AMUSING.

Bruce Herald, Volume XII, Issue 1105, 18 April 1879, Page 3

AMUSING.

» During cholera times, an undertaker, being asked by lady who was employing him at some household work, whether ke would have a glass now or wait till he had finished the job. " I'll takin' the glass noo, mem," said the artisan, "for there's been a power o 5 sudden deaths lately." Doctor Johnson said that a small boy could climb an apple tree, fill his pockets and get off with .'mpunity ; but the moment a biy boy tried to do it the lnnb broke, and so did the boy's arm, and all the pious people said it was a judgment. The real difficulty, however, lay in the size >">f the boy. '' He's a man after my own heart, pa," said Julia, reverting to her Charles Augustus. •' Nonsense," replied the old practical, "Heis a man af-er the nioiey your uncle left you." And then all was quiet, A courteous old clergyman, being told a very tough story, said : — " Since you were an eyewitnes, I fuppose I must believe you, but 1 don't think I'd have believed it if I had seen it myself." Brown, meeting Jones, his friend, and seeing him look very miserable, said " Hullo, old man ', "why, you've a face just fit for a funeral." "So I ought to have," replied Jones, "considering I've just had an execution in my house." A little boy entered a fish market the other day, and seeing for the first time a pile of lobsters lying on the counter, looked intently at them for some time, when he exclaimed : "By gracious! them's the biggest grasshoppers I've e>er seen." " Clergymen," remarks an exchange, " like railway brakemen do a great deal of coupling." Ay, yes ; and then the coupled ones do all the switching. A gentleman asked a friend, in a very knowing manner, •' Pray, did you ever see a cat-fish ?' " No," was the response, "but I have seen a rope-walk^ A man who went into stock speculations was met by a friend, who asked him if he had made anything. " Yes;" said he, " I made an assignment this morning." The best thing ever said of ghosts was said by Coleridge, when asked by a lady if he believed in them. " No, madam ; I have seen too many to believe in them." A husband who only opposed his wife's ill-humour by silence was told by a friend that he " was afraid of his wife." "It is not she I am afraid of," replied the husband ; " it is the noise." Did you ever sit down before the grate and cross your legs and wonder how it comes thai a dear little toddling youngster, too small to life a dictionary, can ask questions that would send a college professor to the foot of the class 1 That was a rare freak of the carpenter who ran through the streets with his hands about three feet asunder, held up befoie him, begging the passers-by not to disturb him, 'as he had got the measure of a doorwaj with him." An lowa lady his the ral f qu re on :he head when, in wr-inn^ upo:> thy women fuff'<age qu'S-ioii, flic (*iy< — "You may look at 'he mat<r in whatever light, jou will, bu« s min< r is d'wn, and it ih but a quurrei vuih'h*' Almighty lhat we are uot ail meu." A farmer's wife meeting one of her neighbours returning from market, ia quired, " What do they pay for <«gs at maiket now T " 1 get. on y eight cents a d< zen for mine," he replied. " Eight cents a dozen !" s;tid the indignant dame. " Well 1 shiill not sell n»y eggs for eight cents— it don't pay foe the wear and Uar of the hen ! " A drawing-master in Edinburgh, vho had been worrying a j,u|-il with contemptuous remarks about his deficiency of skill in the use of the peDcii, ended by saying, ' If you were to draw me, for example, tell me what part you would draw first]" The pupil with a signi6cant meaning in his eye, looked up in his master's face, and quietly said, " Your neck, sir." The Duchess of Newcastle— the famous lady who wrote many plays and romances in the most extravagant taste of the reign of Charles 11., asked Bishop Wilkins how she could get up to the world he had dis* covered in the moon ; for, as the way must needs be long, a person travelling thither ■would require to have some resting places by the way. " Oh, madam," said the bishop, '-your Grace, who has buiit so many castles in the air, can be at no loss." A lieutenant of the 10th United States infantry recently met with a sad rebuff at Fort Kearney. The lieutenant was promanading in full uniform one day, and approached a volunteer on sentry, who challenged him with " Halt ! who comes here !" The lieutenant, with contempt in every lineament of his face expressed his feelings with an indignant "Ass!" The sentry's »eply, apt, and quick came—" Advance, Ass, and give the countersign "