Odds and Ends.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 701, 10 November 1909, Page 7

Odds and Ends.

Mistress: "A penny for your thoughts, Nora." Cook: "That's just what 'I was thinking of." Mistress: "Explain, Nora." Cook: "Why, ma'am, I was thinking of a^copper.'"

Lady Golfing Enthusiast: "Myrtylla is really and truly our champion golfer." Looker-On: "Nonsense!" Golfing Enthusiast: "Oh, yes she is. She has never been round the links without getting a proposal."

Scientific Parent (on a stroll) :"You see out there in the street, my son, a simple illustration of a principle in mechanics. The man with that cart pushes it in front of him. Can you guess the reason why ? Probably not. 1 will ask him. Note his answer, my son."

To the Coster: "My good man, why do you push that cart instead of pulling it?" Coster: '"Cause I ain't a boss, yer old thickhead."

"Look here," exclaimed the angry man, as he rushed into the estate agent's office, "that plot L bought from « you yesterday is thirty feet under water !" ' r _ "Pardon my oversight," apologiked the gentlemanly agent. "We give a diving-suit with each plot. I will send yours to you to-day."

"I once had a most peculiar case," said a celebrated occulist. "Every time this patient started to read; he would read double No, he was a sober man!" "Poor fellow!" remarked a listener. "It must have interfered sadly with his progress in the world." "Not at all," responded the occu-. list. "A gas company gave him <* lucrative post—he went about checking the meters!"

A black pastor in a church in Texas got a present of an umbrella from his congregation, but the following Sunday someone stole it. The pastor did not know who stole it, but when addressing the congregation he said- he knew who took it, but he did not wish to expose the thief before the congregation, and if the culprit would throw it over his garden wall that night he would say no more about it.

He was surprised the following morning when he could' not open his back door for umbrellas.

Three -witnesses—a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and an Irishman—were asked for their definitions as to what constituted a gentleman. "A gentleman," said the Frenchman, "is a man that has five counts in his family." "No," said the Dutchman. A gentleman is a man that never gives pain to his fellow-creatures." "A gintleman," said Pat. "is a man that asks you to come hi, that gets out the whiskv and tells you to help your-, self, and walks away to the window while you're doing it!"

LIFE IN THE SUBURBS. "Yes," sighed the suburban 'man, who had just moved in, "at my place I had the prettiest little garden that ever bloomed until my neighbour's chickens scratched the roots up." "And did you kick?" asked his new acquaintance. • "You bet! I. got a big tomcat that soon made mincemeat of his chickens." "What then?"

"Whv, the next I knew he had bought a ferocious bulldog to watch for my * Tom." • , , "H'm! And did that end the trouble?" ' , "Oh. no ! I borrowed a wolf from an animal trainer to kill the bulldog." "War to the knife, eh? What was the next chapter in the feud ?" "There was none. I heard that he was about to purchase a tiger to kill mv wolf, and as I couldn't afford the price of an elephant to kill his tiger I thought it best to=move."

THE SPIRITUAL LINE. A good story is told of a very sedate doctor of divinity. When returning bv train from a Church Congress, a fel-low-passenger undertook to draw him into conversation, and so far succeeded that the reverend gentleman asked him to what profession he happened to belong. ~ "Oh," said the layman, cheerfully, "I'm in the cotton line." "Oh. indeed !" replied the clergyman, urbanely; "there is a good deal of business going on in that branch iust now, I understand." "First-class," said the layman, with a cunning smile. "And may I ask what is your line?" "I," said the clergyman, patromsinglv, with the nearest approach to a. joke he was ever known to perpetrate, "I am in the spiritual line." "Blest if I didn't think so/' exclaimed his companion,,, knowingly; and, putting one hand on the doctor s knee, he leaned forward eagerly, and addded, with an indescribable wink, "but, I say, what a price you have got gin up to!" •

DID NOT REQUIRE AN EXPERT. A well-known man in a. town not far from London discovered one morning recently on entering bis office that his safe was out of order". He immediately telegraphed to the Metropolis for an expert. When the latter arrived he found that the safe—an old-fashioned affair, locked with a key—could not be opened. After a hasty examination the expert, taking a piece of wire, dug out from the key a mass of dust and lint. He then opened the safe in the twinkling of an eye. The business man wore a sickly smile as he asked, meekly—"How much?" "Three pounds." "Do any of your firm's patrons here know of your visit?" "Not a soul but yourself." "ThenV added the business man. "here's five pounds. I'll take it as a great favour if you'll go back by the first train. If anyone in this town knew that I had paid a man three pounds to dig dirt out of a key for me I'd never do another shilling's worth of business in the whole town."