OUR TRAWL NET.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12498, 26 March 1909, Page 1

OUR TRAWL NET.

The minister's' class at the kirk of Tobermory had been reading the story ■ of Joseph and his brethren, and it came to the turn of the minister to examine the boys. — The replies to all thq questions had been quick, intelligent, correct, such as.:—' ..." ' "What great crimes did these sons of Jacob commit?" "They sold their brother Joseph." 'Quito correct. And for how much?" ■ "Twenty pieces of silver." "And what added to the cruelty and wickedness of these bad brothers?" A pause. "What made their treachery even more detestable and heinous." ' Then a bright little Highlander stretched out an eager hand.. "Well, my man?" "Please, sir, they sell't him ower cheap." "Well, good-bye, dear!" said Mrs Trueboy to his beloved sprouse. "I must go and dictate those letters — twenty-six of them — so you mustn't expect me homo very early." "All right," was the response. "But I wish you wouldn't work so hard." Half an hour later Mr 'Trueboy entered his club and sat down, with three others, at a card table. "Just a moment, you fellows, before the first band is dealt. -I'vo got to keep my word with my wife. One of you just take down what I dictate : 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv w x y 55.' Thero! Those letters arc off my mind!" A magazine editor was_ talking about W. W. Jacobs the humorist. -"I tried," he said, "to get Mr Jacobs to write for roe ; but I found that he had all ho could do. for six or seven years to come. "He is a quiet, modest chap. When I praised his wonderful skill in the writing of short stories, he said it was only their surpriso that mado his stories take. "Then to illustrate what he meant, hotold me a story wherein tho surprises come fast and furious. "He said that a lawyer, defending a man accused of housebreaking, spoke like this : '"Your Worship, I submit that my client did not break into' the house at all. He' found the parlour window open and merclv inserted his right arm and removed a- few trifling articles. Now, gentlemen, my client's arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offence committed only by ono of his limbs.' '" That' a'rgument,' said the* / Magistrate, 'is very well put. Following it logically, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. Ho can accompany it or hot, as he chooses.' : ■ ■' "The defendant smiled, and with his lawyer's' assistance unscrewed his cork arm. and, leaving it in the dock, walked out." The Angler: "Is this public water, my man?" The inhabitana: "Aye." The Angler: "Then .it won't be a crime if I land a fish ?" !"*■ The Inhabitant: "No ; it'll be a miracle." • • Two boys were discussing a map of Ireland which they had been examining. Said Harry: "But I think Dublin should be higher up than they have it there. Don't,. you think so?" George replied : "Oh, no ; you_ must be mistaken. These maps are quite reliable. They're all done by latitude and lontitude you know.f Harry gave doubtful assent. "I suppose they're a tip-top firm, and they ought to know." ■ The other day a man and a boy came into my shop to buy a hat. After a time the man was fitted to one. Looking in the glass, he said to the younester, "How do I look .in this hat?" "Like a fool!" promptly responded the boy. The man angrily darted -towards him but the boy fled from the sliop pursued- by the man. i The. shopkeeper laughed, and thought it all very funny, until their long absence made him realise that he" had been robbed. Then he stopped laugh-