WINNING A WAGER.

Evening Star, Issue 4015, 8 January 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

WINNING A WAGER.

A young Irishman, who was boarding at a house near Aberdeen, where there were three coy damsels, who seemed to imagine that men are terrible creatures, whom it was unpardonable sin to look at, was one afternoon accosted by an acquaintance, and asked what he thought of the young ladies. He replied that they wqre shy and reserved, but he would bet a sovereign he would kiss the three before 12 o’clock that day. It was agreed. He went in, sat down in the presence of the three demure ones, dtew a long sigh, and said—

“It wants five minutes to twelve. The spirit’s hour is coming?” Here the girls looked at the agonized young man with astonishment.

“ The spirit gave me warning that I should die exactly at twelve o’clock today, and you see it wants but a minute of the time," said he. The girls turned pale, and pitied the forlorn-looking youth. He then walked up to the eldest of the girls, and, taking her by the hands, bade them a solemn farewell. He also imprinted a kiss upon her trembling lips, which she did not insist. He then bade the second and third farewell in the same affectionate manner. The clock struck twelve. Hereupon he looked around surprised, and, after a minute, exclaimed—

“ Who’d have thought that an apparition would tell such a lie ?”

It was some time before the sober maidens understood the joke ; but when they did, they evinced no resentment.

A YANKEE PREACHER’S THOUGHTS ON WOMEN.

A queer compound is woman. She is made up of industry, boldness, beauty, silks, satins, jealousy, love, hatred, horse-hair, whalebone, piety, paint, gaiety, gum-elastic, bear’s greese, sympathy, tears, smiles, affection, and kindness. My friends, how lofty is woman. No matter whether born in a cellar, she cau sometimes be as lofty as a garret. When she once gets her back up, oh ! cats and broomsticks look out for yourselves. She is as big as Olympus, and as savage as a sausage machine. In her wrath she is as crazy as a bed-bug, as strong as a tiger, and as terrible as a tornado. She blazes up as though she were a tar barrel, and in a moment all is over—and nobody killed. When she comes down from the mountain, whence she was rolling big stones upon the people below, she softens down to a jelly, and becomes as quiescent as a goose pond after a tempest. The breeches won’t fit. Again, how loving is a woman 1 Ay ! she is amazingly sticky in her attachments. She will cling to the chosen object of her heart like a ’possum to a gum tree ; and you can’t separate her without snapping strings that no art can mend, and leaving a portion of her soul upon the upper leather of her affections—and when her fondness is fastened upon n fellow, it stays there Hue glue and molasses in a bushy head of hair.