FUN AND FANCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3016, 3 January 1912, Page 70

FUN AND FANCY.

“Your tickets were complimentary, were they not?” “Well,” replied the man, who had' seen a painfully amateur entertainment “I thought they were until I saw the show.”

Old Gent: “Here you, boy, what are you doing out here fishing? Don’t you know you ought to be at school? Small Boy: “There, now. I knew I had forgotten something.” Miss Oldun (angrily): “You have been tolling people that I bleach my hair. You know it is false.” Miss Youngun (surprised): “Indeed? I had no idea it was.” “How do you like me for a, travelling companion?” asked the detective, ho handcuffed his prisoner to himself. “Oh, I’m very much attached to you,” replied the prisoner promptly. Mrs George: “Mrs James is going to give a progressive whist party on Thursday night.” Mr George; “What! You don’t mean to say sh© is going to work off her Christmas present© so soon?” “What a beautiful piece the orchestra is playing.” “Yes. That tune will always haunt'me.” “Ah! Childhood’s memories?” “No, no ! But it’s the only tune the man in the flat above us knows.”

“Why have you named your picture ‘Dawn’?” a young artist was asked. “Because,” replied the impressionist, who had already been bitterly disillusioned, “so few people know what dawn is like_ that they will probably accept my description of it!”

—< ‘‘Hello, Crawford, what’s all your hurry?” “Goin’ for the police. There’s a burglar in our house ” “You haven t left your wife alone, have yon?” “No, she’s'holdin’ the burglar!” “What’s the matter with your horse, cabby? Is he ill?” “No, sir, only ’e’s unlucky. Every mornin’ I tosses ’im whether ’e ’as a feed of oats or me a sossklge an mashed—an’ ’o’s lorst two mornin s runnin’!” —“I understand that Mr Pinchpenny has been operated on for appendicitis,” remarked Miss Cayenne. “\es. It s the first time anvone was known to get anything out of him.” “And even then they had to give him chloroform to get that.” A certain woman assured her husband she never told him a lie, and never would. He told her he did not doubt it, but would hereafter cut a notch in the piano when he knew she deceived him. “No, you won’t!” she screamed. “I’m not going to have my piano ruined!” “And just to think, John,” said Mrs Dearmond, proudly, “if the suflVagettes get into power the leaders will have their pictures on the postage-stamps.” “By George,” sighed Mr Dearmond with a faraway look, ‘that is the only way we’ll ever be able to lick ’em!” A Yankee clinched hi.s argument with an Englishman as to the relative size of the Thames and Mississippi by saying: “Why, look here, mister, there ain’t enough water in the whole of the Thames to make a gargle for the mouth of the Mississippi.” A regiment of soldiers were in camp, and a young Scottish recruit was put on sentry-go outside the general’s tent. In the morning the general rose, looked out of his tent, and said to the young man, in a stern and loud voice: “Who are you?” The young man turned round smartly and said: “Fine! Go’s yerscl’?” They lived in the country. “I have a great joke on my wife,” said William “I think she must be getting a bit nearsighted. She was ’out for ten minutes this morning calling the scarecrow to come to breakfast What do you think of that?” “Well, if I were you,” said Henry, ‘l’d either get O' new euit of clothes or a younger wife.”

The man who said he did not know what good lifo insurance would do him until ho was dead must luivc been a hopeless object for the agent. Ijiko him was the old farmer who had been advised time after time to insure hits bouse against lire. The agent could never get the old man to sign, and was forced to listen to the familiar argument that his house would “never gang on fire.” The unexpected happened. however, and the . neighbours were astonished when the old man, instead of trying to put out the fire or save his furniture, ran wildly up and down tho road crying: “Whaur’s that agent noo? Whaur’s that insurance chiel? Ye ean never get a body whin you’re needin’ ’im !”

The young married couple, presented with tile problem of what to give another couple -at an impending ceremony, looked over their own presents and picked out a silver dish which they thought they could do without. “In this way wo will save the expense of buying something,” said tb» practical husband. So ho took the silver dish down to a dealer in silver elate to seo if the initials couldn’t be filed off and others substituted in their place. The shopman said he would have to take it to the engraving department and see. He came hack directly. “Our engraver nays he can't do it,” ho reported. “Ho says—‘Not with that dish. That’s been back here so often that it is worn too thin by the many filings lo stacd another.’ ”