Wit and Humour.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2122, 22 February 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

Wit and Humour.

Nervous Old Lady (to dock-hand on .steamboat): Air. Steamboat-man, is there any fear ol danger? Deck-hand (carelessly): .Plenty ol four, ma'am, hut not a bit o 1 dangei. “Lend us a tanner, guv’nor.” “AVi, tliortainly not! 1 ' “Well, give us loiirpeiico lor a bed.” , . , . “Ah! Now you’re talkin’ bitlinoth. Voro ith the bed?”

Doctor (to his cook, who is just leaving): Well, Alina, 1 am sorry, but I can only give you a very indifferent character. . -Alina: Well, sir, never mind. Ante it just as you do your prescriptions.

“Yes,” said Airs. Ahigley, “I always try to retire before midnight. L don’t like to miss my beauty sloop.” “Beallv,” said Aliss Knox, “you should try harder. You certainly don’t get enough of it.”

Dr,. Griffin: I must say the world is icry ungrateful towards our profession, How 'seldom one sees a public me norial erected to a' doctor! Airs. Golightlv: How seldom? Oh doctor, think of our cemeteries! Aland: She is a woman, who has suf'ered a good deal for her belief. • Ethel: Dear me! What is her beliel ? A l aud: She believes sho can wear a No. 3 shoe on a No, 0 foot. : Airs.' Jones : 0, deaf, I have just broken my new .smelling-bottle. • Air. Jones: It is like you. All your belongings arc either broken or shattered. Airs Jones: Quite true, John. Even you are a hit cracked. Constable: Como along; you’ve got to have a bath. Tramp: A barf! AVhat, wiv water? Constable: Yes, of course. Tramp: Couldn’t you manage it wiv one o’ them vacuum cleaners? A high-school hoy brought perfect spelling papers home for several weeks, and then suddenly began to miss five and six out of ten. “How’s this, my son?” asked his father. “Teacher’s fault,” replied tho hoy. “How is it the teacher’s fault?” “He moved the little boy that sat next to me.” Before the maiden married him - And got him in hoi' power, To sow a button on his coat Would take'her just an hour. But things arc- very different now; For when her aid lie seeks To se.v that button on that coat It takes her several weeks. Watchman (breathlessly): Tho boy's’ dormitory is on fire, and if they’ll find it out they’ll stop to save their footballs, hockey, sticks, and things, and perish. Boarding-School Principal (quickly) “Notify the boys that all who are not downstairs in two minutes won’t get any pie. .

“You’ve got a fellow in there that won’t wait on me again, not much,” said an irate customer, as lie emerged from the dining-room and slapqied his .money down on tho pay-clcslc. “I’m not stingy,” continued the customer, “and dont’ mind giving tips; but when a waiter hangs round a fellow till he has finished eating, and whistles ‘Do not forget me,’ I think it is about time something was done.”

A witty as well as a soft answer will sometimes turn away wrath. A candidate, in the midst of a stirring address, was struck by a rotten egg full in the lace. Pausing to wipe away tho contents of the missile, ho calmly continued : : “I have always contended that my opponent’s arguments were very unsound !” The crowd roared, and lie-was no longer molested. “There’s such a thing as a woman’s overdoing tho ‘bright side” business,” said a man to a friend who hid been extolling the optimism of a certain Airs Joyce. “The other night I was put up there, and Joyce—you know how absent-minded he is—put the lighted end of his cigar in Ids mouth. He jumped 31t., and was a little noisy (for a minute. Bight in the midst of it all Airs Joyce smiled blandly, and said, “How fortunate you were, dear, to discover it at once!”

A -celebrated comedian arranged with his greengrocer, named Berry, do pfiy nun quarterly. The greengrocer, however, sent in his account xong before the money was due. Tho comedian in great wrath called upon the greengrocer, and, laboring under the impression that his credit was doubted, said “1-say, hero’s a pretty mull-Berry; you have sent in your bill-Beri v, bororo it is due-Berry. Your father, tho elder-iierry, would not have been such a goose-Berry. You need not look so black-Berry, for I don’t euro a straiv-Borry, and I shan’t pay you till Christmas, Berry.”

’ A number of perrons wero talking about telescopes, and each professed to have looked through the “largest one in tho world.” One after -another told of the powerful effect of the respective telescopes. At fast a quiet man said, mildly:— “I once looked through a tclescopo. I don’t know as it was the largest in the world. I hope it wasn’t. But it brought the moon so near that wo could see the man in it gesticulating wildly, and crying out, ‘Don’t shoot! don’t shoot!’ The old fool thought it was a big cannon that wo wero pointing at him.” Tho quiet man subsided, and so did all tho rest of them. A nlinister in one of the Southern States of America was recently asked to perform the marriage ceromony by a young negro couple. A.s ho had employed the groom for a year or tivo lie consented, knowing what prestige would come to the couple by reason of having been married by a white minister. At the appointed time the happy .pair arrived, and the ceremony proceeded. “Do you take this, man for better, for worse?” the minister asked. “No, sah; Ah don’t,” said tho dusky bride. “All’ll take him jest like he is. Tf he was to get any hotter, I’si* afraid he'd die; an’ if ho was to get any wuss, Ail’d kill him myself.”

It was a liapp.y and neighborly little .party that was enjoying the cool evening breezes on the porch. Education was the theme of conversation. and the host was airing his views.

“Nobody can learn in a lifetime ail that should he known,” he slid. “A man ought never to assume that his education is complete, I must and will keep abreast of the tunes, an-.l I propose to begin the study of astronomy ait once, and continue it through the winter.” “Jerome,” said his wife calmly from the hammock in the corner, “you’ll have to think of some better excuse th in that for staying out ‘until .nil hours of the night.” The visitor had already spoken at considerable length when lie said to tho children, whose attention had begun to wander: — “And noiv I want to toll you of a hoy I once knew. He had a good father and mother,” the visitor continued, when he found several pairs of eyes had returned to their survey of his face, band they did all that lay in their power to make him luippv. But the hoy was thoughtless and selfish ; lie frittered away his time, and never thought of tho future. “To-day. instead of filling an honorable and useful position in life, where do you suppose ho stands, children. as a man ” <