ODDS AND ENDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9064, 26 May 1888, Page 4 (Supplement)

ODDS AND ENDS.

It ia well that some people study carefully the laws of punctuation. They ought to have some point to what they write. '* What is your idea of a true gentleman, Jack?" "A true gentleman always laughs at the joke of a story, and never says ho heard it before."

Furniture dealer (to elderly maiden): "And there is another advantage, ma'am, which the folding-bed has over the ordinary kind." Elderly maiden: "What is that, sir?" Furniture doaler : "You don't have to look under to see if a man is there."

" I was up at the manse tho ither day," said the percentor to an old crony, " an' the minister an , me got on the crack. He says to me : • James, says he, 'I am very sorry to tell you that I must advise you to give up your post, for there are several people complaining that you cannot sing. , ' Weel, eir, , said I, 'I dinna think ye should be in sic a hurry to advise me. I've been telt a dizzen times ye canna preach, but I never advised you to gi'e up yer place. , I saw ho was vexed, so I jist said : ' No'er heed, sir, the fulos 'ill hao to hear us till we think fit to stop." , No one knows her subject Letter than Miss Braddon; sho is always up to date with the thing in fashionable vulgarity, and she dashes it in with a light hand and with not too much stinging satire. And at lensfc she is free from that ignoble admiration of rank and wealth which so often disgusts ono in .society novels. Although her story is poor, and one can guess that her heart was not in her work, she is too good a novelist to fail in carrying her reader along with her easy bits of description of scenery and character ; and oven when she descends to furniture and food she ia, at the worst, not tiresome. Through the coating of coal-dust that covered his face, as ho leaned against a cart in a prominent coal-yard recently, could be seen an expression of woo. " Why so pad?" a wayfarer asked of the disconsolate coal-carb driver. "They've got a new man in my place." "What was tlic matter, and how did it happen?" "Well, it was this way : I was sitting on my cart recently, while the load was being weighed, when tho boss came out and said my services would bo no longer required." "But there must have been somo reason for your discharge." " Thcro was," he mournfully replied ; " the new man weighs seventy-five pounds more than I do." A merchant's wife recently gave him the following letter, with instructions that it should not be opened until he got to his placo of business: —"I am forced to tell you something that I know will trouble you, but it is my duty to do so. lam determined you shall know it, let the result be what it may. I have known for a week that this trial was coming, but kept it to myself until to-day, when it lias reached a a crisis, and I cannot keep it any longer. You must not censure me too harshly, for you must reap the results as well as myself. I do hope it won't crush you." Here he turned over to the next page, his hair slowly rising. "Tho flour is out. Please send me somo this afternoon. I thought that by this method you would not forget it." The husband telegraphed forthwith for a barrel of the best flour in the market to be sent to his home instanter. Little Miss Alice Three-year-old has a very unfortunate habit of crying upon tho slightest pretext, One day last week she was warned that the next time she cried without good and sufficient cause she would bo punished. Soon after she bawled lustily. "Why are you crying?" .she was asked. "Bccauthe Bridget, would not lot me go out to play." The punishment, followed, and then this dialogue: "Do you know why you were punished ?" " 'Eth, mamma." " Why was it?" " Becauthe Bridget would not let me go out to play." One day she announced to her father her intention to grow up with as much haste as possible, in order to be a "music man ami play on a hand organ." "And what will your poor papa do?' , that fond parent inquired, " while you are going about with your hand organ far away "from home ?" -Miss Alice looked perplexed. She is very fond of her father. She turned the matter over in her mind before she made answer ; then she said: "Oh, dftt'll be all right. You shall be my monkey, and go and get all the pennies."