WIT AND HUMOUR. SHE HAD ALSO SEEN IT.

Evening Post, Volume LXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

WIT AND HUMOUR. SHE HAD ALSO SEEN IT.

He was 25, but he had au uncomfortable suspicion that she was a full five years his senior. It was this doubt alone that kept him from proposing j he did not want to marry a woman older than himself. But how could he find what her age was ? Long had he puzzled over the problem. At last he saw in P.W. a paragraph that promised solution and sent him to her parents' house that evening eager to test its correctness. 'Playfully and cunningly he went about it. He pretended he wanted to see how smart she was at mental arithmetic. "Think of a number corresponding to the numerical numbsr of the month in whioh you were born," said he smilingly. "Yes," said she with a giggle. "Multiply it by two and add five." "Yes." "Multiply by fifty and add' your own age." "Yes." "Subtract 365 and add 115." "Yes." "What is the result?" he asked. "Two hundred and eighteen," she answeied gleefully. "How quick you are at figures," he replied, in tones of well-simulated astonishment and admiration. But from the total he saw that her natal month was February (2) and her age 18. Therefore she was seven years his junior after all, and a few moments later he proposed, was accepted, walked home rejoicing. She, too, rejoiced, for she had seen the paragraph in P.W., and knew perfectly well what he was driving at, therefore, when he told her to add her own age she put down 18 instead of 30. AN IRREGULAR LANGUAGE. Frenchman thirsting iov linguistic superiority recently began a course of English lessons with a teachei? of languages. After toiling conscientiously through a good many exercises the following dialogue between the pupil and his master , was overheard : — "I find the English very difficult,'' complained the Frenchman. "How do you pronounce t-o-u-g-hU" "It is pronounced 'tuff.' " "Eh, bien, 'tuff;' 'snuff,' then, is spelt s-n-o-u-g-h, is it not?" "Oh, no; "snuff is spelt s-n-u-ff. As a matter of fact, words ending in o-u-g-h are somewhat irregular."' "I s«e ; a supeijb language I T-o-u-g-h is 'tu#' and c-o-u-g-h is 'cuff.' I have a very bad *'cuff.' " "No, it is 'coff,' not 'cuff.'" "Very well; cuff, tuff, and coff. -And d-o-u-g-h is 'duff,' eh?" "No, not 'duff,' " "'Doff,' then?" "No ; 'doh.' " "vVell, then, what about h-o-u-g-h?" <f That is pronounced hock." -"'Hock!' Then I suppose the thing the farmer uses, the p-1-o-u-g-h, is 'pluff,' or is it 'ploik,' or 'plo'? Fine language — 'plo.' " "JNo, no ; it is pronounced 'plow.' " "I shall soon master English, I am sure. Herfe we go. 'Plow,' 'coff,' 'cuff,' 'hock,' and now Jiere is another— r-o-u-g-Ii ; that is 'row,' I suppose?" "Oh, no, my friend; that's 'ruff' again." "And b-o-u-grh is 'buff?' " "No ; that happens to be 'bow.' " "Yes ; wonderful language. And I have just e-n-o-u-g-h of it ; that's 'enou," is it not?" "Noj 'enufiV" "LUCKY WITH THE WOMEN." ■ Light is thrown on tue merconary mode of regarding matrimony by the following Story which is told by a member of the Irish Bar. Some years ago our friend was standing outside the bank at Tralee, talking to the, manager, when a peasant' approached, and took off his hat to indicate that he had a communication to make. "Well, what is it?" asked the manager* "A deposit note, sur," said the peasant, handing him the paper. "One 'hundred and twenty pounds," said the manager, looking at the note. "Your wife must sign it, for it is in your wife's name*" "She's dead, sur," said the peasant, "WJien did she die?" '"Er# yesthepday, yer honner/' "Faith, you haven't lost much time," said the manager. ■ "And now that I come to look at ypu, didn't.you bring me another deposit note of your wife's about a year and a half ago?" '"Tis. true for you sur," said the peasant. "That was my first wife- 'Tis the way wid me, that I'm very lucky wid the wimmja," A WONDERFUL PERFORMANCE. The. auctioneer at a horse sale was trying t* dispose of a poor broken-down hack, which seemed to nave seen the last of its working days. But Mr. Hammerconsidered it has duty to extol the merits of whatever was entrusted to him for sale, and so to get the best price possible. So he asked : "Does any gentleman bid £30 for this valuable horse?" A bystander offered thirty shillings. "Oh, gentlemen," protested the auctioneer, "that is really absurd. Only thirty shillings offered for #n animal like this! Why, only the day before yesterday it did its two miles in six minutes 1" But no other bid was made, and the horse was knocked down for thirty shillings The purchaser soon found that instead of doing two miles in six minutes it looked more like doing two miles in six days. He returned to the sale-ring furious. "What made you say this brute had done two miles in six minutes?" "But so it did," said the auctioneer, "the day before yesterday." "And* where, may I ask, did that wonderful performance take place?" 'In a railway truck;*' said Mr. Hammer, smiling. HE HAD AN .ENCORE. The half-back seized the ball and made a superb rush" down the field. The crowd went wild. But when the rounds of applause had subsided, it was apparent that the ball had not been "in play." "Oh, dear ! what does he have to bring the ball back for?" asked one youngster of another. "I'm sure I don't know," was the reply, "unless he got an encore !" A RAILWAY ACCIDENT. Smith— "Johnson was in a terrible railway accident yesterday." Jones—"You don't say so. Was he | much injured?" Smith — "No, fortunately he escaped with only a few ugly scratches on his face." Jones — "Lucky fellow 1 Where did it happen?" Smith — "In the tunnel." Jones — "In the tunnel?" Smithr- "Yes. He kis&ed the wrong girl. Good morning." HIS REASONING. "I am Sherlock Holmes," said the great detective. "I think you can inform"— "Yes, sir," the man infferrupted his caller. 'If you'll wait until I've put the baby to sleep, I'll come down and talk* to you." ■ » '- "Ah ; your second I" said Holmes,' smiling. "Heavens! How did you guess it?" j ''Very simple. If it were your first,* you'd wake it up to show it to mo. If

you had more than two, you'd be at your club about this time." What was Meant? — "I want a husband who is easily pleased." ""You'll get one." Not the Singing — He — "Oh, yes, I have heard him sing ; I admire him very much." She— "Really, you don't mean it? Why, his voice is awful." "It isn't his singing 1 admire ; it's his nerve," Guide (pointing. to Egyptian pyramids) — "It took hundreds of years to build them." O'Brien (the contractor)— " Thin it 'vror a Gover'mint job — eh?" Alice— "Why does Florrie Harding' hate Johnny Briggs so bitterly!"' Ethel — "Oh, when Bhe threw him over she begged him not to go to the dogs, and he didn't." Very Often.— "Do you know what a tragedian is, Willie?" asked the father. "Wiiy, he's the fellow that kills the play, isn't he?" replied the boy. And She Didn't. — Mrs. Barker — "Shall I sing 'Because I love you?" Barker (who is a brute) — 'No, Maria, if you love me don't sing." ■ Phelan — "Sure they tells me that your son is a finished musician." Cassidy — "It's onthrue. The neighbours hoy not finished him yet; they hoy only been makin' threats." "James, what is on agnostic?" "Why, he's a man who doesn't believe in either doctors or preachers as long as he is in good health." fortunate — "He isn't nearly so bright as he thinks he is," said the young woman who-^ discusses her acquaintances. ".No, and that's a very fortunate circumstance. If he were, we could- not look at him without using a piece of smoked glass. '> , An American mpuse recently showed great presence of mind on falling into a dish of cream. It swam* round and round violently until it was able to crawl out on the butter. "Pugilism," said the solemn man, "brings nian to the level of the brute." "Worse than that," said the sporting man. "It often brings them to the level of the floor." 'While There's Life."— "Do you think it is at all probable that my daughter will be a musician?" Professor — "I gan't zay. She may.' She tell me she come of a long-lived vamily." Teacher — "And why should we endeavour to rise by our own efforts?" Johnny Wise — " 'Cause there's no tellin' when the alarm clock will go wrong." Quite different-r-"lsn't that Mercury?" enquired a man at the hotel, indicating a statue on a pedestal in the corridor. "Bless your heart, no, sir," answered the intelligent bell boy, "it's only plaster of Paris." Modern 'battles (says Mr. I. Zangwill). are won by brain, not by brawn. The future Napoleon will be a paralytic chessplayer carried about the field on a waterbed. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm