TO THE POINT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 7563, 30 May 1885, Page 3

TO THE POINT.

( Chambers’ Journal.)

“ Can you fight ? ” shouted the charity boy through the keyhole. “No, sir,” replied Oliver Twist, meekly, from the other side of the door. “ Then I’ll whop you,” was Mr Noah Claypole’s prompt rejoinder.” This was to the point with a vengeance, and there are many rejoinders worth chronicling equally prompt, if - not -so bellicose.

There is a story of a gentleman when advocating the utility of public schools saying: “ Byron was a Harrow boy.” “ What of that ? ” said an 'opponent; “ Burns was a ploughboy.” A shabbily dressed woman caUed upon a gentleman for aid, claiming that she was in a starving condition. He looked upon her plethoric form, estimating the avoirdupois of the superfluous fat, and answered: “ You don’t look like a starving woman.” “ I know it,” she whiningly answered; “ I’m bloated with grief.” A railroad engineer saying that the usual life of a locomotive was only thirty years, a passenger remarked that such a tough-looking thing ought to live longer than that. “ Well,” responded the engineer, “perhaps it would, if it didn’t smoke so much.”

“ I think I’ll get out and stretch my legs a little," said a tall man, as the train stopped at a station. “ Oh, don’t!” said a passenger who had been sitting opposite to him, and who had been much embarrassed by the legs of his tall companion—“ don’t do that! They are too long already!” A fast youth asked at a city restaurant: “ What have you got ?” “ Almost everything, sir,’’ was the reply. “Well, give me a plate of that." “ Yes ’ir.—Hash!” shouted the waiter down the speakingtube.

More good-natured and quite as much to the point is the following. A man was hurrying along the street the other night, when another man, also in violent haste, rushed out of an alley, and the two collided, with great force. The second man looked, mad; while the polite man, taking off Ms hat, said: ,“ My dear sir; I don’t know which of us is to blame for this violent encounter, but I am in too great a hprry to investigate. • If I ran into you, I beg your pardon; if you rati into mo, don’t mention it;” and he tore aWay at redoubled speed. Well matched in politeness and readiness was a gentleman whose button caught hold of the fringe on a lady’s shawl. “I’m attached to ' you," said the gentleman, laughing, while he was industriously trying to get loose. “The attachment is mutual,", was the good-natured j, reply. Woman’s wit was not badly illustrated

when an idle fop said to a lady: "My dear Miss Smith, why did you not, take advantage of leap-year to get married ? ” “ Because lam not able to earn enough to support a. husband,” was the unexpected answer. Equally ready was a young miss to whom her sweetheart said: “You are such a strange girl, that really I don’t know what to make Of you.” “ Well, then. I’ll tell you, Charlie,” she replied, “make a wife of me.” It is satisfactory to add that he did so at the earliest opportunity. Two young married French ladies were talking about their husbands. Said one of them: '(jiDo you really think your Juleswent shooting yesterday?” "Well, I don’t think he tried to deceive „me yesterday; I’m inclined to think ‘he went.” " But he didn’t bring back any game ? ” “ That’s what makes me feel sure he did go,” was the wife’s reply. As ready, but more spiteful, was the answer to a crusty old fellow, who once asked: “ What is the reason that griffins, dragons, and demons are ladies’ favourite subjects for embroidery designs ? ” “ Oh, because they are continually thinking of their husbands,” was the lady’s quick retort.

More pointed than polite is the following strange receipt for conjugal harmony. Concerning a couple well known for their outward and visible mutual affection, it was aaxed by a neighbour: “Why is she so fond of her husband?” “Because he is perfectly unintelligible.” “And why does he adore her ? ” “ Because she is almost a little idiot.”

A lady once remarked to a clever actor who had a broken nose; "I like your acting, sir; but, to be frank with you, I can’t get over your nose.” “No wonder, madam,” replied he; “ the bridge is gone.” Equally ready was another actor whose benefit resulted in a very thin house. The actress in the scene with him speaking very low in her communications with her lover, he exclaimed with woful humour: “My dear, ‘you may speak put; there is nobody to hear us.” It is related that at the opera in Dublin, a gentleman sarcastically asked a man standing up in. front of him if he was aware he was opaque? The other denied the allegation, and said he was O’Brien. The natural readiness of the Irish is well shown in an argument between a Saxon and a Celt ' respecting the nationality of various great men who had lived and died. The Irishman had successively claimed each one mentioned as a countryman of his own, till at length the Englishman, somewhat nettled, inquired: “Howabout Shakespeare—was he an Irishman ?” to which he received the reply: “Well, I can’t say exactly, but at all events he had the abilities of one.” A German paper tells a story of a certain general whose servant was in the habit of getting intoxicated. “Jacques,” at last said his master to him, “ I shall have to send you about your business; I hear dreadful tales of yourgoings-oh.” “Ah, General,” replied Jacques, quite unabashed, “if I believed all the bad things people say about you, I should have gone away myself long ago.” For calm presence Of mind in the way of answer, the following deserves a foremost place. “Do you drink ?” said a temperanco reformer to a beggar who had implored alms of him. “Yes, thank you, sir,” returned the candid pauper; “ where shall we go?” “What are you going to do when you grow up, if you don’t know how to read, write, and cipher?” asked a school teacher of a lazy, stupid boy, who replied,' “ I’m going to be a schoolmaster, an’ make the boys do all the readin’, writin’, and cipherin’.” A small boy, who is one of a family of ten children, was taken out for a drive with his mother. As they drove past a small cottage of' two rooms, Johnnie 1 called his' mother’s attention to it, who remarked that it was a very small house. “ Yes,” replied Johnnie meditatively; “ it’s small; but it would be plenty big enough for our family if it wasn’t for you and the children.”

This was matched in readiness by a lad who applied to the captain of a vessel for a berth. The captain, wishing to intimidate him, handed him a piece of rppe and said : '• If you want to make a good , sailor, you must make three ends of the rope.” “ I can do it/’ he readily replied. “ Here is one, and here is another—that makes two. Now, here’s the third,” and he threw it overboard.

“ Don’t you find it hurts your lawn to let your children play upon it ?”• asked a friend of a suburban the other day. “ Yes,” answered the gentleman addressed; “ but it doesn’t hurt the children.”

“ Are you lost, my little fellow ?” asked a gentleman of a four-year-old one day. " No,” he sobbed in reply; “ but my mother is.”—“ And how does Charlie like going to school F” kindly inquired a good man of a juvenile who was waiting with a tin can in his hand the advent of a companion. “I like goin’ well enough,” he replied; “ but I dbn’t like staying after I get there.” • Quite as ingenious as ingenuous was the answer of a boy who was kept after school for bad orthography, and excused himself to his parents by saying that he was spell-bound.

“ What shall I talk to you about ?” said a clergyman to some school-children. “About ten minutes,” exclaimed a young girl; . “ Here’s your money, ■ dolt!” cried an angry debtor. “Now tell me why your master wrote eighteen letters about that paltry sum?” “I am sure I can’t tell, sir,” said the shopboy, “ but I think it was becuose seventeen letters didn’t fetch it.”

“ Don’t you know it is very wrong to smoke, my boy?” said an old lady to a youngster who persisted in puffing a cheap cigar. “ Oh, I smoke for my health,” answered the boy saucily. “But you never heard ‘of a cure by smoking,” she continued presently. “ O yes, I did,” persisted the boy,/blowing a big cloud; “that’s the way they aure pigs.” “ Smoke on, then quickly replied the old lady; “there some hope foryouyet.” ■An American strolled into a fashionable church just before the service began. The sexton followed him up, and tapping him on the shoulder, and pointing to a small cur that had followed him into the sacred edifice, said :• —“ Dogs are not admitted.” “ That’s not my dog,” replied ■ the visitor. “ But he follows you.” “ Well, so do you.” The sexton growled, and removed the dbg with unnecessary violence. . “ That sermon did me good,” said one friend to another, after hearing an eloquent preacher. “We shall see,” was the reply. A melting sermon being preached in a country church,' all were affected except one man, who was asked why he did not weep witirthe rest.' “Oh,” said he, I belong to another parish.” Student reciting: "And—er—then he — er—went—er—and—er ” —— The class laugh.' . Professor: “ Don’t laugh, gentlemen; to err is human.”

“ ls.it a sin," asked a fashionable lady of'betspiritual director, “for me to feel pleasure when a gentleman says X am handsome ?” “It is, my daughter," he replied gravely ; • “ we should never delight in falsehood.’’—" Doctor,’’ said a gentleman to his clergyman, “ how can I best train my boy in the way he should go ?” “By going that way yourself," was the unexpected reply. . Being asked how he liked the performance of a certain Dramatic Club, an auditor replied that he should “ hardly call,it a club, but rather a collection of sticks,” The foregoing are severe enough, but for ■ concentrated spite must yield the palm to the one with which we conclude. An impecunious fortune-hunter had been accepted by an heiress. At the wedding, when that • portion of the ceremony was reached where the bridegroom says, “ With all my worldly goods I thee endow," a spiteful relative of the bride exclaimed: “ There - goes his valise!” .