SHARP RETORTS.

Northland Age, Volume IV, Issue 49, 27 July 1908, Page 8

SHARP RETORTS.

In a London auction-room two men were disputing the possession of a picture by a celebrated English painter, which faithfully represented an ass. Each seemed determined tq out-

bid the other. Finally, one of them said

“My dear sir, it is of no use ; I shall not give in. The painting once belonged to my grandfather, and I intend to have it." “Oh, in that case," replied his rival, sauvely, “I will give it up. I think you are fully entitled to it if it is one of your family portraits," at which there was great laughter throughout the room. With this sharp retort we are inclined to rank the reply of the Irish girl whq, caught in the act of playing on Sunday morning, and being accosted by the parish priest with the greeting, “Good morning, daughter of the Evil One," replied promptly, “Good morning, father." Lord Cockburn, after a long stroll, sat down on a hillside beside a shepherd, and observed that the sheep selected the coldest situation for lying down. “Mac," said he, “I think if I were a sheep I should certainly have preferred the other side of that hill."

The shepherd answered : “Aye, my lord ; but if you had been a sheep ye would have had mair sense," and Lord Cockburn was never tired qf relating th§ story, and turning the laugh on himself. A man. who was offering gratuitous informatiqn at a country fair was disparaging the show of cattle. “Call these here prize cattle ?" he scornfully said, “Why, they ain’t nothin' to what our folks raised. You may nqt think it, but my father raised the biggest calf of any man round our parts." “I can very well believe it," observed a bystander, surveying him from head tq foot. It is not everyone who enjoys a joke at his own expense. The judge whq pointed with his cane and exclaimed :

“There is a great rogue at the end of my cane," was intensely enraged when the man looked hard at him, and asked, coolly '— “At which end, your honqur?"

A friend of Curran’s was bragging of his attachment to the jury system and said : “With trial by jury I have lived, and, by the blessing of God, with trial by jury I will die !" “Oh," said Curran, in much amazement, “then you’ve made up your mind to be hanged, Dick ?"