OLLA PODRIDA.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 45, 3 October 1863, Page 2 (Supplement)

OLLA PODRIDA.

A Sailor's Legend.—' SpeaK up, Tom Hardy' said the fairy, 'say what you want to make you a contented captain of the fb'castle. I'll give you your wishes, provided they are for as many different things.' You might think Tom would be for a moment startled, but a beautiful lady, with a profusion of hair and very little clothing, was not quite the thing to frighten him. «Thank ye, mann,' said Tom, touchiug his cap ; Tin all ready, and much obleeged to yer.' 'Then, fire away !' said the lady. ' First and foremost," said Tom, 'I want plenty of grog.' ' That you shall have, replied the fairy, smiling; 'real Jamaica pine-apple flavour—as much as you can swim in.' You see the fairy was accustomed to sailors. 'Then,' proceeded Tom, rubbing his hands, ' let's have heaps o' 'baccy—bird's eye and Cavendish mixed.' J All right, Tom,' said the lady; heaps of 'haccy,'bird's-eye and Cavendish mixed, you shall have.' 'By Jove, you are a brick—you are!" says Tom; 'you are about the best friend I ever had. Lookye here, my beauty!' says he, getting up as if he were goin°to shake hands with the fairy. « Hands oft', Mr Tom !' exclaimed she ;go on wishing—you are only half through with your bargain.' ' Well/ said Tom, 'what I next wants—begging your pardon, seeing you're a lady—is plenty ofpretty girls when I goes ashore.' ' Very well,' replied the fairy, laughing like anything, 'you hhail have them too; and I'll throw some fiddlers into the bargain.' Tom was delighted. «Bv the Lord Harry!' he said, ' I'm happy now. "i say, how about not knowing what was good for ms ? Here's grog galore, heaps o' 'baccy, aud lots o' sweethearts. I'm content.' 'But come, come Tom,' urged the fairy, ' fulfil your part of the contract. You must wish once more—be quick!' 1 0, bother it,' growled out Tom Hardy, « must I really ?' ' Yes, yes ; come be quick,' she replied. 'Well, then,' said he, 'give us more grog.' ' Your chum was in the right,' said the fairy: • you don't know what you want. You ask for more grog when I've already promised you enough to swim in; aud you have forgotten to be put ashore from the frigate. You are a good-for-nothing old growl, and si you will remain to the end of your days.* With that she disappeared, and it is true enough Tom Hardy is as big an old growl as ever chewed quid on a forecastle, though he firmly believes that if that fairy would only give him another chance he would know what to ask for.— Sherard Osborne $ Japan.

Pitts' Proposal.—Pitts is a fast man, a shirp mau, and a man of business tact. When Pitts go s to make a purchase, he always pets the lowest cash price, and then says, ' Well, I'll look about, and if I don't find anything that suits me better, I'll call and take this.' Pitts, like all fast men, is partial to the ladies, young ones in particular. Now, lately, Pitts says to himself, • I am getting rather along in years, and so I'll marry.' His business qualities wouldn't let him wait; so off he travels, calls upon a lady friend, and opens the conversation by remarking that he would like to know what she thought about his getting married. 'Oh, Mr. Pitts, that is an affair in which I am not very greatly interested, and I prefer to leave it with yourself.' ' But,' says Pitts, ' you are interested; and, my dear girl, will you marry me?' The young lady blushed very red, and hesitated ; finally, as Pitts was very well to do in the world, and of good standing in society, she accepted him. Whereupon the matter-of-fact Pitts responded: ' Well, I'll look about, and if I don't find anybody that suits me better, I'll come back!' Jones complained of a bad smell about the Post-office, and asked Brown what it could be ? Brown didn't know, but suggested that it might be cr used by ' the dead letters.' When is a grocer relinqukjpg the Worcester business ? When he is disposing of his stock-in-trade (stocking trade.) An Irishman, who appeared at the recruiting station for enlistment, was asked by a cockney sergeant in joke if he could step on the 'pint' of the b;iyonet. Paddy at once, perceiving the mispronounciation, promptly replied by saying : " Pon my soul, sergeant, but I'll try; and I think I can, as 1 have often slept on a pint of whiskey!"

A coquette is a female archer who first bags and then sacks her game. A beau dressed out resembles a cinnamon tree —the bark is of greater value than the body. Here is the perfection of treacle and brimstone, in the preacher who after " a warm description of the glories of heaven, suddenly exclaimed, ' Now, my brethren, let us take off the lid of the bottomless cauldron and see what is going on in hell." On hearing a clergyman remark that 'the world was full of change,' Mrs. Partington said she could hardly bring her mind to believe it, so little of it found its way into her pockets. A facetious boy asked one of his playmates how a hardware dealer differed from a bootmaker ? The latter, somewhat puzzled, gave it up. ' Why,' said the other, " because the one sold the nails, and the other nailed the soles."

American Refinement.—A gentleman stepped into a store where nothing but' mourning goods' were sold, and enquired for slate-colored gloves. The polite clerk informed him that only black goods were sold in that room ; for slatecolored gloves he must step into the ' mitigated affliction department! Governor Penn was in company, during the early and gloomy portions of the Independence struggle with a number of patriots who were all quarrelling among themselves. A member of Congress observed that, such was the crisis, they must all hang together. "If you do not gentlemen," said Mr Penn, " I can tell you that you will be apt indeed to hang separately'*