FUN AND FANCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3276, 27 December 1916, Page 52

FUN AND FANCY.

She : " When wo are married I > shall never set yen comi.ig home at two o'clock in the morning, shall I?" He: "I should hope not. dear !'" Landlord (to new tenant): "And you may as we'l pay the first three months in advance." "And what good do I get by that;" "Well, you can't have your rent raised for three months." Wife: "Don't vou think my new gown js lovely?" Husband: "Yes; but what did it cost?' Wife: "Ah, I never think of cost so long as I please you !" Hokus: "I actually caught Longbow "telling the truth yesterday." Pokus: "Wasn't ho embarrassed?" "Only momentarily. He immediately tried to lie out of it."

Martvr: "Ouch! Didn't you snip a piece off" ray ear that time?" Barber: "Don't be alarmed, sir. Not enough to affect the hearing." Miss Hunter: "Weren't you surprised when you .heard about my horse running away with"me?'-' Mr Jollier: "Not very. I'd do the same thing myself if 1 got the chance." Emily Sparrow (who voluntarily does the washing-up at our soldiers' canteen each evening from 8 to 12): "Nah, then. Lady Montgumbery-Wilberforce, 'urry up with them plates." Sergeant (to squad of Australian recruits): "Eves right! Eyes riffht! Number Four, eyes "right!" Number Four: Sure. Had 'cm tested by the travollin' optimist at Burraboo."

Mis Nexdore: "Can you lend mo a cup of sugar, an egg, a piece of butter, and a " Mrs Naybor: "Certainly.! Wouldn't you like to take home some of our gas to cook it with?" "What can I use to clean carpets?' asked tho young bride of her elderly friend, an experienced housekeeper. " Several things are good," was tho answer, " but the best thing will probably be your husbairo." Weclderly: "You look worried, oid man. " What's the cause thereof?" Singleton (with a sigh): "Oh, several things." '" Well, take my advice and marry one of them and let the others go. I've had the •ame experience." —An old gentleman dropped his wig in the Etrcet the other day, and a boy picked it -ip and handed it to him. " Thanks, my boy!" said the owner of the wig. " You are the first genuine hair-restorer I have ever come across!"

Johnny (at the window): " Oh, mother, a motor car just went by as big as a barn" His Mother: "Johnny, why do you exaggerate so? I've told you a million times about this habit_ of yours, and it doesn't seem to do a bit of good." —" I forgot myself and spoke angrily to my wife," remarked Mr Mcekton. " Did ehe resent it?" "For a moment. But Henrietta is a fair-minded woman. After she thought it over,. she shook hands with me, end congratulatcS me on my pluck!" The Photographer: "Merciful heavens, Mr Spiffkin, can't von look a little more cheerful?" Mr Spiffkin: "Not for this picture. I'm to send it to my wife, who is away on a visit, and if I looked too cheerful she'd take the first_ train home." A sporting Somersetshire farmer who had been welcomed one morning at the Hall stalked up to the fireplace, over which he observed the well-known motto, " Pro aris et focis" ("For our altars and our hearths.") "Ah, squire," he exclaimed. "I see you be all for the ares and oxes!" A stingy foreigner and an Englishman entered a cafe together. " What will you have —mutton or venison?" asked the Englishman. "Mutton," replied the other. "But why mutton?" asked the astonished .Englishman. "Because I prefer zat vich is sheep to zat vich is deer." Barrister's Wife: "So your client was acquitted of murder. ' On what grounds?" Barrister: "Insanity. We proved that his father once spent two years in an asylum." Barrister's Wife: " But he didn't, did he?" Barister: "Yes. He was doctor there, but we had not time to bring that fact out. A Sunday school teacher was assisting some young hopefuls to commit some short Scripture passages to memory. She read out: " Eschew evil and do good ; seek peace and ensue it." On asking a boy to repeat the words, she received the following reply: ' Chew evil, for it is good; seek pieces of suet.'-'

-'" —An old Scotsman was threatened with blindness if he_ did not give up drinking. " Now, M'Tavish," said the doctor, " it's like this: you've either to stop tho whisky or lose your eyesight—and you must choose." " Ah, weel, doctor," said M'Tavish, " I'm an auld man noo, an' I was thinkin' I hae seen about everything worth seein'!"

haired physician, who happened to be in a reminiscent mood, " I wanted to be a. soldier, but my parents persuaded me to etudy medicine." "Oh, well," responded the sympathetic druggist, "such is life. Many a man with wholesale aspirations has to content himself with a retail business."

A rash Irishman had climbed up a tree in pursuit of a small but irate wild cat. His friend, awaiting him below, heard in disn.ay the uproar of a fierce combat. "Pat." he shouted, " Pat, shall I come up and help you catch him?" Above the crash of breaking branches came a groan — "No; for goodness sake come up and help mo Ic-fc him go!" I know an old fellow whose family is ■yery musical. He said to me one day: "My eldest girl is a pianist. My son is a violinist. Jane, my second daughter, is a harpist. My wife is a vocalist, and my two boys. Peter and Bill, are respectively a flautist ard trombonist." "And you?" I said. "What are you?" "Me?" said the old man. "Oh, I'm a pessimist." Reporter (to livery stableman): "Quick, now, a horse and trap. I've got an important assignment, and no time to lose." Livery Stableman (loading out a dilapidated specimen of a horse): "Yes, sir; yes. sir." Reporter (eyeing the animal with disfavour) : " Great Scot, man ! Do you think I'm reporting for a monthly magazine?" —"I remember once," the silent man said, " hearing two very ordinary men discuss love in a smoking compartment. 'I hold,' said one. 'that if you arc terribly in love, the way to cure yourself is to run away.' The other shook his head and sneered. 'That will euro 7011,' he said, 'provided you run away with tho girl.'" One of tho stories that General Bird ■wood is fond of telling concerns his South African experiences (says tho Tatler). In hospital was a British Tommy eick. "What's the matter, my man?" asked General Birdwood. "Well, sir," was tho reply, delivered in all seriousness, "I've got enteric, I know, and I rather fancy I've got dysentery, but otherwise I'm all right."

—At a certain camp the soldiers have boon complaining recently about the scanty fare of meat that is often served up to them., and the corporal was walking round at tea-time recently, and. _ noticing a tealcaf swimming on the top of a comrade's pot. he remarked: " Ah, I see we're going to have a stranger to-day " ; to which a Tommy replied: "Aye, and let us hope that it will be the butcher."

—-An old coloured uncle was. found by the householder prowling in his barnyard late one night. " Undo Calhoun," said the owner of the place sternly, "it can't be good for your rheumatism to be prowling round hero in the rain and cold." " Doctor's orders, sah," the old man answered. " Doctor's orders? Did he tell you to go prowling round all night?" " No, sah, not exactly, sah," said Uncle Cal, " but he done, ordered me chicken broth."

The foundation stone laying had been a brilliant success. The weather was fine, the speeches eloquent, the music impressive. The master of ceremonies was very well satisfied with himself, yet with the dispersal of tho crowd he became strangely excited. Hurriedly he sought the master mason. "Is it possible to lift the stone again?" he asked. "I am afraid, not, sir," said the mason. " Have you a particular reason for asking?" "I have," said the master of ceremonies. "I've left my hat in the receptable along with the records." A Scotsman, taken to the Alhambra in a party of wounded, was anxious to know whether the dainty chorus girls who, in a certain scent emerged from paper bells, had to sit motionless inaide during the preceding business, which lasted about twenty minutes. When he v. as told they had, someone remarked: "I bet they're bored." "They passed the time with knitting, nae doot," said the mattor-of-fact Scot. There was a laugh at the idea of anything so domestic in the midst of an Alhambra revue; but it turned out (says tho Globe) that he was absolutely right. A certain old Scottish gravedigger has a remarkable fund of dry, pawky humour, which has gained for him quite a widespread fame. One day, as he was proceeding along a narrow footway, he chanced to look back, and observed that the parish minister and the local doctor were walking a short distance behind him, the doctor slightly in advance, as the path did not admit of two walking abreast. The gravedigger immediately stopped and, stepping on one side, allowed the pair to pass. His action was not lost upon the doctor, who halted and asked him his reason for to doing. " Doctor, doctor," replied that worthy, with an exasperating leer, " I shairly ken my place in the procession."