SOME RACY REJOINDERS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue V, 3 August 1895, Page 140

SOME RACY REJOINDERS.

Some few months ago, in connection with a smoking concert held in a hotel in Glasgow, a room was specially set apart as a cloak-room, and was placed under the care of a particularly canny Scot. One of the visitors, from the city of St. Mungo, prior to his departure at the conclusion of the evening’s entertainment, handed in his voucher to the caretaker, and thinking to have a joke at his expense, received his headgear with the query : ‘ Are you sure this is my hat ?’ He was met with the ready and unexpected response : ‘ Well, ye ken that best yersel. I’m nae sure whether its your hat or nae, but at ony rate it's the one ye gaed me.’ Curran, the celebrated Irish orator, was a man of diminutive stature, and on one occasion a brother barrister, somewhat irritated by Curran’s good humoured banter, said to him : * If you don’t cease that incessant cackle, I’ll just pick you up and put you in my pocket.’ • Faith, sir,’ replied Curran, as sharp as possible, 1 then you will have more wit and wisdom in your pocket than you ever had in your head.’ Counsellor Missing was once cross-examining a witness who appeared 011 a trial for donkey-stealing. Amongst other questions he asked her : ‘ Why could you not see the donkey?’ ’Simply because the ass was missing,’ she naively replied. The venerable Charles Wesley was once rudely confiouted on a very narrow pathway by an arrogant clerical opponent who accosted him with the words, ‘ I never make way for a fool.’ Wesley at once stepped aside, and remarked, as he passed on with a courteous bow, ‘ I always do !’ A society bore once told Charles Lamb that he considered Shakspere unworthy of the almost universal commendation bestowed upon him. ‘Hadi the mind to do it,’ said the fop, ‘ I could produce plays quite equal to those of Shakspere. ‘Exactly so,’ responded Lamb, ‘ of course it is only the tnind that is lacking.’ The following racy retort, made by a brilliant literary woman at a recent West End dinner, was as smart as it was well deserved. An indiscreet guest of the male persuasion ventured to remark that * woman’s chief mission in life was to make fools of men.’ ‘Admitting the statement,’ responded the lady in question, ‘how tantalising it is to discover that, in many instances, Nature has forestalled us.'

The witty Bishop of Oxford was once waited on by a

clergyman who came to lodge a querulous complaint against a local brother of the cloth, whom he accused of ritualistic practices. ‘ For instance,’ said the aggrieved cleric, ‘ does your lordshipconsider it right for a priest to kiss a stole ?’ ‘ Well,’ said Dr. Stubbs, with a characteristic twinkle in his eye, * I think there would be better ground for complaint if he stole a kiss.* A bragging freethinker once found himself involved in a theological controversy with a Quaker, and, feeling that he was getting worsted in the argument, sought to terminate it bv saying : ‘I refuse to believe in the existence of anything that I have never seen.’ ‘Gently, friend,’ quoth the Quaker, ‘ hast thou ever seen thy brains ?’ ‘ Certainly not.’ ‘ Have thy friends ever seen them ?’ ‘ No, of course not.’ * Dost thou think thou hast any ?’ The celebrated Fontenelle, when ninety years of age. happened to pass his friend, the beautiful Madame Heveltius, in the public street without perceiving her. *Ah !’ exclaimed the lady, * this is your gallantry, then ! To pass before me without even looking at me !’ ‘lf I had looked at you, madame,’ replied Fontenelle, ‘ I could never have passed you at all.’ A strictly orthodox parish priest, whose worldlyminded daughter had recently offended him by fresh acts of misconduct, greeted her with the words : ‘Goodmorning, child of the evil one !’ In reply to which came the unconscious, but crushing response: ‘ Good-morning, father !’

A certain gilded fop, greatly smitten by the charm and grace of a demure-looking country damsel, ventured to remark : ‘ How I wish that you would give me that ring upon your finger, for it exactly resembles my love to you—it has no end.’ ‘ Excuse me, sir,’ responded the fair one, promptly, ‘ I think I would rather keep the ring, for it is also emblematic of my love to you—it has no beginning.’