A lady who has in her employ a green Irish servant girl tells how after training the girl for a month, she ventured to invite two very dignified people to dinner. For two courses everything went well. Bridget refrained from speech, spilled nothing, and looked as pretty as a fresh young Irish girl can. But when she removed the fish, to take it down to the kitchen, she tripped on the top step, and a scream and series of bumps and crashes accompanied the descent. The hostess tried in vain to keep from laughing, but the two dignified guests never moved a muscle until all was still, and the voice of the girl was heard calling in richest accents from the bottom of the stairs : ' Did you hear me? Fell all the way down shtairs, an' landed on me fut loike a burrd.'
Mrs. Customer : ' That lamb you sent me, Mr. Stintwaite, was the largest and toughest mutton I ever saw.' Mr. Stintwaite : 'Tut, tut! It's that boy bin loitering again. I assure you, ma'am, when that joint left the shop it was the sweetest little leg of lamb you ever set eyes on ; and 1 gave him strict orders to deliver it at once, because you wanted it young.'
A French aoldier leaving barracks is stopped by one corporal of the guard. Corporal : «You cannot go without leave.' , , . . Private : ' I have the verbal permission of the captain.' Corporal: ' Show me that verbal permission.'
An Irish oflicer to a friend, on his arrival at Calcutta : ' India, my boy, is the finest climate under the sun. But a lot of young fellows come out here and they eat and they drink, and they die, and then they wrife home to their parents a pack of lies, and say it's the climate that has killed them.'
Clergyman to shop-boy in fishmonger's : 'Well. John, and you have left school? Come now, answer me. Supposs a piece of salmon weighs eighteen pounds, how much would it be worth at fourpence the pound ?' John (indignantly) : ' Whit wid it be worth at fourpence the pun ? It widna be worth the weighin'!'
A rich, but ignorant, lady, who was rather ambitious in her conversational style, in speaking of a friend, said, ' He is a paragram of politeness.' 1 Excuse me,' said the wag sitting next to her, ' but do you not mean a parallelogram ?' ' Of course I do,' immediately replied the lady. ' Uow could I have made such a mistake?'
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WSTAR18980708.2.18
Bibliographic details
Western Star, Issue 2220, 8 July 1898, Page 3
Word Count
413Untitled Western Star, Issue 2220, 8 July 1898, Page 3
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