AN HONEST MAN.
The other day six men sat around a stove in a Detroit tobacco store. There bad been a long period of silence when one of them rubbed his leg and remarked, “ That old wound feels as if it was going to open again. I shall always remember the battle of Rich Mountain.” There was a slight stir around the stove, and a second man put his hand to his shoulder and observed, “ And I shall not soon forget Brandy Station. Feels to-day as if the lead was going to work ont.” The interest was now considerably increased, and tho third man knocked the ashes off bis cigar and said—“ Yes, those were two hard fights, but you ought to have been with Nelson at Franklin. Lop’, but wasn’t I excited that day! When these two fingers went with a grapeshot I never felt the pain!” The fourth man growled out something about Second Bull Run and a sabre-cut on the head, and the fifth man felt of his left side and said be should always remember the lay of the ground at the Yellow tavern. The sixth man was silent. The other five looked at him and waited for him to speak, but it was a long time before he pointed to bis empty sleeve and asked, “ Gentlemen, do do you know where I got that?” Some mentioned one battle and some another, but he shook his head sadly and continued: “ Boys, let’s be honest and own right up, I lost my arm by a buzz-saw, and now we will begin on the left and give every one a chance ‘to clear his conscience. Now, then, show your wounds.” The five men leaned back in their chairs and amoved fast and chewed hard and looked at each other, and each one wished he was in Texas, when a runaway horse flew by and gave them a chance to rush out and get clear of the one-armed man. It was a narrower escape than any one of them had during the war.—“ Free Press.” " Yes, sir,” said Gallagher, “it was funny enough to make a donkey laugh. I laughed till I cried,” and then he saw a smile go round the room, he grew red in tho face and went away mad.—“ Boston Post.” An lowa paper heads a local story thus ; “A Checkered Career that will Probably Finally Terminate in Death.” Even the Signal Service people at Washington might unhesitatingly indorse such a prediction as that. How Ho Got On.—Son to his father, who bos asked him whore he is in his class now ; “ Oh, pa, I’ve got a much better place lhan I had lust quarter.” “Indeed? Well, where are you?” “I’m fourteenth.” “Fourteenth, you little lazybones! You were eight last term. Do you call that a better place ?” “ Those boys of mine,” as Mr George Ooppin calls his patrons in the 6d gallery, are smart young rascals. There is a good bit of dry and original humour amongst some of them. The way they throw in a gag now and again is really amusing. I think I told the yarn about the reply one of them made when Mrs Emma Britten was lecturing one Sunday at the Royal. She was doing a sort of sentimental questioning, and asked in a solemn manner two or throe times, “ Why was I born? Why was I born ?” when a “god” sung out, amid tho silence, “ I give it up, Emma. ” “ Well, on Saturday night, when ‘ Sentenced to Death ’ was being played, old Hoyley Saayle, in a sort of husky whisper, says, “ The notes—aha!—l have them. What shall I deoo with them ?” when a greedy, grimy-faced young cherub replied, “Sling 'em up here, old man ” This was too much for tho house, and there was a general roar.— “Melbourne Weekly Times.” “ Yes, sir ; it’s nearer tho stove,” The mule stood on his off foreleg, Whence all but ho had fled, And kicked a fierce gun cotton keg r Bight on its bottom head. The keg it burst with grievous sound, Tho mule, oh ! where was he ? Go ask him, for ho stood his ground, And still kicks mulefully. j —“Brooklyn Eagle.” ] Great damage has been done by tho j avalanche at Briston, in Uri, Switzerland. . Many houses and bridges were swept away, and over a space of two miles tho ground oscillated ns if shaken by an earthquake. No lives were lost.
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Bibliographic details
Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2253, 22 June 1881, Page 4
Word Count
743AN HONEST MAN. Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2253, 22 June 1881, Page 4
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