REPARTEE.

Manawatu Times, Volume III, Issue 39, 7 May 1879, Page 3

REPARTEE.

"The great Assembly," as Manning--1 ham terms it, must have greatly en? joyed the discomfiture of a certain Lord Paget, who oblivious of his own mean origin, thought to extol his superiority [ by asking Sir Thomas White what he thought of the quality of the cloak he wore. ( "Truly," replied the worthy alderman, "it seems .'to be a very good clotU; but I; remember when I was' a j young beginner selling your lordship's father a far better, to' make him a gown when he was sergeant to the Lord Mayor ; and he was a very honest sergeant." Nor did those behind the scenes at a certain theatre fail to appreciate the situation when a prosperous equestrian's daughter observed to a retired antress, " After all,- you were only a circus artiste ; my father recollects you wpll;"and the elder lady retorted, " I daresay he does, my dear ; he used to chalk my shoes.*' When Lincoln and Douglas stumped Illinois as rival candidates, the latter, m one of his speeches, declared he remembered his opponent when serving liquor behind a bar. "That's so," said Lincoln, .'< but the judge has forgotton to mention that while. I was ..serving -the liquor on one side of the. bar, be was drinking it on the other." A mild bit of l'etaliation compared with that inflicted by Brougham upon his fellow-actor Burton. In reply to the first named, asking if he had read the last number of the Lantern, a comic pape I*,1 *, m which Brougham was personally interested, Burton said he never read the thing unless he was tipsy 5 a co mplimenthis questioner acknowledged with a bow, and "Then, Mr. Burton, I am sure of one constant reader." It is well not to show contempt for a book to its author's face, as newly-made Sergeant Murphy learned when dining m company with the author of "Ten Thousand a Year." He called out across the table— " WaJren, Inever had patience to finish that book of ycurs : tell me what was the end of Gammon ?" "Oh," said Warren to the lawyer, " they made him a sergeant, and he. was never heard of after."