Flashes of Fun.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1659, 12 June 1875, Page 5 (Supplement)

Flashes of Fun.

The man who was driien to distraction had to walk back. ' I hate to bear people talk behind one's back,' as the robber said when the constable called, 'Stop thief!' A barrister observed to a learned brother in court, the other day, that the wearing of whiskers was 'unprofessional. ' Sight,' re: plied hia friend, ' a lawyer cannot be too barefaced.' What is the difference between water and time ? —Water finds its own level, while time levels everything else. A blacksmith brought up hh son, to whom he was very severe, to his trade. One day tho old man was trying to harden a cold chisel, which he had made of foreign steel, but he could not succeed. 'Horsewhip it father,' exclaimed the young one; 'ifthat will not harden it, I don't know what will.' Mrs. Dobbs, upon being summoned to 'court as a witness, asked her husband what; she should say if the lawyers inquired her age. ' Say, madam ?' replied her husband, ' why, tell them you have not yet reached the yeara of discretion.' An Irishman attending the University of Edinburgh waited upon one of the most celebrated teachers o£ the German flute, desiring to know on what terms lie would give him a few lessons. The flute-player informed him that he generally charged two, guineas forth^ first mouth, and one for the second. 'Then sure,' replied the cunning Hibernian, ' I'll come in the second month.' Seemons and Salutations. A good sermon is like a kiss —it requires but two heads and a little application. 'Oh ! Nanny, wilt thou gang, wi' me ?' as the fellow said when he was trying to steal the goat. The amusing performances of some of the lucky .Australian diggers, who never possessed property before, are scarcely credible. The best story we have heard is of a digger who came down with £700, and paid a man Bs. a day as his companion to spend it. A Good Shot. Two passengers coming down the Mississipi in a steamboat, were amusing themselves with shooting birds on shore from the deck. Some sporting converse ensued. One remarked that he would turn his back to no man in killing racoons— that he had repeatedly shot fifty a day. ' What o' that, said a Kentuckian, I make nothing of killing a hundred 'coon a day, ordinary luck.' 'Do you know Captain Scott of our State ?' asked a Tonnessean bystander, ' he, now, is something like a shot. A hundred 'coon ! why he never pints at one without hitting him. He never misses, and the 'coon knew it. T'other day he levelled at an old 'un, in a high tree ; the varmint looked at him a minute, and then bawled out, ' Halloo, Cap'n Scott! is that you?' 'Yes,'waßthd reply. 'Well, pray don't shoot, I'll come down to you—l'll give in—l'm dead beat.'' A scholar of Dr. Bushby's coming into the parlour where the doctor had laid a fine bunch of grapes for his own eating, teok it up. and said aloud, ' I publish the banns between these grapes and ray mouth; if any one knows any just cause or impediment why these two should not be joined together, let them now declare it.' The doctor being in, the next room, overheard all that was said, and coming into school, he ordered the boy who had eaten his grapes to be taken up, or as they called it, horsed on another boy's back; but before he proceeded to the ÜBual discipline, he cried out aloud, as the delinquent had done ; I publish the banns between my rod and this boy's breech, if any one knows any just cause or impediment why these two should not be joined together, let them declare it.' 'I forbid the banns,'cried the boy. ' Why so ?' said the doctor. *' Because the parties are not agreed,'replied the boy, which answer so pleased the doctor, who loved to find any readiness of wit in his scholars, that he ordered the boy to be set down. CotraTiNa m Russii. —Courting has all the zest of extreme difficulty surrounding it. At a ball, the papas and mammas attend their daughters, watching them with unceasing vigilance.: A young gentleman approaches, selects his partuer and whirls away in the Mazurka. Its rapid violent exercise doeßn't permit the whispering of those sweet phrases which make half the attraction of our American waltzing. Fancy this, now; ' M-hy-dar-hiling Nehellie ; I-am-so-ha-apy to be ne-near yo-hou!' delivered in spasmodic panting, while the fair one, with her whole energies concentrated on her steps, would gasp out a suitable reply. Touching, isn't it ? Making love that way would be objectionable, and as soon as the dance is over mademoiselle must be conducted back, to her chaperon. A veteran says that, although his clerks are very talkative during the day, they are always ready to shut up at night. . In response to an inquiry, 'How shall 1 keep my husband at home in the evenings ? the reply is made, 'Take a club and try to drive him oat.' When the crowded omnibus drives up to a fine three-story mansion, one of the young women, getting out invariably and artlessly remarks, ' Home at last!' An impudent adventurer having married en heiress, a wit remarked that the bridegroom'! brass was outshone by the bride's tin, .. .