FUN AND FANCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1602, 5 August 1882, Page 28

FUN AND FANCY.

The Rector (to Irish Plasterer] : c That mor tar must have been very bad. Pat (with a grin) : ' Faix, ye cann't expict the loikes o' good Roman cimint to stick to a Protestant church, sorr !'

Mrs Ramsbotham and the Egyptian Difficulty.—She knows all about it, and has got the names so correctly. ' The idea,' she exclaimed, 'of a person called Toothache Pasha! Of course he'd give trouble. I should have had him stopped at once.'

An Irish Solution of the Egyptian Difficulty— Ara-bi Aisy ! ' What is this man charged with ?' asked the Judge. 'With whisky, yer Honor,' replied the sententious policeman. ' It's no use to feel of me wrist, docther,'said Pat, when the physician began taking his pulse : ' the pain is not there, surr ; it's mmc hid ontoirely.

. German friend : 'Depicture you haf bainted is most putiful ; dere is only yon yord in de English lanckguige vich describes it— and I haf vorgotten it.' The Rochester Democrat thinks that one of the saddest sights in the world is to see a youngman trying to treat his sweetheart's small and depraved brother as though he was his dearest friend.

' What part,' asked a Sunday-school teacher, 'of the " Burial of Sir John Moore " do you like best?' The boy was thoughtful for a moment, and then replied: 'Few and short were the prayers we said.' A rejected suitor in Philadelphia shot himself, and then said: 'I have been refused by twelve women, and this '—meaning the one who had rejected him on the previous evening— 'is the last one I'll ask.'

A Brooklyn young woman said people condemned suicide for being immoral, wicked, and all that sort of thing, but as for her she considered it very ill-bred. _ It was like going to a party without being invited. 1 Joined the Jerked,' is the Chicago Tribune's alliterative headline for an account of an execution. There is no language in the world like ' United States,' as spoken at Chicago, which could put so much beauty and pathos into so few words.

A coloured preacher at Athens, Georgia, recently addressed the following petition to tho throne of grace : ' Some ob dis here congregation will go to the court-house, some to de gaol, some to de gallows, and some to de debbil ', but Lord bless 'em whereber dey are.'

A lady of cruel wit is conversing with a trentleman renowned for the size of the ears of nis body and of his mind. 'Ido so like to talk to you,' she says softly, in tho pause of the conversation, beaming on him and sighing. ' Why ?' asks the unsuspecting youth; ' Because,' she answers gently — ' because you are all ears?'

Things One would wish to have Expressed Differently. — Musical Maiden : ' I hope I am not boring you, playing so much ?' Enamoured Youth :'Oh no ! Pray go on ! I— l'd much sooner hear you play than talk !'— Punch.

Theophile Gautier, an indefatigable writer, used to say to people who complained that he never answerod their letters : ' You must not ask a carpenter to plane planks to amuse himself'—a phrase that will be appreciated by all literary men who occasionally grow weary of the pen,

A New York (man went into a crowded car and asked if he could have the seat which was then occupied by a hat, whose owner was Bittine in the next seat. The man angrily grasping hishat said: 'Yes, take iUf you're a hog-.| 'Pm bo near one, that I guess I'll take it,' said the 0j ]Tkbnoh Wit.— Translated from the Omnibus • A boy sits with a cloth-covered hand-cart at the foot of a hill. A walking-goer comes along, at whose approach the boy to weep begins. Man : « Young one, why howlest thou then ?' Boy : ' I can with the carl; not too hill up come.' Man (good humouredly) : _W ell, then, see here ! (Pushes the cart until the hill up.) So, there (himself of the sweat drying.) Say, once, what hast thou then, really upon thy cart ?' Boy : 'My big brother sleeps there upon,'