QUIPS AND CRANKS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 745, 11 June 1886, Page 6

QUIPS AND CRANKS.

The greatest pleasure to be had on board a yacht is found by visitors when the yacht is at anchor and the foolish owner is opening wine for guests who say he is a fine-looking sailor. ... ~ ‘ Was your husband ever in a public office, Mrs Spink ?' Mrs Spink— ‘ Oh, yes, indeed ! He was once appointed election officer in his precinct; he was to serve an entire day, but unfortunately he was taken ill and had to resign before his term was half ended. I have heard him say it was a great disappointment to his party, a very great disappointment.’ ‘ Will you hand me them grapes ? said a lady with diamonds in her ears to a waiter at one of the hotels. ‘Certainly,’ said the waitress, ‘ and if those grapes are not good I will bring a fresh supply.’ Indigent young man : ‘ I would respectfully ask your daughter’s hand in marriage, sir.’ Rich father (in indignant surprise*: 4 What ! You want to marry my daughter ?’ Indigent Young Man (somewhat flurried): ‘ Y-yes, sir. W-why not ? You don’t know anything wrong with her, do you ?’ A dentist who has received a compensation which he regards as insufficient, ironically asks his client if he intended the fee for his servant. ‘No, monsieur,’ replied the other, * it is for both of you.’—From the French. A Boston lady last summer attended a fuueral in a country church. After the singing of a hymn, a man who was sitting beside her remarked : ‘ Beautiful hymn, isn’t it ma’am. The corpse wrote it.’—Boston Beacon. Things one would rather have left unsaid : Tomlinson—Good by, Miss Eleanora. Miss Eleanora —But you ve already said good-by to me, Mr Tomlinson. Tomlinson (who is always ready with some pretty speech) Have I, really ? Well, one can’t do a pleasing thing too often, you know !—Punch. One of Loveland’s colored terrors being once more before Justice Tinkham the other day, his honor asked : ‘ Haven’t you been in jail for stealing chickens before ?' * No, sah ; no, indeed, I hain’t. Praise de Lord foah his infernit goodness and mussy, nobody ain’t cotched me yit. Hit seems as if I was perfected by high powers.’ —Fort Col., Courier. . He thought he was a connoisseur, and he was lamenting the decadence of art. ‘Look,’ he said, * at the great Italian school of painters. Look even at the old Greeks 1 Why, 450 years before Christ Zeuxis painted grapes so naturally that birds came to pick at them.’ ‘He did, did he,’ said a hearsr from the West. ‘ That’s nothin’. ‘ I’ve got a friend in Chicago who paints a dog so natural that he has to paint a muzzle to keep him from bitin’.’—Chicago News. An English visitor at one of the spas was complaining to a gargon at his hotel that the waters he took seemed not to have the slightest effect on him. ‘But monsieur,’ replied the waiter, who, it should be said, was under notice to quit his place, ‘it is necessary to be patient. I remember a lady last season who took the waters, and did not die until she had been here close upon six months.’