Wit and Humour.

Evening Post, Volume LII, Issue 59, 1 August 1896, Page 2

Wit and Humour.

The sign in High-street of Exeter said simply: "Umbrellas Recovered." Old Wayback, when he was " seem' the sights," discovered that sign. He hesitated a moment and then went in. Said he : " Plaize, zur, I want you to recover my umbrella." "All right," replied the workman, "where is it?" Old Wayback looked' at him in astonishment and drawled out, "«Ef I knowed that I'd recover it fer myself." "Little boy," said the young man on the rear saddle of the tandem, "if you'll never sing out ' On a bicycle built for two ' when you see one of those maohines again I'll give you a pocketful of candy." " I'll take it," replied the boy. " It's a bargain." "Here it is. Come and get it." The reader will be pained to learn that the next time the tandem made its appearance in that neighbourhood, it was greeted by 30 or 40 boys who sang with great enthusiasm a song about a bicycle built for two. "Who is that sour-lookirig man who is always sitting on that store box doing nothing?" asked the drummer. "He's the man that knows all about how ter ssttle every trouble that the country gets inter," replied the native with an admiring glance. "But why doesn't he get up and bustle then ?" "He's mad," was the awe-strioken whisper. "He told Congress and the President and everybody how to do things, and they didn't pay no 'tention to 'im, an' now he's jest settin' in silence an' lettin' the country go to pot." " Defuelisation " is a new word added to the American " language." It occurs in a story told by Senator Palmer about an Illinois farmer who for several years had been selling him wood at six dollars a cord. " Thiß year," remarked the Senator, "he came to me with a load,* and I told him that I did not want it. He offered it at two dollari a cord. I still refused it, and he wanted to know why I wouldn't take it at two dollars. I told him I was using soft coal, for which I paid one dollar 37 cents a ton. ' I heard you were trying to demonetise silver,' he remarked, sadly, ' but now you're trying to defuelise wood.' " Pat's answer. — The Irishman, when called upon to reason out a problem, often makes a short cut to the answer, and thereby proves that " brevity is the soul of wit," One day, as Pat, a water-carrier, who supplied the little village with water from the river halted at the top of the bank, a man, famous for his inquisitive mind, stopped and asked, "How long have you hauled water for the village, my good man?" "Tin years or more, sor," was the ready answer. "Ah! How many loads do you take in a day ?" " From tin to fifteen, sor." "Ah, yes, now I havi; a problem for you. How much water at that rate have you hauled in all, sir?" Pat promptly jerked his thumb backward towards the river, and replied, " All the wather yez don't see there now, sor." Bernard, in his "Retrospection of the Stage," relates: — " One of my best friends in Plymouth was Benjamin Haydon. His son, the artist of celebrity, was at that time a spirited and intelligent little fellow about ten years of age, who used to listen to my songs and laugh heartily at my jokes whenever I dined at his father's. One evening I was playing Sharp in 'The Lying Valet, ' when he and my friend Benjamin were in the stage-box, and on my repeating the words, • I had had nothing to eat since last Monday was a fortnight,' little Haydon exclaimed in a tone audible to the whole house, " What a whopper ! Why, you dined at my father's house this afternoon." "I once ran for highway commissioner," observed Deacon Ironside, " and the other man and I got exactly the same veto." "How did you settle it?" asked Elder Kreepalong. "Ho offered to deoide the matter by tossing a copper cent, but I said that was gambling, and I wouldn't gamble if I never got an office in the world. So we pulled straws for it and I got the right one. There's a little trick at pulling strawß," added the good deacon, with a twinkle in his eye, "that everybody doesn't know. I'm generally pretty lucky at pull'n straws." "Docs her love her ioky darling?" ho queried. " 'Es." "Does her loVe her icky darling lots?" "Es." "Will her love her ioky darling always ?" A man with grey hair, who boro a striking personal resemblance to the young woman whose head rested upon the shoulder of the youth attired in an ico-oream suit, strode into the apartment and called time. "I would suggest," he Baid with an effort to be calm, " that this civil service examination bo adjourned until to-morrow evening." Then the effort to be calm became too much for him, and he burst into a harsh, mirthless laugh.