, and she sped forth on the delicate mission of raising a marriage fee out of pure nothing. After a short interval she returned with the sum of money, and the ceremony was completed to the satisfaction of all. When the parting was taking place the newly-made wife seemed a little uneasy.

"Anything on your mind, Catherine?" said the father.

"Well, your riverence, I would like to know if this marriage could not be spoiled now."

"Certainly not, Catherine. No man can put you asunder."

"Could you not do it yourself, father? Could you not spoil the marriage?"

"No, no, Catherine. You are past me now. I have nothing more to do with your marriage."

"That aises me mind," said Catherine, "and God bless your riverence. There's the ticket for your hat. I picked it up in the lobby and pawned it."

MANDY—"What foh yo' been goin'to de post-office so reg'lar? Are yo' corresponding wif some other female?"

RASTUS—"Nope; but since ah been a-readin' in de papers 'bout dese 'conscience funds' ah kind of thought ah might possibly git a lettah from dat ministah what married us."—Life.

The knot was tied; the pair were wed, And then the smiling bridegroom said Unto the preacher, "Shall I pay To you the usual fee today. Or would you have me wait a year And give you then a hundred clear, If I should find the marriage state As happy as I estimate?" The preacher lost no time in thought, To his reply no study brought, There were no wrinkles on his brow: Said he, "I'll take three dollars now."



MATHEMATICS

See Arithmetic.



MATRIMONY

See Marriage.



MEASURING INSTRUMENTS

"Golly, but I's tired!" exclaimed a tall and thin negro, meeting a short and stout friend on Washington Street.

"What you been doin' to get tired?" demanded the other.

"Well," explained the thin one, drawing a deep breath, "over to Brother Smith's dey are measurin' de house for some new carpets. Dey haven't got no yawdstick, and I's just ezactly six feet tall. So to oblige Brother Smith, I's been a-layin' down and a-gettin' up all over deir house."



MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS

PASSER-BY—"What's the fuss in the schoolyard, boy?"

THE BOY—"Why, the doctor has just been around examinin' us an' one of the deficient boys is knockin' th' everlastin' stuffin's out of a perfect kid."



MEDICINE

The farmer's mule had just balked in the road when the country doctor came by. The farmer asked the physician if he could give him something to start the mule. The doctor said he could, and, reaching down into his medicine case, gave the animal some powders. The mule switched his tail, tossed his head and started on a mad gallop down the road. The farmer looked first at the flying animal and then at the doctor.

"How much did that medicine cost, Doc?" he asked.

"Oh, about fifteen cents," said the physician.

"Well, give me a quarter's worth, quick!" And he swallowed it. "I've got to catch that mule."

"I hope you are following my instructions carefully, Sandy—the pills three times a day and a drop of whisky at bedtime."

"Weeel, sir, I may be a wee bit behind wi' the pills, but I'm about six weeks in front wi' the whusky."

Rarely has a double meaning turned with more deadly effect upon an innocent perpetrator than in an advertisement lately appearing in a western newspaper. He wrote: "Wanted—a gentleman to undertake the sale of a patent medicine. The advertiser guarantees it will be profitable to the undertaker."

I firmly believe that if the whole materia medico could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes.—O.W. Holmes.

A man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.—Bacon.



MEEKNESS

One evening just before dinner a wife, who had been playing bridge all the afternoon, came in to find her husband and a strange man (afterward ascertained to be a lawyer) engaged in some mysterious business over the library table, upon which were spread several sheets of paper.

"What are you going to do with all that paper, Henry?" demanded the wife.

"I am making a wish," meekly responded the husband.

"A wish?"

"Yes, my dear. In your presence I shall not presume to call it a will."



MEMORIALS

Two negroes were talking about a recent funeral of a member of their race, at which funeral there had been a profusion of floral tributes. Said the cook:

"Dat's all very well, Mandy; but when I dies I don't want no flowers on my grave. Jes' plant a good old watermelon-vine; an' when she gits ripe, you come dar, an' don't you eat it, but jes' bus' it on de grave, an' let de good old juice dribble down thro' de ground!"

"That's rather a handsome mantelpiece you have there, Mr. Binkston," said the visitor.

"Yes," replied Mr. Binkston, proudly. "That is a memorial to my wife."

"Why—I was not aware that Mrs. Binkston had passed away," said the visitor sympathetically.

"Oh no, indeed, she hasn't," smiled Mr. Binkston. "She is serving her thirtieth sojourn in jail. That mantelpiece is built of the bricks she was convicted of throwing."



MEMORY

"Uncle Mose," said a drummer, addressing an old colored man seated on a drygoods box in front of the village store, "they tell me that you remember seeing George Washington—am I mistaken?"

"No, sah," said Uncle Mose. "I uster 'member seein' him, but I done fo'got sence I jined de chu'ch."

A noted college president, attending a banquet in Boston, was surprised to see that the darky who took the hats at the door gave no checks in return.

"He has a most wonderful memory," a fellow diner explained. "He's been doing that for years and prides himself upon never having made a mistake."

As the college president was leaving, the darky passed him his hat.

"How do you know that this one is mine?"

"I don't know it, suh," admitted the darky.

"Then why do you give it to me?"

"'Cause yo' gave it to me, suh."

"Tommy," said his mother reprovingly, "what did I say I'd do to you if I ever caught you stealing jam again?"

Tommy thoughtfully scratched his head with his sticky fingers.

"Why, that's funny, ma, that you should forget it, too. Hanged if I can remember." Smith is a young New York lawyer, clever in many ways, but very forgetful. He was recently sent to St. Louis to interview an important client in regard to a case then pending in the Missouri courts. Later the head of his firm received this telegram from St. Louis:

"Have forgotten name of client. Please wire at once."

This was the reply sent from New York:

"Client's name Jenkins. Your name Smith."

When time who steals our years away Shall steal our pleasures too, The mem'ry of the past will stay And half our joys renew.

—Moore.

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, And in it are enshrined The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought The giver's loving thought.

—Longfellow.



MEN

Here's to the men! God bless them! Worst of me sins, I confess them! In loving them all; be they great or small, So here's to the boys! God bless them!

May all single men be married, And all married men be happy.

"What is your ideal man?"

"One who is clever enough to make money and foolish enough to spend it!"

I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.—Shakespeare.

Men are four: He who knows and knows not that he knows,— He is asleep—wake him; He who knows not and knows not that he knows not,— He is a fool—shun him; He who knows not and knows that he knows not,— He is a child—teach him; He who knows and knows that He knows,— He is a king—follow him.

See also Dogs; Husbands.



MESSAGES

"Have you the rent ready?"

"No, sir; mother's gone out washing and forgot to put it out for you."

"Did she tell you she'd forgotten?"

"Yes, sir."

One of the passengers on a wreck was an exceedingly nervous man, who, while floating in the water, imagined how his friends would acquaint his wife of his fate. Saved at last, he rushed to the telegraph office and sent this message: "Dear Pat, I am saved. Break it gently to my wife."



METAPHOR

It was a Washington woman, angry because the authorities had closed the woman's rest-room in the Senate office building, who burst out:

"It is almost as if the Senate had hurled its glove into the teeth of the advancing wave that is sounding the clarion of equal rights."

A water consumer in Los Angeles, California, whose supply had been turned off because he wouldn't pay, wrote to the department as follows:

"In the matter of shutting off the water on unpaid bills, your company is fast becoming a regular crystallized Russian bureaucracy, running in a groove and deaf to the appeals of reform. There is no use of your trying to impugn the verity of this indictment by shaking your official heads in the teeth of your own deeds.

"If you will persist in this kind of thing, a widespread conflagration of the populace will be so imminent that it will require only a spark to let loose the dogs of war in our midst. Will you persist in hurling the corner stone of our personal liberty to your wolfish hounds of collectors, thirsting for its blood? If you persist, the first thing you know you will have the chariot of a justly indignant revolution rolling along in our midst and gnashing its teeth as it rolls.

"If your rascally collectors are permitted to continue coming to our doors with unblushing footsteps, with cloaks of hypocritical compunction in their mouths, and compel payment from your patrons, this policy will result in cutting the wool off the sheep that lays the golden egg, until you have pumped it dry—and then farewell, a long farewell, to our vaunted prosperity."



MICE

"What's the matter with Briggs?"

"He was getting shaved by a lady barber when a mouse ran across the floor."—Life.



MIDDLE CLASSES

WILLIE—"Paw, what is the middle class?"

PAW—"The middle class consists of people who are not poor enough to accept charity and not rich enough to donate anything."



MILITANTS

See Suffragettes.



MILITARY DISCIPLINE

Murphy was a new recruit in the cavalry. He could not ride at all, and by ill luck was given one of the most vicious horses in the troop.

"Remember," said the sergeant, "no one is allowed to dismount without orders."

Murphy was no sooner in the saddle than he was thrown to the ground.

"Murphy!" yelled the sergeant, when he discovered him lying breathless on the ground, "you dismounted!"

"I did."

"Did you have orders?"

"I did."

"From headquarters, I suppose?"

"No, sor; from hintquarters."

"How dare you come on parade," exclaimed an Irish sergeant to a recruit, "before a respictible man loike mysilf smothered from head to foot in graise an' poipe clay? Tell me now—answer me when I spake to yez!"

The recruit was about to excuse himself for his condition when the sergeant stopped him.

"Dare yez to answer me when I puts a question to yez?" he cried. "Hould yer lyin' tongue, and open your face at yer peril! Tell me now, what have ye been doin' wid yer uniform an' arms an' bills? Not a word, or I'll clap yez in the guardroom. When I axes yez anything an' yez spakes I'll have yez tried for insolence to yer superior officer, but if yez don't answer when I questions yez, I'll have yez punished for disobedience of orders! So, yez see, I have yez both ways!"

Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance.—Channing.



MILLINERS

Recipe for a milliner:

To a presence that's much more than queenly, Add a manner that's quite Vere de Vere; You feel like a worm in her sight when she says, "Only $300, my dear!"

—Life.



MILLIONAIRES

Recipe for a multi-millionaire:

Take a boy with bare feet as a starter Add thrift and sobriety, mixed— Flavor with quarts of religion, And see that the tariff is fixed.

—Life.

MILLIONAIRE (to a beggar)—"Be off with you this minute!"

BEGGAR—"Look 'ere, mister; the only difference between you and me is that you are makin' your second million, while I am still workin' at my first."

"Now that you have made $50,000,000, I suppose you are going to keep right on for the purpose of trying to get a hundred millions?"

"No, sir. You do me an injustice. I'm going to put in the rest of my time trying to get my conscience into a satisfactory condition."

"When I was a young man," said Mr. Cumrox, "I thought nothing of working twelve or fourteen hours a day."

"Father," replied the young man with sporty clothes, "I wish you wouldn't mention it. Those non-union sentiments are liable to make you unpopular."

No good man ever became suddenly rich.—Syrus.

And all to leave what with his toil he won, To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son.

—Dryden.

See also Capitalists.



MINORITIES

Stepping out between the acts at the first production of one of his plays, Bernard Shaw said to the audience:

"What do you think of it?"

This startled everybody for the time being, but presently a man in the pit assembled his scattered wits and cried:

"Rotten!"

Shaw made a curtsey and melted the house with one of his Irish smiles.

"My friend," he said, shrugging his shoulders and indicating the crowd in front, "I quite agree with you, but what are we two against so many?"



MISERS

There was an old man of Nantucket Who kept all his cash in a bucket; But his daughter, named Nan, Ran away with a man— And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

A mere madness, to live like a wretch, and die rich.—Robert Burton.



MISSIONARIES

SHE—"Poor cousin Jack! And to be eaten by those wretched cannibals!"

HE—"Yes, my dear child; but he gave them their first taste in religion!"

At a meeting of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society in a large city church a discussion arose among the members present as to the race of people that inhabited a far-away land. Some insisted that they were not a man-eating people; others that they were known to be cannibals. However, the question was finally decided by a minister's widow, who said:

"I beg pardon for interrupting, Mrs. Chairman, but I can assure you that they are cannibals. My husband was a missionary there and they ate him."



MISSIONS

"What in the world are you up to, Hilda?" exclaimed Mrs. Bale, as she entered the nursery where her six-year-old daughter was stuffing broken toys, headless dolls, ragged clothes and general debris into an open box.

"Why, mother," cried Hilda, "can't you see? I'm packing a missionary box just the way the ladies do; and it's all right," she added reassuringly, "I haven't put in a single thing that's any good at all!"



MISTAKEN IDENTITY

There was a young fellow named Paul, Who went to a fancy dress ball; They say, just for fun He dressed up like a bun, And was "et" by a dog in the hall.

A Scottish woman, who was spending her holidays in London, entered a bric-a-brac shop, in search of something odd to take home to Scotland with her. After she had inspected several articles, but had found none to suit her, she noticed a quaint figure, the head and shoulders of which appeared above the counter.

"What is that Japanese idol over there worth?" she inquired of the salesman.

The salesman's reply was given in a subdued tone:

"About half a million, madam. That's the proprietor!"

The late James McNeil Whistler was standing bareheaded in a hat shop, the clerk having taken his hat to another part of the shop for comparison. A man rushed in with his hat in his hand, and, supposing Whistler to be a clerk angrily confronted him.

"See here," he said, "this hat doesn't fit."

Whistler eyed the stranger critically from head to foot, and then drawled out:

"Well, neither does your coat. What's more, if you'll pardon my saying so, I'll be hanged if I care much for the color of your trousers."

The steamer was on the point of leaving, and the passengers lounged on the deck and waited for the start. At length one of them espied a cyclist in the far distance, and it soon became evident that he was doing his level best to catch the boat.

Already the sailors' hands were on the gangways, and the cyclist's chance looked small indeed. Then a sportive passenger wagered a sovereign to a shilling that he would miss it. The offer was taken, and at once the deck became a scene of wild excitement.

"He'll miss it."

"No; he'll just do it."

"Come on!"

"He won't do it."

"Yes, he will. He's done it. Hurrah!"

In the very nick of time the cyclist arrived, sprang off his machine, and ran up the one gangway left.

"Cast off!" he cried.

It was the captain.

Much to the curious little girl's disgust, her elder sister and her girl friends had quickly closed the door of the back parlor, before she could wedge her small self in among them.

She waited uneasily for a little while, then she knocked. No response. She knocked again. Still no attention. Her curiosity could be controlled no longer. "Dodo!" she called in staccato tones as she knocked once again. "'Tain't me! It's Mamma!"



MOLLYCODDLES

"Tommy, why don't you play with Frank any more?" asked Tommy's mother, who noticed that he was cultivating the acquaintance of a new boy on the block. "I thought you were such good chums."

"We was," replied Tommy superciliously, "but he's a mollycoddle. He paid t' git into the ball-grounds."



MONEY

In some of the college settlements there are penny savings banks for children.

One Saturday a small boy arrived with an important air and withdrew 2 cents from his account. Monday morning he promptly returned the money.

"So you didn't spend your 2 cents?" observed the worker in charge.

"Oh, no," he replied, "but a fellow just likes to have a little cash on hand over Sunday."

See also Domestic finance.



MORAL EDUCATION

Two little boys, four and five years old respectively, were playing quietly, when the one of four years struck the other on his cheek. An interested bystander stepped up and asked him why he had hit the other who had done nothing.

"Well," replied the pugilistic one, "last Sunday our lesson in Sunday-school was about if a fellow hit you on the left cheek turn the other and get another crack, and I just wanted to see if Bobbie knew his lesson."



MOSQUITOES

Senator Gore, of Oklahoma, while addressing a convention in Oklahoma City recently, told this story, illustrating a point he made:

"A northern gentleman was being entertained by a southern colonel on a fishing-trip. It was his first visit to the South, and the mosquitoes were so bothersome that he was unable to sleep, while at the same time he could hear his friend snoring audibly.

"The next morning he approached the old darky who was doing the cooking.

"'Jim,' he said, 'how is it the colonel is able to sleep so soundly with so many mosquitoes around?'

"'I'll tell yo', boss,' the darky replied, 'de fust part of de night de kernel is too full to pay any 'tenshum to de skeeters, and de last part of de night de skeeters is too full to pay any 'tenshum to de kernel.'"

See also Applause; New Jersey.



MOTHERS

While reconnoitering in Westmoreland County, Virginia, one of General Washington's officers chanced upon a fine team of horses driven before a plow by a burly slave. Finer animals he had never seen. When his eyes had feasted on their beauty he cried to the driver: "Hello good fellow! I must have those horses. They are just such animals as I have been looking for."

The black man grinned, rolled up the whites of his eyes, put the lash to the horses' flanks and turned up another furrow in the rich soil.

The officer waited until he had finished the row; then throwing back his cavalier cloak the ensign of the rank dazzled the slave's eyes.

"Better see missus! Better see missus!" he cried waving his hand to the south, where above the cedar growth rose the towers of a fine old Virginia mansion.

The officer turned up the carriage road and soon was rapping the great brass knocker of the front door.

Quickly the door swung upon its ponderous hinges and a grave, majestic-looking woman confronted the visitor with an air of inquiry.

"Madam," said the officer doffing his cap and overcome by her dignity, "I have come to claim your horses in the name of the Government."

"My horses?" said she, bending upon him a pair of eyes born to command. "Sir, you cannot have them. My crops are out and I need my horses in the field."

"I am sorry," said the officer, "but I must have them, madam. Such are the orders of my chief."

"Your chief? Who is your chief, pray?" she demanded with restrained warmth.

"The commander of the American army, General George Washington," replied the other, squaring his shoulders and swelling his pride.

A smile of triumph softened the sternness of the woman's features. "You go and tell General George Washington for me," said she, "that his mother says he cannot have her horses."

The wagons of "the greatest show on earth" passed up the avenue at daybreak. Their incessant rumbling soon awakened ten-year-old Billie and five-year-old brother Robert. Their mother feigned sleep as the two white-robed figures crept past her bed into the hall, on the way to investigate. Robert struggled manfully with the unaccustomed task of putting on his clothes. "Wait for me, Billie," his mother heard him beg. "You'll get ahead of me."

"Get mother to help you," counseled Billie, who was having troubles of his own.

Mother started to the rescue, and then paused as she heard the voice of her younger, guarded but anxious and insistent.

"You ask her, Billie. You've known her longer than I have."

A little girl, being punished by her mother flew, white with rage, to her desk, wrote on a piece of paper, and then going out in the yard she dug a hole in the ground, put the paper in it and covered it over. The mother, being interested in her child's doings, went out after the little girl had gone away, dug up the paper and read:

Dear Devil: Please come and take my mamma away.

One morning a little girl hung about the kitchen bothering the busy cook to death. The cook lost patience finally. "Clear out o' here, ye sassy little brat!" she shouted, thumping the table with a rolling-pin.

The little girl gave the cook a haughty look. "I never allow any one but my mother to speak to me like that," she said.

The public-spirited lady met the little boy on the street. Something about his appearance halted her. She stared at him in her near-sighted way.

THE LADY—"Little boy, haven't you any home?"

THE LITTLE BOY—"Oh, yes'm; I've got a home."

THE LADY—"And loving parents?"

THE LITTLE BOY—"Yes'm."

THE LADY—"I'm afraid you do not know what love really is. Do your parents look after your moral welfare?"

THE LITTLE BOY—"Yes'm."

THE LADY—"Are they bringing you up to be a good and helpful citizen?"

THE LITTLE BOY—"Yes'm."

THE LADY—"Will you ask your mother to come and hear me talk on 'When Does a Mother's Duty to Her Child Begin?' next Saturday afternoon, at three o'clock, at Lyceum Hall?"

THE LITTLE BOY (explosively)—"What's th' matter with you ma! Don't you know me? I'm your little boy!"

Here's to the happiest hours of my life— Spent in the arms of another man's wife: My mother!

Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall, He shall not blind his soul with clay.

—Tennyson.

Women know The way to rear up children (to be just); They know a simple, merry, tender knack Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, And stringing pretty words that make no sense, And kissing full sense into empty words; Which things are corals to cut life upon, Although such trifles.

—E. B. Browning



MOTHERS-IN-LAW

Justice David J. Brewer was asked not long ago by a man.

"Will you please tell me, sir, what is the extreme penalty for bigamy?"

Justice Brewer smiled and answered:

"Two mothers-in-law."

SHE—"And so you are going to be my son-in-law?"

HE—"By Jove! I hadn't thought of that."

WAITER—"Have another glass, sir?"

HUSBAND (to his wife)—"Shall I have another glass, Henrietta?"

WIFE (to her mother)—"Shall he have another, mother?"

A blackmailer wrote the following to a wealthy business man: "Send me $5,000 or I will abduct your mother-in-law."

To which the business man replied: "Sorry I am short of funds, but your proposition interests me."

An undertaker telegraphed to a man that his mother-in-law had died and asked whether he should bury, embalm or cremate her. The man replied, "All three, take no chances."



MOTORCYCLES

The automobile was a thing unheard of to a mountaineer in one community, and he was very much astonished one day when he saw one go by without any visible means of locomotion. His eyes bulged, however, when a motorcycle followed closely in its wake and disappeared like a flash around a bend in the road.

"Gee whiz!" he said, turning to his son, "who'd 'a' s'posed that thing had a colt?"



MOUNTAINS

Some real-estate dealers in British Columbia were accused of having victimized English and Scotch settlers by selling to them (at long range) fruit ranches which were situated on the tops of mountains. It is said that the captain of a steamboat on Kootenay Lake once heard a great splash in the water. Looking over the rail, he spied the head of a man who was swimming toward his boat. He hailed him. "Do you know," said the swimmer, "this is the third time to-day that I've fallen off that bally old ranch of mine?"



MOVING PICTURES

"Your soldiers look fat and happy. You must have a war chest." "Not exactly, but things are on a higher plane than they used to be. This revolution is being financed by a moving-picture concern."



MUCK-RAKING

The way of the transgressor is well written up.



MULES

Gen. O.O. Howard, as is well known, is a man of deep religious principles, and in the course of the war he divided his time pretty equally between fighting and evangelism. Howard's brigade was known all through the army as the Christian brigade, and he was very proud of it.

There was one hardened old sinner in the brigade, however, whose ears were deaf to all exhortation. General Howard was particularly anxious to convert this man, and one day he went down in the teamsters' part of the camp where the man was on duty. He talked with him long and earnestly about religion and finally said:

"I want to see you converted. Won't you come to the mourners' bench at the next service?"

The erring one rubbed his head thoughtfully for a moment and then replied:

"General, I'm plumb willin' to be converted, but if I am, seein' that everyone else has got religion, who in blue blazes is goin' to drive the mules?"



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT

"What's the trouble in Plunkville?"

"We've tried a mayor and we've tried a commission."

"Well?"

"Now we're thinking of offering the management of our city to some good magazine."



MUSEUMS

It had been anything but an easy afternoon for the teacher who took six of her pupils through the Museum of Natural History, but their enthusiastic interest in the stuffed animals and their open-eyed wonder at the prehistoric fossils amply repaid her.

"Well, boys, where have you been all afternoon?" asked the father of two of the party that evening.

The answer came back with joyous promptness: "Oh, pop! Teacher took us to a dead circus."

Two Marylanders, who were visiting the National Museum at Washington, were seen standing in front of an Egyptian mummy, over which hung a placard bearing the inscription. "B.C. 1187."

Both visitors were much mystified thereby. Said one:

"What do you make of that, Bill?"

"Well," said Bill, "I dunno; but maybe it was the number of the motor-car that killed him."—Edwin Tarrisse.



MUSIC

The musical young woman who dropped her peekaboo waist in the piano player and turned out a Beethoven sonata, has her equal in the lady who stood in front of a five-bar fence and sang all the dots on her veil.

A thief broke into a Madison avenue mansion early the other morning and found himself in the music-room. Hearing footsteps approaching, he took refuge behind a screen.

From eight to nine o'clock the eldest daughter had a singing lesson.

From nine to ten o'clock the second daughter took a piano lesson.

From ten to eleven o'clock the eldest son had a violin lesson.

From eleven to twelve o'clock the other son had a lesson on the flute.

At twelve-fifteen all the brothers and sisters assembled and studied an ear-splitting piece for voice, piano, violin and flute.

The thief staggered out from behind the screen at twelve-forty-five, and falling at their feet, cried:

"For Heaven's sake, have me arrested!"

A lady told Swinburne that she would render on the piano a very ancient Florentine retornello which had just been discovered. She then played "Three blind mice" and Swinburne was enchanted. He found that it reflected to perfection the cruel beauty of the Medicis—which, perhaps, it does.—Edmund Gosse.

The accomplished and obliging pianist had rendered several selections, when one of the admiring group of listeners in the hotel parlor suggested Mozart's Twelfth Mass. Several people echoed the request, but one lady was particularly desirous of hearing the piece, explaining that her husband had belonged to that very regiment.

Dinner was a little late. A guest asked the hostess to play something. Seating herself at the piano, the good woman executed a Chopin nocturne with precision. She finished, and there was still an interval of waiting to be bridged. In the grim silence she turned to an old gentleman on her right and said:

"Would you like a sonata before going in to dinner?"

He gave a start of surprise and pleasure as he responded briskly:

"Why, yes, thanks! I had a couple on my way here, but I could stand another."

Music is the universal language of mankind.—Longfellow.

I even think that, sentimentally, I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune.—Charles Lamb.

There's music in the sighing of a reed; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if men had ears: Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.

—Byron.



MUSICIANS

FATHER—"Well, sonny, did you take your dog to the 'vet' next door to your house, as I suggested?"

BOY—"Yes, sir."

FATHER-"And what did he say?"

BOY—"'E said Towser was suffering from nerves, so Sis had better give up playin' the pianner."

The "celebrated pianiste," Miss Sharpe, had concluded her recital. As the resultant applause was terminating, Mrs. Rochester observed Colonel Grayson wiping his eyes. The old gentleman noticed her look, and, thinking it one of inquiry, began to explain the cause of his sadness. "The girl's playing," he told the lady, "reminded me so much of the playing of her father. He used to be a chum of mine in the Army of the Potomac."

"Oh, indeed!" cooed Mrs. Rochester, with a conventional show of interest. "I never knew her father was a piano-player."

"He wasn't," replied the Colonel. "He was a drummer."—G.T. Evans.

Recipe for an orchestra leader:

Four hundred and twenty-two movements— Emanuel, Swedish and Swiss— It's a wonder the hand can keep playing, You'd think they'd die laughing at this!

—Life.

'Tis God gives skill, But not without men's hands: He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio.

—George Eliot.



NAMES, PERSONAL

Israel Zangwill, the well-known writer, signs himself I. Zangwill. He was once approached at a reception by a fussy old lady, who demanded, "Oh, Mr. Zangwill, what is your Christian name?"

"Madame, I have none," he gravely assured her.—John Pearson.

FRIEND-"So your great Russian actor was a total failure?"

MANAGER-"Yes. It took all our profits to pay for running the electric light sign with his name on it."—Puck.

A somewhat unpatriotic little son of Italy, twelve years old, came to his teacher in the public school and asked if he could not have his name changed.

"Why do you wish to change your name?" the teacher asked.

"I want to be an American. I live in America now. I no longer want to be a Dago."

"What American name would you like to have?"

"I have it here," he said, handing the teacher a dirty scrap of paper on which was written—Patrick Dennis McCarty.

A shy young man once said to a young lady: "I wish dear, that we were on such terms of intimacy that you would not mind calling me by my first name."

"Oh," she replied, "your second name is good enough for me."

An American travelling in Europe engaged a courier. Arriving at an inn in Austria, the man asked his servant to enter his name in accordance with the police regulations of that country. Some time after, the man asked the servant if he had complied with his orders.

"Yes, sir," was the reply.

"How did you write my name?" asked the master.

"Well, sir, I can't pronounce it," answered the servant, "but I copied it from your portmanteau, sir."

"Why, my name isn't there. Bring me the book." The register was brought, and, instead of the plain American name of two syllables, the following entry was revealed:

"Monsieur Warranted Solid Leather."

—M.A. Hitchcock.

The story is told of Helen Hunt, the famous author of "Ramona," that one morning after church service she found a purse full of money and told her pastor about it.

"Very well," he said, "you keep it, and at the evening service I will announce it," which he did in this wise:

"This morning there was found in this church a purse filled with money. If the owner is present he or she can go to Helen Hunt for it."

And the minister wondered why the congregation tittered!

A street-car "masher" tried in every way to attract the attention of the pretty young girl opposite him. Just as he had about given up, the girl, entirely unconscious of what had been going on, happened to glance in his direction. The "masher" immediately took fresh courage.

"It's cold out to-day, isn't it?" he ventured.

The girl smiled and nodded assent, but had nothing to say.

"My name is Specknoodle," he volunteered.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she said sympathetically, as she left the car.

The comedian came on with affected diffidence.

"At our last stand," quoth he, "I noticed a man laughing while I was doing my turn. Honest, now! My, how he laughed! He laughed until he split. Till he split, mind you. Thinks I to myself, I'll just find out about the man and so, when the show was over, I went up to him.

"My friend," says I, "I've heard that there's nothing in a name, but are you not one of the Wood family?"

"I am," says he, "and what's more, my grandfather was a Pine!"

"No Wood, you know, splits any easier than a Pine."—Ramsey Benson.

"But Eliza," said the mistress, "your little boy was christened George Washington. Why do you call him Izaak Walton? Walton, you know, was the famous fisherman."

"Yes'm," answered Eliza, "but dat chile's repetashun fo' telling de troof made dat change imper'tive."

The mother of the girl baby, herself named Rachel, frankly told her husband that she was tired of the good old names borne by most of the eminent members of the family, and she would like to give the little girl a name entirely different. Then she wrote on a slip of paper "Eugenie," and asked her husband if he didn't think that was a pretty name.

The father studied the name for a moment and then said: "Vell, call her Yousheenie, but I don't see vat you gain by it."

There was a great swell in Japan, Whose name on a Tuesday began; It lasted through Sunday Till twilight on Monday, And sounded like stones in a can.

He was a young lawyer who had just started practicing in a small town and hung his sign outside of his office door. It read: "A. Swindler." A stranger who called to consult him saw the sign and said: "My goodness, man, look at that sign! Don't you see how it reads? Put in your first name—Alexander, Ambrose or whatever it is."

"Oh, yes I know," said the lawyer resignedly, "but I don't exactly like to do it."

"Why not?" asked the client. "It looks mighty bad as it is. What is your first name?"

"Adam."

Who hath not own'd, with rapture-smitten frame, The power of grace, the magic of a name.

—Campbell.



NATIVES

FRIEND (admiring the prodigy)—"Seventh standard, is she? Plays the planner an' talks French like a native, I'll bet."

FOND BUT "TOUCHY" PARENT—"I've no doubt that's meant to be very funny, Bill Smith; but as it 'appens you're only exposin' your ignorance; they ain't natives in France—they're as white as wot we are."—Sketch.



NATURE LOVERS

"Would you mind tooting your factory whistle a little?"

"What for?"

"For my father over yonder in the park. He's a trifle deaf and he hasn't heard a robin this summer."



NAVIGATION

The fog was dense and the boat had stopped when the old lady asked the Captain why he didn't go on.

"Can't see up the river, madam."

"But, Captain," she persisted, "I can see the stars overhead."

"Yes, ma'am," said the Captain, "but until the boilers bust we ain't goin' that way."



NEATNESS

The neatness of the New England housekeeper is a matter of common remark, and husbands in that part of the country are supposed to appreciate their advantages.

A bit of dialogue reported as follows shows that there may be another side to the matter.

"Martha, have you wiped the sink dry yet?" asked the farmer, as he made final preparations for the night.

"Yes, Josiah," she replied. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I did want a drink, but I guess I can get along until morning."



NEGROES

A colored girl asked the drug clerk for "ten cents' wuth o' cou't-plaster."

"What color," he asked.

"Flesh cullah, suh."

Whereupon the clerk proffered a box of black court plaster.

The girl opened the box with a deliberation that was ominous, but her face was unruffled as she noted the color of the contents and said:

"I ast for flesh cullah, an' you done give me skin cullah." A cart containing a number of negro field hands was being drawn by a mule. The driver, a darky of about twenty, was endeavoring to induce the mule to increase its speed, when suddenly the animal let fly with its heels and dealt him such a kick on the head that he was stretched on the ground in a twinkling. He lay rubbing his woolly pate where the mule had kicked him.

"Is he hurt?" asked a stranger anxiously of an older negro who had jumped from the conveyance and was standing over the prostrate driver.

"No, Boss," was the older man's reply; "dat mule will probably walk kind o' tendah for a day or two, but he ain't hurt."

In certain parts of the West Indies the negroes speak English with a broad brogue. They are probably descended from the slaves of the Irish adventurers who accompanied the Spanish settlers.

A gentleman from Dublin upon arriving at a West Indian port was accosted by a burly negro fruit vender with, "Th, top uv th' mornin' to ye, an' would ye be after wantin' to buy a bit o' fruit, sor?"

The Irishman stared at him in amazement.

"An' how long have ye been here?" he finally asked.

"Goin' on three months, yer Honor," said the vender, thinking of the time he had left his inland home.

"Three months, is it? Only three months an' as black as thot? Faith, I'll not land!"

Dinah, crying bitterly, was coming down the street with her feet bandaged.

"Why, what on earth's the matter?" she was asked. "How did you hurt your feet, Dinah?"

"Dat good fo' nothin' nigger [sniffle] done hit me on de haid wif a club while I was standin' on de hard stone pavement."

"'Liza, what fo' yo' buy dat udder box of shoe-blacknin'?"

"Go on, Nigga', dat ain't shoe-blacknin', dat's ma massage cream!"

"Johnny," said the mother as she vigorously scrubbed the small boy's face with soap and water, "didn't I tell you never to blacken your face again? Here I've been scrubbing for half an hour and it won't come off."

"I—I—ouch!" sputtered the small boy; "I ain't your little boy. I—ouch! I'se Mose, de colored lady's little boy."

The day before she was to be married an old negro servant came to her mistress and intrusted her savings to her keeping.

"Why should I keep your money for you? I thought you were going to be married?" said the mistress.

"So I is, Missus, but do you 'spose I'd keep all dis yer money in de house wid dat strange nigger?"

A southern colonel had a colored valet by the name of George. George received nearly all the colonel's cast-off clothing. He had his eyes on a certain pair of light trousers which were not wearing out fast enough to suit him, so he thought he would hasten matters somewhat by rubbing grease on one knee. When the colonel saw the spot, he called George and asked if he had noticed it. George said, "Yes, sah, Colonel, I noticed dat spot and tried mighty hard to get it out, but I couldn't."

"Have you tried gasoline?" the colonel asked.

"Yes, sah, Colonel, but it didn't do no good."

"Have you tried brown paper and a hot iron?"

"Yes, sah, Colonel, I'se done tried 'mos' everything I knows of, but dat spot wouldn't come out."

"Well, George, have you tried ammonia?" the colonel asked as a last resort.

"No, sah, Colonel, I ain't tried 'em on yet, but I knows dey'll fit."

A negro went into a hardware shop and asked to be shown some razors, and after critically examining those submitted to him the would-be purchaser was asked why he did not try a "safety," to which he replied: "I ain' lookin' for that kind. I wants this for social purposes."

Before a house where a colored man had died, a small darkey was standing erect at one side of the door. It was about time for the services to begin, and the parson appeared from within and said to the darkey: "De services are about to begin. Aren't you a-gwine in?"

"I'se would if I'se could, parson," answered the little negro, "but yo' see I'se de crape."

See also Chicken stealing.



NEIGHBORS

THE MAN AT THE DOOR—"Madame, I'm the piano-tuner."

THE WOMAN—"I didn't send for a piano-tuner."

THE MAN—"I know it, lady; the neighbors did."



NEW JERSEY

"You must have had a terrible experience with no food, and mosquitoes swarming around you," I said to the shipwrecked mariner who had been cast upon the Jersey sands.

"You just bet I had a terrible experience," he acknowledged. "My experience was worse than that of the man who wrote 'Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.' With me it was bites, bites everywhere, but not a bite to eat."



NEW YORK CITY

At a convention of Methodist Bishops held in Washington, the Bishop of New York made a stirring address extolling the powers and possibilities of his state. Bishop Hamilton, of California, like all good Californians, is imbued with the conviction that it would be hard to equal a place he knows of on the Pacific, and following the Bishop of New York he gave a glowing picture of California, concluding:

"Not only is it the best place on earth to live in, but it has superior advantages, too, as a place to die in; for there we have at our threshold the beautiful Golden Gate, while in New York they only have—well, you know which gate it is over at New York!" One night Dave Warfield was playing at David Belasco's new theatre, supported by one of Mr. Belasco's new companies. The performance ran with a smoothness of a Standard Oil lawyer explaining rebates to a Federal court. A worthy person of the farming classes, sitting in G 14, was plainly impressed. In an interval between the acts he turned to the metropolitan who had the seat next him.

"Where do all them troopers come from?" he inquired.

"I don't think I understand," said the city-dweller.

"I mean them actors up yonder on the stage," explained the man from afar. "Was they brought on specially for this show, or do they live here?"

"I believe most of them live here in town," said the New Yorker.

"Well, they do purty blamed well for home talent," said the stranger.

A traveler in Tennessee came across an aged negro seated in front of his cabin door basking in the sunshine.

"He could have walked right on the stage for an Uncle Tom part without a line of makeup," says the traveler. "He must have been eighty years of age."

"Good morning, uncle," says the stranger.

"Mornin', sah! Mornin'," said the aged one. Then he added, "Be you the gentleman over yonder from New York?"

Being told that such was the case the old darky said; "Do you mind telling me something that has been botherin' my old haid? I have got a grandson—he runs on the Pullman cyars—and he done tell me that up thar in New York you-all burn up youah folks when they die. He is a poherful liar, and I don't believe him."

"Yes," replied the other, "that is the truth in some cases. We call it cremation."

"Well, you suttenly surprise me," said the negro and then he paused as if in deep reflection. Finally he said: "You-all know I am a Baptist. I believe in the resurrection and the life everlastin' and the coming of the Angel Gabriel and the blowin' of that great horn, and Lawdy me, how am they evah goin' to find them folks on that great mawnin'?"

It was too great a task for an offhand answer, and the suggestion was made that the aged one consult his minister. Again the negro fell into a brown study, and then he raised his head and his eyes twinkled merrily, and he said in a soft voice:

"Meanin' no offense, sah, but from what Ah have heard about New York I kinder calcerlate they is a lot of them New York people that doan' wanter be found on that mornin'."



NEWS

Soon after the installation of the telegraph in Fredericksburg, Virginia, a little darky, the son of my father's mammy, saw a piece of newspaper that had blown up on the telegraph wires and caught there. Running to my grandmother in a great state of excitement, he cried, "Miss Liza, come quick! Dem wires done buss and done let all the news out!"—Sue M.M. Halsey.

"Our whole neighborhood has been stirred up," said the regular reader.

The editor of the country weekly seized his pen. "Tell me about it," he said. "What we want is news. What stirred it up?"

"Plowing," said the farmer.

There is nothing new except what is forgotten.—Mademoiselle Berlin.



NEWSPAPERS

A kind old gentleman seeing a small boy who was carrying a lot of newspapers under his arm said: "Don't all those papers make you tired, my boy?"

"Naw, I don't read 'em," replied the lad.

VOX POPULI—"Do you think you've boosted your circulation by giving a year's subscription for the biggest potato raised in the county?"

THE EDITOR—"Mebbe not; but I got four barrels of samples."

COLONEL HIGHFLYER—"What are your rates per column?"

EDITOR OF "SWELL SOCIETY"—"For insertion or suppression?"—Life.

EDITOR—"You wish a position as a proofreader?"

APPLICANT—"Yes, sir."

"Do you understand the requirements of that responsible position?"

"Perfectly, sir. Whenever you make any mistakes in the paper, just blame 'em on me, and I'll never say a word."

A prominent Montana newspaper man was making the round of the insane asylum of that state in an official capacity as an inspector. One of the inmates mistook him for a recent arrival.

"What made you go crazy?"

"I was trying to make money out of the newspaper business," replied the editor, to humor the demented one.

"Rats, you're not crazy; you're just a plain darn fool," was the lunatic's comment.

"Did you write this report on my lecture, 'The Curse of Whiskey'?"

"Yes, madam."

"Then kindly explain what you mean by saying, 'The lecturer was evidently full of her subject!'"

We clip the following for the benefit of those who doubt the power of the press:

"Owing to the overcrowded condition of our columns, a number of births and deaths are unavoidably postponed this week."

"Binks has sued us for libel," announced the assistant editor of the sensational paper.

The managing editor's face brightened.

"Tell him," he said, "that if he will put up a strong fight we'll cheerfully pay the damages and charge them up to the advertising account."

Booth Tarkington says that in no state have the newspapers more "journalistic enterprise" than in his native Indiana. While stopping at a little Hoosier hotel in the course of a hunting trip Mr. Tarkington lost one of his dogs.

"Have you a newspaper in town?" he asked of the landlord.

"Right across the way, there, back of the shoemaker's," the landlord told him. "The Daily News—best little paper of its size in the state."

The editor, the printer, and the printer's devil were all busy doing justice to Mr. Tarkington with an "in-our-midst" paragraph when the novelist arrived.

"I've just lost a dog," Tarkington explained after he had introduced himself, "and I'd like to have you insert this ad for me: 'Fifty dollars reward for the return of a pointer dog answering to the name of Rex. Disappeared from the yard of the Mansion House Monday night.'"

"Why, we are just going to press, sir," the editor said, "but we'll be only too glad to hold the edition for your ad."

Mr. Tarkington returned to the hotel. After a few minutes he decided, however, that it might be well to add, "No questions asked" to his advertisement, and returned to the Daily News office.

The place was deserted, save for the skinny little freckle-faced devil, who sat perched on a high stool, gazing wistfully out of the window.

"Where is everybody?" Tarkington asked.

"Gawn to hunt for th' dawg," replied the boy.

"You are the greatest inventor in the world," exclaimed a newspaper man to Alexander Graham Bell.

"Oh, no, my friend, I'm not," said Professor Bell. "I've never been a reporter."

Not long ago a city editor in Ottumwa, Iowa, was told over the telephone that a prominent citizen had just died suddenly. He called a reporter and told him to rush out and get the "story." Twenty minutes later the reporter returned, sat down at his desk, and began to rattle off copy on his typewriter.

"Well, what about it?" asked the city editor.

"Oh, nothing much," replied the reporter, without looking up. "He was walking along the street when he suddenly clasped his hands to his heart and said, 'I'm going to die!' Then he leaned up against a fence and made good."

Enraged over something the local newspaper had printed about him, a subscriber burst into the editor's office in search of the responsible reporter. "Who are you?" he demanded, glaring at the editor, who was also the main stockholder.

"I'm the newspaper," was the calm reply.

"And who are you?" he next inquired, turning his resentful gaze on the chocolate-colored office-devil clearing out the waste basket.

"Me?" rejoined the darky, grinning from ear to ear. "Ah guess ah's de cul'ud supplement."

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.—Napoleon I.

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.—Charles Lamb.



OBESITY

See Corpulence.



OBITUARIES

If you have frequent fainting spells, accompanied by chills, cramps, corns, bunions, chilblains, epilepsy and jaundice, it is a sign that you are not well, but liable to die any minute. Pay your subscription in advance and thus make yourself solid for a good obituary notice.—Mountain Echo.

See also Epitaphs.



OBSERVATION

In his daily half hour confidential talk with his boy an ambitious father tried to give some good advice.

"Be observing, my son," said the father on one occasion. "Cultivate the habit of seeing, and you will be a successful man. Study things and remember them. Don't go through the world blindly. Learn to use your eyes. Boys who are observing know a great deal more than those who are not."

Willie listened in silence.

Several days later when the entire family, consisting of his mother, aunt and uncle, were present, his father said:

"Well, Willie, have you kept using your eyes as I advised you to do?"

Willie nodded, and after a moment's hesitation said:

"I've seen a few things right around the house. Uncle Jim's got a bottle of hair dye hid under his trunk, Aunt Jennie's got an extra set of teeth in her dresser, Ma's got some curls in her hat, and Pa's got a deck of cards and a box of chips behind the books in the secretary."



OCCUPATIONS

Mrs. Hennessey, who was a late arrival in the neighborhood, was entertaining a neighbor one afternoon, when the latter inquired:

"An' what does your old man do, Mrs. Hennessey?"

"Sure, he's a di'mond-cuttter."

"Ye don't mane it!"

"Yis; he cuts th' grass off th' baseball grounds."—L.F. Clarke.

All business men are apt to use the technical terms of their daily labors in situations outside of working hours. One time a railroad man was entertaining his pastor at dinner and his sons, who had to wait until their elders had finished got into mischief. At the end of the meal, their father excused himself for a moment saying he had to "switch some empties."

"Professor," said Miss Skylight, "I want you to suggest a course in life for me. I have thought of journalism—"

"What are your own inclinations?"

"Oh, my soul yearns and throbs and pulsates with an ambition to give the world a life-work that shall be marvelous in its scope, and weirdly entrancing in the vastness of its structural beauty!"

"Woman, you're born to be a milliner."

A woman, when asked her husband's occupation, said he was a mixologist. The city directory called him a bartender.

"A good turkey dinner and mince pie," said a well-known after-dinner orator, "always puts us in a lethargic mood—makes us feel, in fact, like the natives of Nola Chucky. In Nola Chucky one day I said to a man: