IN LIGHTER VEIN.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14783, 13 October 1921, Page 7

IN LIGHTER VEIN.

The pawnbroker’s shop was on fire, and an old woman attracted much attention by her cries of despair. “What is the matter with you?” a fireman said., “You don’t own the shop, do you?” “No,” she wailed, “but my old man’s been sick in bed, his suit is pawned there, and he don’t know it.” A large and robust Irishwoman appeared in a police court recently to prosecute her husband, who was charged with having beaten her. The defendant, a small man, had the appearance of having been run through a threshing machine, and seemed scarcely able to stand. The magistrate surveyed the two with an amused light in his eyes. “You say this man bdat you?” he asked the woman. “He did not,” the woman said: “he knocked me down.” “You mean to tell me you Yvere knocked down by that wreck?” he asked. “ ‘Tis only since he struck pie that he’s been a wreck,” she answered. 7 C 9 “Yes,” said Mr Meekly, “I’m told we are going to move to Takapuna.” “But,” said the doctor, “the sea air there may not agree with your wife.” “It wouldn’t dare,” replied Mr Meekly.

, Little Helen had been .especially inquisitive one evening, and her father, who had patiently answered her questions, was becoming exasperated. . Finally she said: “Papa, what do you do at the office all day?” Papa’s patience gave way, and he replied: “Oh, nothing!” Helen pondered over this answer for a moment and returned to the charge with: “But how do'you know when you are done?”

Brown, describing his experiences while almost i drowning: “It is a terrible sensation. After I went down the third time my past life flashed before me in a series of pictures.” Jones, edging forward with sudden interest: “You didn’t happen to notice a picture of me lending you a fiver in the autumn of 1898, did you?” A parson noted for his absentmindedness had a habit of forgetting something he intended to say in the pulpit. Then, after sitting down, he would rise up again and begin his supplementary remarks ivith, “By ■the way.”* Recently he finished his prayer, hesitated, forgot what he was about, and sat down abruptly without closing. In a moment, however, he rose, pointed his finger at his amazed congregation, and exclaimed: ■ “Oh, by the way—amen!”

“How much for the broad-faced chicken on .the fence?” inquired an Irishman of a fabmer.

“That’s not a chicken, it’s an owl,” replied the farmer. “I don’t care how ould he is; I would like to buy him.”

A bookie was taken ill suddenly. He sent his street lout or “runner” to 11-street, where many doctors lived, bidding him tell a certain doctor to come at once. A different physician - having come, the bookie asked his tout to explain why. “Well you see, gov’nor, there was a lot of brass plates on the doors,, and when I got to . the number you gave me I saw ‘Consultations 11 to 2.’ Th'e chap next door was offering ‘Consultations 10 to I,’ so I knew you’d like the chap that gave you the best odds.” With a stormy look on his face, the master of the house waylaid the servant in the kitchen. “Look here,” he began angrily, “how dare you tell my wife the -time I came home this morning after I told you not to?” The Irish girl eyed him steadily. “Shure an’ Oi, didn’t,” she replied. “She asked me phwat toime yez came in and Oi only towld her that Oi was too busy getting breakfast ready to look at the clock.”

, A London temperancß orator was in the habit of holding forth in a -workman’s hall, and was constantly being interrupted.

The next time he lectured in that hall he engaged a prize-fighter to sit in the gallery and keep order. He was contrasting the clean content of home life with the squalor of drunkenness. “What do we want when we return from our daily toil?” he asked. “What do we desire to ease our burdens, to gladden our hearts, to bring smiles to our lips and joy to our eyes?” As the orator paused for breath the prize-fighter shook his fist at the unruly, members of the gallery and whispered in a loud undertone :“Mind yer, the first bloke what says ‘beer’ out he goes!” Councillor Macadam: I move that we have the new burial ground consecrated at once. Councillor Newrieh: I second the