Tit Bits AND TWADDLE

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1093, 9 December 1899, Page 11

Tit Bits AND TWADDLE

The Ponsonby gallant is sometimes very happy in turning a compliment, aa the following will show. It was at a dance, and, at the conclusion of a qnadrille, she asked him which figure in the dance he liked best. His face lit np as he replied : ' Youra, dear.' We understand that the cards are out. .

.Up in the Wairarapa they are mixing their politics very freely. At the close of a. political haringae.at G-re>town the. other night, one of the free and independent was found sitting on the kerbstone eating an orange, with his feet steeped in the water channel. Asked what be was up to, be replied that he was ' simply cooling his brain.'

He was out on the atamp down South, and, replying to some personalities it was more in sorrow than in anger that he said, ' I cannot help remarking, my friends, how mean my opponent ia, bnt I wish to warn him that two can play at that game.' They are quite wiling to admit that on that score it is a very even contest.

A Wellington drapery clerk re cently asked his employer for a rise in his salary as he wanted to get married, and added as an argnment in his favour that he had grown grey in the service of the firm. The reply he received was anything but encouraging. ' Don't do it,' said the boas. 'To be grey is quite enough, if you get married you are liable to soon be bald, and I don't wish to be a party *"O any such result. '

A party well-known as Oom Paul Said, ' By freedom we'll Btand or we'll fall 1'

' Hurrah ! that's our view ;' Cry the Uitlanders too ; ' Oh, I didn't mean you,' says Oona Paul,

The average youngster who has been to the university for a year, and got a little smattering of Latin and Greek, and possibly floundered into the pools of metaphysical literature, generally thinks that he knows more than the Lord who made him. The following conversation between a Waikato farmer and his son who was home for his holidays from College illustrates the point. ' I hope Governor, that when I attain to your yearp, I'll know more than you do.' I'll go you one better," replied the father, ' and hope that when you reach my age you w:ll know as much &b you think you know now.'

A very pretty Wellington girl was recently visiting Nelson for a few weeks, and her attractiveness aroused the enthusiasm of the otherwise somnolent swains of that peaceful resort to such a point that they conquered their usual 1 tired feeling,' and she was the recipient of a number of offers of marriage. She. undoubtedly enjoyed the experience, but evidently did not regard her vai ious suitors seriously, as the following little incident will show. Number thirteen bobbed up serenely with the usual poetical effusipn, commencing somewhat in the following style : — ' You are the tree upon which the fruit of my heart has grown ' ' Yes, yes, bnt I can't accept you ; thirteen' is an unlucky number, and lam sure something dreadful would happen.' ' That is only a foolish superstition. What could happen ?' 'Why, if we became engaged I might marry you and have to live in Nelson.'

Love me little, love me long' (This we from a poet borrow). Now it's ' Love me for a day— And we'll be divorced tomorrow '

When lovely wotnan combines to form a deliberative assembly, she generally makes a few entirely unintentionally hnmourons breaks. The New South Wales National Council of Women lately pa?sed a resolution to the following effect: — ' That in view of a recent assault upon a young schoolmistress who was teaching at a bush school, the Minister for Public Instruction be asked that at each isolated school a big boy pupil be told off to see the schoolmistress home. 1 Now, the question natnrally comes up as to who will watch the boy, because, if the pupils are anything like the young fellows who recently made a wreck of the schoolroom at Mayfield, across the harbour from Auckland, it would be much more sensible and to the point to have the schoolmistress conveyed home by a big bull dog.

' ' Baby ' Denton (amourously, to his latest mash) : ' Why don't you pat yonr armß around m^i dearie, and lay yonr head on my shonlder.' The Liady : ' Well, my dear Percy, I can do the head-laying on the shoulder business, but as my arms are not made of indiarubber, and are only the rwrmal length, you can't expect me to era the other.

An old resident of Parnell, who has been run into and more <or less damaged by ' scorchers ' on several occasions, was asked a short time back by a young lady who was jast learning to ' bike,' why it was that the doctors recommended bicycle riding if it mn.de people healthier.' ' That's easily explained,' replied the old gentleman, as he tenderly rubbed a sore spot. 'They figure that one sound, healthy rider will disable at least five pedestrians a week.'

That ancient chestnut about the political candidate for Westland soliciting support, and the average digger responding ' Great heavens, is Dick dead ?' is getting just a little bit baggy at the kneea and frayed at the bottoms. It might . have been a good yarn many years ago, but it showed signs of age and decrepitude even at the last general elections, and when Seddon trots it ont again this season — well, we can only aay that he ought to instruct one of his secretaries to write him op a new one.

At one time he had been known as one of the brightest and cheeriest men at the Northern Club. Nb one on the Exchange was more alert or up to date, but, latterly, he wore a worried air, and hia face assumed 'a haggard expression- On consulting his doctor, that astute individual immediately remarked, ' I see what the matter is. You do not get sleep enough. Take this prescription to a chemist's.' The patient carried out the instructions, and in the next week visibly improved. Hia physician, on meeting him, congratulated him on his changed appearance, and inquired as to whether he hadn't slept better. ' Splendidly,' was the reply 'I am feeling immense.' * How many doses of that opiate did you take ? queried the doctor. ' I didn't take any,' was the reply. ' I gave the whole blooming lot to the baby.'

A goldfields contemporary, in dealling wich the question of the difference of the relations between the aiit-tocracy and the people now, and what they wero many years ago, speaks thua pathc-t>c>tlly : 'Of old the noble was to the people what the Commodore was during war to the merchant fleet, he convoyed the defeni-e around which they hung; the chief whom they followed. Now the noblu is to the people what the ' star ' is to the fleet, a bright spectator from above of their law and distant progress, who, in a sphare inaccessible to them, has a share in painting out their course. This latter is distinctly good, and the writer must have in his mind's eye the Earl of Yarmouth, who has ]usfc accepted an engagement from au American theatrioal manager as 'star' dancer for a protracted season.

A pvablican in Auckland, who owns to a somewhat peppery temper at times, and who is strong in his belief that a publican is just as Rood as any other brand of sinm r had a rather humourous experience a few Sundays ago He had been told that a certain clergyman was going to deliver a sermon particularly directed against hotelkeepers, and immediately made up his mind that he would enter a protest against it in some way. The more he thonght over the matter, the more annoyed he became, and at last he decided to vi.-»it the church, take a prominent seat, and when the minister attacked his class, to get op, put on his hat, and stalk ont. The impression that be would make by the carrying oat of this plan, grew on him, until finally, when he took his seat in church on the following Sunday, he fairly glowed with the feeling that he was a species of masculine Joan of Arc, who was goiDg to do battle for the entire trade. Imagine his collapse when the clergyman gave out as his text, ' Let not yoar hearts be troubled,' and immediately entered upon a very interesting discourse, advising people not to worry over small things as it tended to shorten one's life.. Scott-^-we mean the publican, heard the sermon through, and came away greatly edified. He still holda a very high opinion of that preacher.