WIT AND HUMOUR.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13904, 15 May 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

WIT AND HUMOUR.

Algy —Myrtle, what are your objections" to marrying . me? . .Myrtle—l have only one objection. Algy. 1 would have to live'with you. "What caused jhe separation:-" J " Oh, he thought as' much of himself ' as she thought of herself, and as little of her as she did of him." The Angler—ls this public water, my man:- The Inhabitant —Aye. The Angler—Then it won't be a crime if 1 land a fish? The Inhabitant —No; it'll be'a miracle! Mother —Frankie, aie you teaching that parrot to swear:- Frankie —No, mother; I'm just telling it what it mustn't say. •■ Did he ever castigate his son for playing truant?" '-No; he never fooled with them new-fangled ways o' doiu' things. He jest give him a sound lickin'." Husband —I suppose you realise • that was pure luxury. Why, then, did you buy it? You must have known that we couldn't afford it. Wife—Of course L did. But you see my dear, if it had been a necessity, we would have had to get it anyway. Old -Mr Flaherty was a general favourite in the little town where he lived. The doctor was away all one summer, and did not hear of the old man's death. Soon after his return he met Miss Flaherty and enquired about the family, ending with: "And how is your father standing the heat?" Mr Taft is a large man—in physical bulk as well as in character —and he is as active as he is large. AVhen he was Governor of the Philippines, and Mr Boot was "War Secretary, the following exchange of cable messages took place between them —'"Bode forty miles on horseback. Feeling fine," was Mr Taft's message to Mr Boot. "Glad you are feeling fine." Mr Boot answered. '"How is the horse?' ' . One winter's evening, when a water inspector was going his round, he stopped at one of the mains in a busy street to turn off ,the water owing to some repairs. -He' had just put the handle on the tap and begun turning when a hand was placed on his shoulder. Looking round, he was confronted by a tipsy gentleman, who said, in a drunken tone: —"So I have found you at last, have T? It's you that's turning the street round, is it?"

Francis .Wilson was speaking at the Players' Club not long ago of the prevalent ignorance of dramatic literature in the country to-day. . " Why," said Mr Wilson, "a company was playing "She Stoops to Conquer" in a small western town last winter when a man without any money, wishing to see the show, stepped up to the box office and said: -'Pass me in, please."—"The box office man gave a loud, harsh laugh. " Pass you in? What for?" he asked. The applicant drew himself up and answered, haughtilv: ••What for? Why, because Tam Oliver Goldsmith, author of the play." "Oh, I beg your pardon, sir." replied the other, in a meek voice, as he hurriedly wrote an order for a box. The greatest financiers in the world, the Rothschilds, exact the strictest obedience to orders from their employees. ••They once had an agent here." a Xew Orleans man recently said to a reporter for the Picayune, "a fine fellow. They telegraphed to this agent at a certain season to sell their cotton holdings, but he knew the price would go higher, and therefore he didn't sell till four days later. In consequence he netted an extra nrofit of forty thousand dollars to his firm. When he. sent the Eothsehilds the monev. and announced joyously and proudly what he had done, they returned the whole amount, with a cold note that ran: "The forty thousand dollars von made by disobeying our instructions is not ours, but yours. Take it. Mr j Blank, your sails for Xew 1 Orleans to-dav."