PUN AND FANCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1813, 20 August 1886, Page 36

PUN AND FANCY.

—While waiting for the ought-to-bees, the will-bees may sting you. — Josh Billings says :— " The best medicin I know for the rhumatiz is to thank tto Lord it ain't the gout." — If you wish to communicate with the finny tribes of the sea first drop them a line. —A lady once said she could always know when she had taken too much wine at dinner — her husband's jokes began to seem funny. — When a coil of lead pipe in front of a hardware store begins to wriggle and stick out its forked tongue a Dakota man knows it is time to swear off. — Estelline Bell. — " Pa," said Bobby, sleepily, " can I ask you one more question if 'tain'fc foolish?" "Ya'as, one more." " How much older is a ripe old age than a green old age." — Life. — A. minister said, "A young woman died suddenly last Sabbath, while I was preaching in a state of beastly intoxication." — A bright little boy in Brooklyn, at the beginning of Lent, when asked by his Sunday school-teacher, " Who had fasted forty days and nights,'* replied, " Dr Tanner.'* — " Come back and all will be forgiven," is the usual card published by a loafer whose wife leaves him after wearing herself out trying to support him. — "There's my father," said a man, "he smokes and chews, aud is 80 years old." " Ah !" said his opponent, "If he had not used tobacco, he might have been ninety by this time." — A little girl, much excited, rushed into the | parlour, which was full of company, and exclaimed : " Mamma, just think of it." " Think of what, darling ?" " Our cat has a whole lot of twins, and I didn't even know she was married." — Doctors disagree. Some say whisky hardens the brain, others say it softens it. Meanwhile people without brains will continue right on drinking it, as it does not make an atom of difference to them — not an atom. — Indignant Mrs Smith— "You are home very late I wonder that you got here at all tonight." Plausible Mr Smith (blandly)—" I wonder too, my dear. The snowdrifts are terrible. It was two hours before I got out of one. Policeman kindly assisted me at last." — As the convalescent patient said to the doctor, when an extravagant bill was presented. " What's the use of your saving my life, if you shove a bill at me afterwards so big that I worry myself to death over it ? " — A grandfather, coming to read his paper, found that had mislaid his spectacles, and thereupon declared : " I have lost my glasses somewhere and can't read thejpaper." A little three-and-a-half year old girl desiring to assist him, said: " G'an'pa, you go outside and look froo ze window, and I'll hold ze paper up so you can^ read it.' — " It's positively wonderful how much these children learn at school, isn't it ? " " Oh, I don't know about that, when you come to consider the kind of teachers they have." " Well, I like that ! I would have you understand I am one of those same teachors." '• Oh, then, I'll take it all back. ■~lt is, indeed, as you say, wonderful." — Three gentlemen weuttog e tb er jj n n t 0 a Philadelphia restaurant and gave their order. Pro" sently they changed their mincls, and one of them said to the waiter : " I sav> we three ordered clams awhile ago, didn't we ? Well, we have changed our minds. Instead of clams bring us three chops." The waiter said " all right," and then loudly called to the cook : "Three chops for the three clams '."—Texas Sifting*. — "'Tain'tso/'triumphantlyexclaimed Bobbie, from his perch on top of a chair, gazing down on Algernon's head. "What is not true?" doubtfully asked his sister Mary. " Why, you said that Algy was so green that grass was | growing from the top of his head, and " (determinedly) " there isn't any there !" How Mary i explained the situation is unknown. , —A well known minister was sent south from New Jersey a few days ago to labour among the coloured people. They received him with many i demonstrations of joy, and at the first meeting which he held one coloured preacher prayed for him with great earnestness, thus: "O, Lord, bress dis yer dear bruclder what's come down from the Nortto preach do gospel to us. 'Noint him wid de kerosene ile ob salvashun and set him on fire !" * —Mrs B is one of those energetic, quick-motioned women who carry their work by asFfuf.!,. One day she- had started across the room on some erraud, but midway forgot what it was. "What was I going for ?" she asked aloud. Two-year-old, seated on the floor, and always liable to be swept up in one of her mother's hurricane passages, asked, meekly " Was— oo— goin'— f or— me ?" —Friend (to young author)—" How are you succeeding in your literary work?" Young author (hopefully)—" Well, comparatively speaking, I am doing well." Friend — "What is 'comparatively speaking?'" Young author — " One of the greatest of modern writers wrote twenty years before he had a single M.S. accepted. I have only been writing five years. Compared with him, I flatter myself that I am doing wpII. —A Peaceable Time.— Lodger to chambermaid—" Mary, is this the stillest house I ever was in. The landlord and his wife must live like angels in heaven together ; I haven't heard one single sound since I've been here." Mary " That's all very nice just now, Mr Smith, but wait till they make friends again. They quarrelled a fortnight ago, and they haven't spoke to each other since." — The striking mania reached a coloured preacher in a town in Mississippi the other day, and he arose before his congregation and said : " Chill'en, I'ze bin tryin' hard to preach de gospel on 2dol a week, an' I'ze got discouraged. You has either got to raise the salary to 3dol, or I'ze gwine to go out and skirmish for hogs an' chickens 'long wid de res' of you, an' take my chance of gwine to heaven." By a unanimous vote of the congregation it was decided to continue the salary at 2dols and let him skirmish. — We once heard of an absent-minded clorgymau who went jogging along the roarl till he came to a turnpike. " What is to pay ?" " Pay sir ! for what ?" asked the turnpike man. " Why, for my horse, to be sure." " Youi* horse, sir ! What horse? There is no horse, sir," "No horse! Good gracious !" said he, suddenly, looking down between his legs, " I thought I was on horseback."