CONTEMPORARY HUMOUR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4864, 1 December 1883, Page 3

CONTEMPORARY HUMOUR.

ilhe coat-tail flirtation is the latest. A wrinkled coat-tail bearing dusty toe marks means, " I have spoken to your father." Ohip from a German Workshop.— Maker of musical instruments, oheerfully rubbing his hands : " Thore, thank goodness, the bass fiddle is finished at last !" After a pause— " Ach Rimmel J if I haven't gone and left the glue-pot inside !" A young lady awoke from a deep sleep the other night, feeling a hand clasping her left wrist. She shrieked, went into oonvnlsions, and finally became sufficiently oomposed to see that ahe was holding her own wrist with her right hand. She might have died from fright* No girl is safe until ehe has a husband to hold her wrists for her. A Shepherd's Bush girl, attending a theatre reoently, complained in one of the scenes that the light was too dim to see acting properly. " Wont you try this glass ?" asked her esoort, handing her his lorgnette. Hastily covering the nuspioious looking objeot with her hand* kerohief, she placed it to her lips, took a long pull, and then handed it baok in great disgußt, "saying, "Why, there ain't a drop in it!" A minister was oalled in to see a man who was very ill. After finishing his visit, as he was leaving the house he said to the man's wife: " My good woman, do you go to ohuroh at all?" " Oh ! yee, sir, we gang to the Barony Kirk." " Then why did you send for me P Why didn't you send for Dr Maoleod P" "Na, na, sir, deed no; we wadna risk him. Do you no ken ? It's a dangerous oase o' typhus." A speotator at one of the theatres in Berlin, aB a young lady of the ballet made her first appearanoe, exclaimed, " Splendidly got up ! " Another speotator, who sat next to him, made a polite bow, and said, " Thank you ! " " Ah ! " said the former, "I suppose you are the father of the young artiste?" "Noi" " Her brothor ? " •« No ! " " Then who the Diokens are you, I should like to know ? " " I supplied the padding .'" A baronet wae at a dinner-party of a rather pretentious obaracter, tho other evening, where the men from the stable had evidently been pressed into the service of tbe diningroom, and a good deal of clumsiness and confusion in the waiting was the oonsequenoe. At length a tremendous smash was heard just outside the door. The hostess half jumped out of her chair; the host looked savage ; but the baronet quietly remarked to his neighbour, " It's only the ooaohman going out with tho break !" Fancy the horror of detfr respeotable Mrs Btmebotham, who is rather short-sighted, when ehe saw a handbill on the wall of the Herringborough Harbour with the words, "Smaok Anna Maria," in large letters. It wbb only on olose inspeotion that she discovered it was an auctioneer's advertisement of the forthcoming sale of the fishing-boat or smack oalled the Anna Maria. "Still," as she said to Lavinis, "it was startling, my dear, to any one who doesn't happen to be nautical." During the rage for spelling- bees, a clergyman was "turned down" at a fashionable assembly for spelling drunkenness with one "n." Shortly afterwards he returned to his parish, and found himself very coldly reoeived by hiß parishioners. He sent for the parish olerk, and asked him what was the oause. "Well, sir," replied the man, "areport has oome down here that you were turned out of a great lady's house in London for drunkennees!" THE 5 au. BOM ANCE. Young Barnaby stood by the huge hay mow, With fear in his heart and hope on his brow, And gazed at his Sarah Ann, Till the finished milking the brindle cow, And had filled the bright tin can.' Thoj sat in the shade of the shed so old, While the tun the hills was adorning, Turning the glittering dew into gold -, And tho old, old story he softly told, At 5 o'olock in the morning. O, sweet was the scent of the gem-lit grass ! And love's young dream to tbat lad and lasß Was dear as their hope of bliss ; Bnt their joy was turned to sorrow, alas ! At the sound of their first fond kiss. It Beared the oow who was chewing her oud, The lovers silently soorning ; Then her horns were heavy with ruby blood, Ab Barnaby fell with a " sickening thud," At 6 o'clock in the morning. Let laddies beware of thn brindle cow, When they woo their lassies beneath the mow ; Like the silent hand of fate She will lift them aloft with a courtly bow, Olear oyer the barn-yard gato. , Let lovers avoid the dew en tho lea, And from this sad case take warning ; Barnaby ne'er had boen tossed like a flea, If he'd boen abed, where all ought to ba, At 5 o'olook in the morning. THE DARK DEED OF DEADMAN'B DINGLE. Book I. Air! -Chapter 1. The Murder near the Brook ! Chapter 2. Luoy's Lover fails to keop his Appointment! Chapter 3 Detective Dowter's Excurrion ! Chaptor 4 -mat'-d on Suspicion ! Book 11. Earth !— Chapter 1 Tho Pistol is found in the Fernery ! Chapter 2. Dowter's Note-Book ! Chapter 3. Retained for the Defence! Chapter 4. The Magistrate's' Decision ! Book 111. Fire!— Chapter 1. Lucy reoeives a mysterious Visitor ! Chapter 2. Blood- stains ! Ohapter 3. A t crap of Paper! Ohapt er 4. The Blaok Oap ! Book IV. Water!— Ohapter 1. "When Thieves quarrel!" Chapter 2. The Condemned Cell ! Chapter 3. Lucy learns at last the Secret of Deadman's Dingle ! Ohapter 4. "Advanoe, Australia !" Thue, having given the outline of tho Story, all that is necessary h — to write it.