FUN AND FANCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2200, 30 April 1896, Page 41

FUN AND FANCY.

— "What we want in this world is more of the men whoße acts are perpendicular.

— Wh«?n is a wrinkled face like a wellplobghed field I— When it is furrowed with care!

— An argument isn't so muoh a matter of proving you're right aB proving the other person wrong.

— When a man considers bitnsalf as " one in a thousand," tie naturally regards the others as ciphers.

— Anxiuw Mother : " Baby's got the thrush, oirf can hardly swallow." Inhuman Father: "What a lark!"

—In the Same Boat.— Arthur : " I don't thihk she's pretty." Jack : " Neither do I." " Heavens I Did she refuse you, too 1 "

— Patron : " This Bet of teeth you made for mo is too big." Dentist : " Yes, sir. Sit down in the chair, and I will enlarge ,your mouth a little."

-"■- '• I wish "you'd pay a little attention to what I'm sayir.g, sir," roared a*lawyer at an exasperating witness. " I am payirg as little as I can " was tbe calm reply.

— Louise •. " The bishop looked rather cross, didn't he ? " Isabel : " Wall, no wonder; every one of the bridesmaids bad on bigger sleeves than he had."

— " You know, George," she was explaining, *• I was brought up without any care." " Marry me, my" darling," said George, " and you shall have nothing but care."

— " WoH," «vi«i Bnaggs, " I think many dogs have more »e»Bc than their masters." " Yes," chimed in Oraggs. "I have a dog like-that myself." (And yet he oouldn't make out why they langhed.)

— " Mamme," said a little girl, " what is that man doing over there, in Mr Thompson's porch 1 H« has been •ittirg on the steps for two hours, and hasn't moved." "That, my child, is a house painter ; he is painting Mr Thompson's house by the day."

— "I might as well plead guilty, your Honor," owned up the penitent prisoner at the bar. "If it had been lace or diamonds, you might have called it kleptomania and let me go, but I don't s*pose that would work in this c&so. I stole the heg, your Ho&or."

— A Sensible Child.— 1 ' The gentleman who came to see papa Bald I was one of the most intelligent obildren he ever saw," said little Jack. " Indeed," said the proud mother. "Did you recite ' The Village Blacksmith' for him 1 " " No, mammy. I refused to."

— At the Fancy Ball.— Masher (to fair marked one) : " Oh, if I oould convince you of the riocerity of my affection. I love you with my -whole heart." F. M. O. (speaking at last): "Well, so you ought, for you'll never gat a better aunt as long as you live." — Fair Patient: "1« there no way of telling exactly what is the matter with me, doctor 1" Doctor: "Only a post-mortem examination can reveal that." Sbe j " Then for- Heaven's sake make one. I don't see why I should be at all equeamish at suoh a time as this."

— A suite of apartments was advertised at a fashionable watering-place as having among its attractions " a splendid view over a fine garden adorned with numerous sculptures." It was found on applying at the address that the garden adorned with soulptures was a cemetery.

— Illustrative.— Wife; "lean remember the time when you followed me- wherever I went ; now you do not care to go anywhere with me. I never thought that your love would so soon grow cold." Husband : " Nonsense I A man ' doesn't run for a train after he has caught it."

— Ominous. — Mrs Elifklns : I'm afraid my darter is unhappy with that new busband of hers." Mrs Gab i " Indeed!. Have you heard so i " -" No, but I've seen him in the street every day' since he's got married, and he walks along just as chirpy and independent as ever. He doesn't look subdued a bit."

— Saved the Situation A certain Miss X. was in the habit of calling on a minister's family often, and sometimes tbe calls, lengthened into visits which were very, wearisome. Ona day the reverend gentleman, In bis study, beard Miss X.'s voioe.and kept Jong and vigorously at work. Some tiour« afterward, when his wife summoned him to lunch, be called downstairs : " All right j and is that bore gone 1 " " Yes, dear," replied tha wife, Jl but Miss X. Is here, and •pHi-Hcfl buxob with u»t*

IN OLD COLONIST'S REVEKIK. "Dusti'y over the highway pipes the loud nor'wester at morn, , ' • • Wind and the rising sun, and waving tuasock and

corn; It brings to me days gone by when first in my ears it rang, The wind ia the voice of my home, and I think of the aonge it sang When, fresh from the desk and ledger, I crossed the long leagues of sea — The old worn world is gone and the new bright world is free." The wide, wild pastures of old are fading and

passing away, All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay— X sigh for the tfood old days in the station whare again. Bat the food new days are better— l would not be heard to complain, It in only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me Of the dead men low in the mould who came

with me over the «en. Some of them down in the city under the marble

are laid, Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tiee shade, And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie, With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky. And many have passed from my sight, whither I never bhall know, Swept away in the rushing river or caught in the mountain snow ; All the old hands are gone who came with me over the sea, But the land that we made our own is the same

bright laud to me. There are dreams in the gold of the kowhai, and ■when ratns Are breaking in bloom I can hear the rich murmur of voices in the deeps of the fern-shadowed gloom. Old memory may bring me her treasures from the land of the blossoms of May, But to me the bill daisies are dearer and the gorse on the river bed grey ; While the mists on the high hilltops curling, the dawn-haunted haze of the sea, To my fancy are bridal veils lifting from the face of the land of the free. The speartrraßS and cabbage trees yonder, the honey-belled flax in its bloom, Tha dark of the bush on the sidlings, the snowcrested mountains that loom Golden and grey in the sunlight, far up in the cloud-fringed blue, Are the threads with old memory weaving and 'the line of my life running through ; And the wind of the- morning calling has ever a fongforme Of hope for the land of the dawning in the golden years to be. —David M'Kee "Wright. Puketoi, April 1898.