FUN AND FANCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2779, 19 June 1907, Page 70

FUN AND FANCY.

— Lots of us would rather be happy than be in love.

—To err is human — to lie about it is more human.

—No man can make a mistake without learning something. — It's safer to guess than to predict — and it is equally uncertain. It isn't what man owes but what he pays that keeps him poor. — Most people look at their troubles through a magnifying glass. — It's easy to get satisfaction by going to law — if you are a lawyer.

—He is indeed a busy man who can never find time to find iault.

— She: "Do you play on the piano?" He : " Occasionally. I am a fireman."

— Jack: "Why do you olose your eyes whenever I kiss you?" Maude: "So that I can dream that it is Dick doing the kissing."

— Mrs Slybel: "The boy grows more like his father every day." The Caller: "Poor dear! And have you tried everything?"

— "Don't get down in the mouth, old man. Look on the bright side of things." c 'Yes, hut which is the bright side of a gumboil?"

— Bobbie: "Mamma." Mamma: "Well." Bobbie : " Were men awful 6carce when you -married papa, or did you just feel sorry for him?"

— " Hasn't Reggie a funny-shaped head?" " Yes ; reminds you of Saturday and Monday at Brighton"!" — "Why?"— 'Oh, it's a weak end, isn't it?"

—A" Magnate: "Is he very rich?" — "Rich? Why, te's so rich he daren't look twice at a girl for fear she'll bring a breach of promise suit." — "Now, then," said the teacher of arithmetic, "what is 'above par'?" "I think I know," ventured a small boy. "Well?" asked the teacher. "It's ma."

—Mr Nurich (engaging valet) : " I warn you that frequently I am exceedingly illtempered and gruff." Valet (cheerfully) : 'That* all right, sir; co am I!"

— She : ".Did you ever take your motor car to pieces to see how it worked? " He: "Well, not -exactly. I have taken it to pieces to ccc how it didn't work."

— Volatile Friend: "Hullo! What's the matter, old man? Toothache? Have it out; if it were mine, I should." Sufferer: "Yes, if it were yours, so should I."

— Schoolmaster : " 'Anonymous' means ' without a name.' me a -sentence showing how to use "*the word." Small Boy : " Our new baby is anonymous."

— Mistress: "Why were you dismissed from your Jast plaoe?" Up-to-Date Servant Girl. "Well, I like your inquisitiveness ! Did I ask you why your last girl left you?" — Hewitt: "That girl in the print dress ie a poem." Jewett: "She differs from most 'poems." Hewitt: "How is that?" Jewett: "Most poems don't get into print."

— "The -woman I marry," he 6a id, "must be glad to take me with all my faults." — "Oh, she will be," the girl replied. "She'll be so desperate that faults won't trouble her."

— "Miss Bright refused to marry me last night." — "Too bad, old man!" — "Oh, I don't oare. I wouldn't want to marsy a girl with such a lack of good sense, any way." — It may have taken a hundred centuries of evolution to change a monkey into a man, but it takes only a few minutes and a pint of whisky to change a man into a monkey. "It seems his uncle fell out of a hotel window " "Gracious! Any bones broken?" — 'Not one." — "No?" — "No; he was merely drowned. It happened in Venice."

— "The ancients thought the world was fiat." — "Well, I don't blame 'em. They had bo chorus girls, no cigarettes, no bridge, no society journals. It must have been in those -days."

— Waiter : "You can't get a room heFe for that man ; be's drunk. This is a temperance hotel." Man (supporting a weary friend) : "That's all right ; he's too drunk to know the difference."

— A learned judge expressed surprise that a man should' be able to earn, a fair living by playing the big drum. Yet there are those who make quite a good thing out of blowing their own trumpets.

— Fair Divorcee: "My dear, I am going to be married next week, to Mr Richman." Small Daughter : "Oh, mamma, arc you going to get married again? And after all the trouble we had with papa !" — Old Growells (sternly) : "What was going on in the parlour last night that kept you up so late, young lady?" Pretty Daughter (holding up her hand) : "This engagement ring, papa. Isn't it a beauty?" — He: "Why are you wearing that expensive gown at dinner -to-night? It is such a swell affair." She: "I know it, but I don't feel ' like talking much, and with this gown on I won't -be entirely lost sight of."

— Affable Landlady : "And what is your occupation, sir?" High-flown Literary Gentleman: "Ah. I am a servant of the Mum." Affable Landlady : "Indeed, that's funny! My last lodger was employed in a mews, too." — First Golfer: "Yes, sir; I drove off from the tee, and my ball landed just on the edge — on the very edpe — of the next hole. What do you think of that? " Second Golfer (ambiguously) : "I think it's a splendid lie." — First Tramp: "You oughtn't to tell people you want a copper to quench ycr hunger?" Second Tramp: "Ain't that what yer do with yer hunger? That's correct !" First Tramp : "It's correct, but it ain't diplomatic." — "Have you a match?" asked the gossip who had dropped into the busy man's office for a chat. '^JCy cigar has gone oat." — • "It seems to have -the advantage, of you," remarked the bu6y man. "How's that?" — "It knows its place." — "Has your wife got your den fixed up yet?" — "Yes, and you ought to see it; it's the cosiest place in the whole house." — "I suppose you find great comfort in it, don't you?" — "Oh, she won't let me go in it ; it's merely to look at."'

— "Madam, you've already overdrawn your account." — "What's that 9 " — "You haven't any more money in the bank." — "The idea! A fine bank, I think, to be nut of money bocause. of the little I've drawn ' Well. I'll co somewhere else "

— "Look here. Brown, that motor oar you sold me won't po at all ! What do you mean by telling me it was continually gelting you into trouble with tho police?" — "Perfectly true, my dear sir. I was always bc'pa summoned for obstructing the traffic !"

— "My dear Mrs 8.," said the -welcoming hostess, "I am glad -you've come, but 1 do hope the weather will -clear up, or you won't enjoy yourselves much." — "'Oh, but Mrs A.," said the polite guest, "we didn't come to enjoy ourselves ; we came to see you." — German Tourist (to hotelkeeper in the Highlands of Scotland) : "I am avraid you vill not be aple to bronounce my name— it is Oetzmann.'' Highland Hotelkeeper : "Hoots, man " German Tourist: <lVonderful! Yonderful ! You haf gott it at once." — A countryman bargained with a Californian photographer for a half-length picture of himself at half-price, and when the artist delivered a fine view -of the subject from the waistband down the victimised eitter indulged in remarks more forcible than polite. — Mile. Lideal (a poet): "What a marvellous and beautiful spectacle it is to see the heavy heads of wheat rising and falling at the caprice of the gentle zephyrs." Mons. Rater-e (a speculator) : "ISot half so wonderful as to see them rising and falling at the Corn TSacchange." — Unholy Cities. — A Berkeley bookseller, anxious to fill an order for a liberal patron, wired to Chicago for a copy of " Seekers After God," by Canon Earrar, and to his surprise and dismay received this reply: "No seekere after G»d in Chicago or New York. »Try Philadelphia." — "Don't you believe in Evolution? " asked the scientific man. "Certainly," answered Miss Cayenne. "No change that centuries bring about in natural history can be more remarkable than that which a woman undergoes in a single day as -she progresses from curl papers to -evening gowns." —At a military church service during the South African war some Tecrutt« wer« listening to the chaplain, who in the course of the service said, "Let them slay the Boers as Joshua -smote "the Egyptians," when a recruit whispered to his companion : "Say, "Bill, the old parson is a bit off. Doesn't he know it was Kitchener who swiped the Egyptians?" — They were skating. "George," she asked, as they rounded the* bend, "is your watch correct?" — <r Yee, indeed," replied George, with a merry laugh ; "it is keeping better time since 1 put your picture inside the case." — "Oh, you flatterer ! Haw >could that be?" — "Well, you see, when 1 placed your picture inside the case I added another jewel." And the wise old moon man winked. — "Twas a glorious night, and two lovers cat upon the cliff-side, with the eternal ocean, flowing at their feet with a calmness and placidity that was almost appalling. They were looking at the stars above, and he turned' to his girl and said tenderly: "My darling, I don't understand what you can see in me to love me so." "That's what everybody says," she replied. The silence was greater than ever. — Two Liverpool Irishmen were observed studying one of the corporation placards on the abuse of alcohol, concerning the nature of which who is to decide when doctors disagree as they are doing just now? "Abuse of alcohol," said one of the Hibernians; "what's abuse, Mike?" — "It manes swearing." explained Mike. "That's what I was doing last week when my woife flung the frying-pan at me and told me to take mv abuse elsewhere." — "Well," said Pat, "the only peoole who'd swear at whisky is taytotaHers. I'm sure 1 never did '" — "When I was in America last summer I used to read every week a little country paper whose editor's metaphors were an unfailing joy to me," declares Ernest Lameon. "Once, I remember, this editor wrote of a contemporary : ' Thus the black lie, issuing from his baße throat, becomes a boomerang in his hand, and. hoisting nimby his own petard, leaves him a marked man for life.' H« «aid in his article on home life: ' The faithful watch-dog or tho (rood wife, standing at the door, welcomes the master home with honest bark.' "