FUN AND FANCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1825, 12 November 1886, Page 36

FUN AND FANCY.

i— " Ab> Miss Lavinia, I weally fear I fatigue ytta." " I wbuld.hot be so rude, Mr Tucker, as to contradict you." A young man has a scrap book containing marriage notices of all the women that he has leved, and he sits out in the moonlight and reads it and cries. — How times change 1 A writer says that 30 years ago a roan who wore hair on his upper lip was considered either a lunatic or a foreigner. Now he may be both. . J2-" Ain't that a lovely critter, John;" said Jerush as they sfcoppe'l opposite the leopard's cage at the Zoo. " Waal, yes," said John ; iS he's dreadfully freckled, ain't he ? " — Wee Fanny bit her tongue one day and came in crying bifctsrly. "What is it?" asked her mother. "Ob, mamma!" she said, "my teeth stepped on my tongue." .— A writer who lately declared that the tern* perance party was going to rise like a " giant refreshed with wine" was rather unfortunate in his choice of a simile.

— Crusty says falling in the street is bad enough, without having the first idiot that passes try to thrust the additional misfortuue of his acquaintance Upon you by asking, " Did you hurt yourself?" t^A good old Quaker lady, after listening to tile extravagant yarn of a shopkeeper as long as ncr patience would allow, said to him, " Friend, what a pity it is a sin to lie, when it seems so necessary to thy happiness." "Mr Jones," said little Johnny to the gentleman who was making an afternoon call, " can whisky talk ? " " No, my child ? how ever can you ask such a question ? " " Oh, nothing, only ma said whisky was beginning to tell on you." —A father was telling his little son about the wonders of modern science. " Look at astronomy, now! men have learned the distance of the stars, and, with their spectroscopes, what they are made of." " Yes," said the boy ; " and pa, isn't it strange how they found out all their names?"

— « You sit on your horse like abutcherj'' said a pert young officer, who happened to be of royal blood, to a veteran general who was somewhat bent from age. "It is highly probable,'' responded the old warrior, with a grim smile ; "i t's because all my life I've been leading calves to the slaughter." — Fleigende Blatter.

' — "Do you not think," said Dorothea to Ezekiel, "that there is something soft and tender in the fall of the beautiful snow ? " Ezekiel scratched his head and replied : " There is something soft and tender in the fall of a single snowßake, but when it comes to crawling out in the morning aud shovelling away a big drift it's simply disgusting."

— Little Jenny's big sister is entertaining Mr Skibbers, and thinks that she can get along without any assistance ; so she pats the little one on the head, and says : " Come, little pet, it's time your eyes were closed in sleep." "Guess not," said Jenny. " Mother told me to keep my eyes open when you and Mr Skibbers were together.7 — This is the season when people stay up all night for fear of not being awake in time to catch the excursion train, start away for a day's pleasure tired, sick, and weary, arid come home so completely fagged out that it takes them a week to' recover. Fun? Why, of course, it is the height of fun. A Heroic Medicine.— Old Mrs Bently: "Did year how Deacon Brown is gittin' on ? " — Old Mrs Bennington : " I heerd he tuk a relapse this morniu'."— Old Mrs Bently (with a sigh) : ." Well, I hope it'll do the poor soul good, but I hain't no faith, in them new-fangled medicines." — "Did anyone drop a half-sovereign ?" inquired a man on a traincar last evening," as he arose to alight. Like chain lightning several men felt in their pockets, and replied in chorus ".Yes, I did." • Then the man stood so that he could jump off and run, if necessary, and said, ♦' Then why, in thunder, don.'fc you.get down and look for it, before someone picks it up ?"• And as he skipped off the car, the men who had said : they had dropped, the half-sovereign kept well screened behind their evening paper.

—The feminine mind early attains .to the consideration of the ethics of the affections. In a city school the other day the class in English grammar was discussing the difference between the words." like" and " love." " Now," said the teacher, " \< c can like a tomato ; but it is not proper to say we can love a tomato." " No, it is not," said & fresii young miss. " One cannot 10/e a tomato." "Why not?" inquired the teacher. "Because, you know, you canuot— you can't — well, you can't very well kiss a tomato." X -*•" I tell you. it's a great thing to have a girl who knows enough to warn a fellow of his danger." "Have, you?" inquired one of the company. '-'Yes, indeed; Julia's father and mother were laying for me the other night -when she heard me tap at the window, and what do' you suppose that girl did ? " " Can't think." *' She just sat down to the piano aud gang the • 'insides out of * Old Folks at Home.' You can just bet I didn't call that evening."

— The egotism of the American military writer has been neatly satirised in the Brooklyn Eagle in an anecdote short enough to quote : " 'Oh,' said the proprietor of a type foundry to his foreman, as he opened and read another of the fetters received by the morning mail, ' there is and order forthree tons of capital ' Is from the Epoch' Magazine people.' 'What's up now, then,' rejoined the. foreman,' ' a new fishing story ? ' « 0h,,n0,' replied the boss, « it's another article on the Battle of Shiloh by an officer who was in command of the'field.'" ' Vi — The widow' of the late Simond M'Donald being deeply'grieved at the death of her husband, had his image in wood, carved and erected in her bedroom; where she would- talk to it in a wild manner fqr hourd together. An old lover having heard of her grief bribed Mary, the servant, to instal him in the wooden Sitcond'6 place on-a certain day. At dinner-time Mary 'was ordered to. set the table for two persona and to.gei ready choice beefsteaks. "But," quoth ' Mary, "I have no firewood. "Well," aiswered the widow, " you may burn my poor 'S'inon'd, but dd chop him up gently."