FUN AND FANCY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2481, 17 May 1909, Page 8

FUN AND FANCY.

“Can’t I go and play in the garden, mamma?” “Certainly not, - Willie. You must stay in and study your nature books. ’ ’

“Is the new filing system a success?” “Great!” “And how’s business?” “Oh, we’ve stopped business to attend to the filing system.” “Maude was afraid the girls wouldn't notice her engagement ring.” “Did they?’’ “Did they! Six of them recognised it at once.”

Young Man : Why do you advise Miss Smith to go abroad to study music? You know she has no talent. Old Man: 1 live next door to Miss Smith.

Johnson: “And you mean to say that Miss Paley is engaged at last?” Miss Flip: “So I hear.” “And who’s the happy man?”—“Her father, they tell me.” “My dear friend, I beg you to lend me fifty dollars,” wrote a needy man to an acquaintance, “and then forget me forever. I am not worthy to be remembered.”

“Are we alone?” asked one of the villains of the piece of his brother conspirator. “No, guv’nor,” came a voice from the gallery, “but you will be to-morrow night.” “What do you think!” exclaimed the theatrical star, proudly. “They are going to name a new cigar after me.” “Well,” rejoined the manager, “I hope it will draw better than you do.”

Mrs Heupeck: “There’s no use in your trying to dispute what I say; I’m determined to have the last word.” Mr Henpeck: “I’m quite willing you should, my dear, only do have it soon.” He: “So your father thought I wanted to marry you for your money. What did you say?” She: “I persuaded him that you didn’t, and then he said if that was the case you had no sense.” “What part am I to take?” said Chappie. “You arc to be the heroine’s father,” replied the stage manager. “What does he do?” “He dies ten years before the curtain rises on the first act.”

Ho “Can you explain to me the difference between ‘shall’ and ‘will’? For example, if I say, ‘Will yon marry me?’ should you reply, T shall’ or ‘I will’?” Sho (coldly): “I should reply, T won’t.’ ” “Oh, my dear, you should not be frightened and run from the goat. Don’t you know you are a little Christian Scientist?” “But, mamma,” exclaimed the little girl, “the billygoat doesn’t know it.” Husband: “What! Another new dress?” Wife : “Well, don’t be so cross. I bought it with my own money.” Husband: “Your own? Where did you get it from?” Wife: “I sold your fur coat.” “What an admirable invention the telegram is!” she exclaimed, “when you come vo consider that this message has come a distance of thousands of miles, and the gum on the envelope isn’t dry yet.” “Willie,” said the Sunday school teacher, “can you tell me the difference between the quick and the dead?” “Yes, miss. The quick is them as gets out of the way of motor cars, and the dead is them as doesn’t.” “Mamma, I want some water to christen my doll,” said Ethel. “No, dear,” answered her mother, reprovingly, “it’s wrong to make sport of such things.” “Then I want some wax to waxinate her She’s old enough to have something done.” “Do you think we ought to hav*i bigger army and a larger navy?” “Dh, yes,” replied the beautiful girl. “It would be so nice if all the boys at the dances could appear in uniform, with epaulettes and braided collars.”

The other-people’s-business man persisted in trying to extract information from a prosperous-looking elderly man next him in the Pullman smoker. “How many people work in your office?” he asked. “Oh,’’ said the elderly man, getting inp and throwing away his cigar, ‘‘l should say, at a rough guess, about two-thirds of them.”

The girl was a recent importation from the Emerald Isle. “Mary,” said her mistress one day, “what are you doing with that clock?” Mary (with the servants’ bedroom clock under her arm): “Plaze, mum, Oi’m takin’ it to a watchmaker’s. It’s all out hv order, mum. Ivery morning at foivo o’clock it goes all pv pieces an’ makes such a racket Oi can’t slape.” The teacher was giving a geography lesson, and the class, having travelled from London to Labrador, and from Thessaly to Timbuctoo, was thoroughly worn out. “And now,” said the teacher, “we come to Germany, that important country governed by the Kaiser. Tommy Jones, what is a Kaiser?” “Please, ’m,” yawned Tommy Jones, “a stream o’ hot water springin’ up an’ disturbin' the earth!” Pat got a job moving some kegs of powder, and, to the alarm of the foreman, was discovered smoking at his work. “Gracious!” exclaimed the foreman. “Do you know what happened when a man smoked at this job some years ago? There was an explosion which blew up a dozen men.” “That couldn’t happen here,” returned Pat calmly. “Why not?” “ Cos there’s only me and you!” was the reply. Hayti was in the midst of a revolution. Two armed bodies were approaching each other, and a third was about to be caught between them. The commander of the third party saw the predicament. On the right Government troops, on the left insurgents. “General, why do you not give the order to fire?” asked an aide-de-camp. “I should like to,” responded the General, “but great Scott, I can’t remember on which side we’re fighting!” There is a certain business man of a rather waggish disposition who says that his wife has no imagination. At dinner one night he chanced to mention a tragic circumstance he had read in the evening paper on his way home. A passenger on a transatlantic steamer had fallen overboard in mid-ocean and he had never been seen again. “Was he drowned?” asked, his wife. “Of course not,” answered the irrepressible hubby; “but he sprained h:s ankle, I believe.”