Fun.

Otago Witness, Issue 1489, 29 May 1880, Page 23

Fun.

A well known poet was at Barnum's Hotel, Baltimore, a few weefts ago. He wrote to a friend in New Jersey, and ended his letter thus :— Come and see mo whenever yon can j I am at Barnum'a." The friend who does not appear to have been familiar with Baltimore, answered :— " lam eorry you haye commenced exhibiting yourself. If you had stuck to litera'ure, you would have made your mark and fortune " A pompous lawyer said to th" keeper of an apple stand :—": — " Your business cares seem to be too much for y. v. You should go into something which is not so trying to the brain. " Oh, 'taint business," replied the apple seller, "it's lyin' awake nights, tryin' to decide whether to leave my fortune to an orphan asylum, or to a home for played-out old lawyers, as is killin' me." "What would you do if I came to tho throne ?" asked Prince Napoleon, one day, of Emile de Gerardin. "Go to Belgium, your highness, and remain there as long as you reigned." " What ! banish yourself from Paris during the whole of my reign ?" "It would not be for long, your highness." He was a bachelor, had travelled extensively, and could sped 1 ! any lauguaqe, dead or alive. Hieroglyphics wore nothiug to him. But wheu he returned homo the other day and talked to his sister's baby, and when it cried and was paoilied by its mother saying, " Did his naughty wauty uncle wuncle come homey womey and ucftvdy my little putsey wutsey," he just leaned over tho back of tho chair and wepfc. '■ Young man," said the orator impressively, " do you want to go down to a drunkard's grave ?" " Well," replied tho young man, with the careless grace of a man who isn't accustomed to lef using, " I don't care if I do. Whereabouts is your grave ?"

Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married te immortal verse. --Milton.