FUN AND FANCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2672, 31 May 1905, Page 63

FUN AND FANCY.

"~ "Do jou tell your wife when you have done^ wrong?" — "No; she tells me!" — "Did Jones make jnuch money giving tnemory lessons?"— "lSio; most "of his students forgot to pay him." .—. — "I notice you never wear a watch tnth your evening olothes." — "No; I never have both out at the same ti^ie." — A thief, who lately broke open a grocer's warehouse, excused himself on the groundl that he went to take tee. — A wealthy widow, advertising for an e.gent, was overwhelmed with applications. The printer had made it "a gent." — Aunt Jane: "Is your husband all you thought h& was?" "Rryim^ : "Well, yes, I think iie is; but I am eorry to say that he is fex from being what he thinks himself to be."

— "Why are old maids so devoted to their cats?" asked a young fellow of an elderly lady. — "Because, having no husbands, they take the next most treacherous animals," was the reply. — "I think the money in the world should Ids more evenly divided," said the longhaired man. "Well/ I think it would be better to more evenly distribute the hair, said the bald-headed oni». „ — ''Now, this won't do,- you know. — "What ■■won't?" — "This line— ' Her eyes were like stars.'"— "Why not ?" s—"Why,5 — "Why, poets have been using that' for ages. Be up-to-date I- Say ' like radium.' " -7- Mrs MTlub: "I see that a London physician claims that early rising is conducive to- madness." - "Mrs Sleeth: "Oh, v it is! You ought to see how mad it make|| my husband- when he has to get up"* early." - - —"I hope things are more peaceful in.; the choir than formerly," said the pastor. *TTes," replied the organist, "it's perfectly calm, now." — "I'ni glad to hear it. How wa3 peace restored?" — "Everybody excepting myself resigned." —"I say, Pat," said a farmer to an Irishman who was passing, "did you see anything of a stray pig down the road?" *'Smire> now," replied son of Erin, •'an' how would Oi bo afther.. knowin' a sthray uig from onny other pig?" — Algy: "Gwace has a hohwid father. When I asked him for her hand, I said, *I«ove for your daughter has dwiven me hawf owazy.* " Oholly : "And then, deah boy?" "Then, the old bwute said: 'Has, eh? "Well, who oompleted the job? ' " — "Did you go to the theatre last night?" "I did."— "And what did you see?"— "A bow of chiffon, some tortoiseshell oombs, a couple of black plumes, a- velvet knot, and a stuffed bird about the size of a pelican. — "Yes." said the old inhabitant, "we thought we'd ought to do something for Bi.ll af te*- his - funeral. He only had one fault— he couldn't tell the truth." — "What did you do for him?" — "Oarved a little motto that his friends would understand: ' Let him lie in peace.' " - —"A drop of ink may make a million think," quoted M'Swilligen.— "So. I have heard," added Squilldig. — "It may provoke language, too. A few drops of Jink that I inadvertently dropped on my wife's new carpet brought forth- about a million words, and all energetic words, too." — Harold': "This is Bessler, the famous inventor' of the triple-expansion . engine, the automatic double-back-aotion-reversible-rapid-fire- gun, the <x>n»!KHind electrohydrobeatedu dynamo, the " RupeTt: "But he looks distracted." Harold: "Yes, he "can't invent a plausible excuse to give, nifl wife for being late, and he daren t go home."

A story is told of an elderly gentleman who, because of his deafness, makes some ludicrous and at times embarrassing mistakes. Recently he was at a dinner party ■where the lady seated next to him tried to help him along in conversation. As the fruit was being passed, she asked him : Do you like bananas?" "No" said the old gentleman, with a> look of mild surprise ; "the old-fashioned nightshirt is good enough for me." , „ —It is told of a lady" that, while touring in the Scottish Highlands one summer, she was taken to a. cave in which Macbeth ■was said to have been born. She exanfmed the cave attentively, and listened to the eloquent sneecb of her guide. At the ena she said to the man: "Come, now, tell _me truly, is this really the place where Macbeth was born?" The guide smiled awkwardly. He shifted about "a little. "Weel," he said, "it's one of the places!" "Madam," said the tramp, as a middiea»ed woman came to the door in answer to bis knock, 'fwould you give a poor old man a bite to eat?" "Why," she replied, "you are certainly able tc- earn a living. You "don't look- very old." "Looks are often deceitful, lady," answered the hungry one. "Why, Fm old .enougß to be your grandfather." And a moment later he had his feet under the 'kitchen table, and nothing she" had" in- the pantry was too good for iiiin. • it j. — Indignant Householder, (ft> the collector of gas bills):" "How is it that my gas bills get higher and higher every quarter, when I am sure that we burn no more gas than we did formerly?" Collector (meekly and deprecatingly) : "I am sure, sir, I dk> aot know, unless something is the matter with the meter." Indignant Householder (satirieallv): "Something the matter with the meter, eh? Oh, yes; I suppose the meter has the gastric fever!" And the old man ■was so pleased with his joke that he cheerfully paid the bill. . , — Lessons in etiquette are being gradually drilled into little Willie, and his elder sister? Muriel, who is five and a-half, takes • delight in making him wait for his bread and butter, with «h» rebuke, "£*&« f ™£ Willie frets under the disability, but the majority being against him, he suffers in Bileiee/Last week Muriel and he returned from a neighbour's to find a large and truculent dog standing at the front gate. They paused to reconnoitre, and after many suggestions Muriel said, "Sou BO »P*" d open the gate; he won't hurt you. Wilhe considered tho proposition for a second. Then the do? winked a blood-shot eye. •'No," he replied gravely, "ladies first. —Two beys, friends of Darwin, thought cmc day- that they would play a. joke on him. They caught a butterfly, a grasshGp'peTj 'a' beetle, and a centipede, and out o£ these creatures they made a strange, composite- insect. They took the centipede's body, the butterfly's wings, the grasshopper's leg», and Jbhe beetle's head, and they gtaed them together carefully. Then, Inrith their new bug in a box. they knocked »t Darwin's door. "We caught this bug in a fieH," they said. "Can you tell us what kind of a bug it is, sir?" Darwin looked at the bug, and then he looked mb the bora. He? smiled lightly. "Did it

hum when you caught it?" he asked. "Yes," they answered, nudging one another. •'Then," said Darwin, "'it is a humbug!" — Sbme years ago, when that style of advertising was in vogue, a Chinaman used to walk up and down in front of a tea 6hop. He looked sad, with his long pigtail hanging down behind his blue blouse, and a passing visitor stopped to gaze at him. The visitor was a kind-hearted maji, and he began to picture to himself poor John's sad position in a foreign land, walking up and! down the kerb all day, probably "thinking wistfully of his old homo among the rice fields of the Flowery Land. At last he went up to John. "Poor fellow 1" he said, commiseratingly. "How do they treat you here? How do you like your billet?" "Och, bedad," replied John, "the billet 'ud be all reight if it wasn't for these furin clothes, that Oi have to foind mesilf, an' that's expensive."

— Jusfc before the total eclipse- of the sun Percival Lowell, the astronomer, told an old negro acquaintance that if he would watch the chickens at his place the next day h« would see them go to roost at 31 o'clock in the morning. The negro was plainly sceptical— in fact, looked uuon the prophecy as a good joke. But when the event came to pass as the astronomer had said it would, the darkey was not only puzzled, but decidedly impressed. "How long sah, did you know "'bout dis?" he asked the astronomer. — "Oh, a, longtime." "Did you know a year ago dey would go to roost?"— Yes; fully a. year-ago."— "Well, dat beats all," said George, in an awed voice; "dam chickens wuzn'fc hatched a year ago."