MISCELLANEOUS.
Prussian lieutenant: “ Did you not tell me your father had an estate in Silesia?” Young lady : “ Yes, and two in Pomerania.” Lieutenant: “ And can you still doubt my love ?” A lady singing at a charity concert, and the audience insisting hearing her song a second time. Her daughter, a little child, was present, and, on being asked afterwards how “mamma” had sung, replied, “very badly, for they made poor mamma do it all over again.” In the stone floor of a court-house vestibule in a large American town is the word “ Justice ” in large letters. An old resident who had just ’o;t a suit was walking sadly out of the building. Seeing the letters in the floor, he halted, uncovered his head, and said, “ Justice, I knew you was dead, but I didn’t know where you was buried until now.” At a restaurant. Diner: “ Here, waiter, I say, confound it, this game is too much so !” Waiter, blandly: “ Beg pardon, sir, but you’re mistaken, sir. It’s the other gentleman’s fish at the next table, sir.” Tam, to countryman who is driving ahorse and cart: “ Whar’s ye gaun the day, Jock ?” Jock: “Um gaun tae the station for forty pianos.” Tam : “ Ye mean a pianoforte.” Jock : “ Weel, whit’s the diff’rence?” Scene—A small barber’s shop in Belfast. Glasgowegian, after being shaved: “What’s to pay?” Barber: “Fourpence.” Glasgowegian : “ Fourpence ! Why, I could get as good a shave in Glasgow for a penny I” Barber: “ Shure aren’t you bether to pay fourpence than go there and come back again ?” The following names have been bestowed by one of the newspapers of the licensed victuallers on a well-known teetotal advocate. They have called him “ that old cracked teapot,” “ the watery jester,” “ a demented creature,” “that washed-out water party,” “ the drivelling idiot,” “ the brainless fanatic,” “ the confiscatory Molly Coddle,” “ the empty-headed noodle,” “ the peregrinating pump handle,” “ the tea-drinking twaddler,” “ the pop-bottle pump orator,” “ the permissive platutudinist,” “ the peripatetic agitator,” “the Utopian dreamer,” “the maudlin mountebank, ’’ “ the crooning clown,” “ that fooll of fools,” 11 the wailing cant,” “ the arrant humbug,” “the apostle of
Senant who has called to see about a place; “ Well, yes, 'm, my eyes are not so good as they were, ’m. Not that there is any thing wrong with them, but, whenever I clean the pots and tins, in. I shine them so bright that they dazzle my eyes. It smy only defeck, ’m.” A clever actress was playing Juliet to a crowded house in the country. As she lay dead it the toms, she contrived to ask Romio how the scene was going. “ Beautifully,” he answered ; “ the people in the pit have to put up umbrellas to prevent being drowned by the tears of those in the gallery.” It is said that before admission to the •• Oldest Inhabitants' ’ organization the Leadville poineers are put through a formula of this kind—“ 1. What was your name before you came here ? 2, How did you manage to escape ? 8. How long were you in for ? 4. In what State do your other wives live?” In Leadville they say this report is a slander by a Texan editor. The lecturer began—“ There is a fortune lying in wait ” Up jumped a bulletheaded man in the corner of the room to remark—“ Well, you’re about right there, mister. There’s Bill Jones, the butcher. Three years ago he wasn’t worth a shilling. He's got a fortin now—go it, as you say, by lying in weight.” The bullet-headed man said no more; but the lecturer way ill at ease during the entire evening. Towards the end of his professional career Edwin Forrest was taking supper late one night with an old friend, who remarked, “ Mr. Forrest, I never in my life saw you play Lear so well as you did to-night.” Whereupon the veteran, rising slowly and laboriously from his chair, and stretching himself to his full height, replied, “ Play Lear ! What do you mean, sir? I don’t play Lear* I play Hamlet, Richard, Shylock, Virginius, if you please; but, by Jupiter, sir, I am Lear!” One day Adolphe Adam asked Auber for the score of Le Stjour his first work, which had been ruthlessly hissed. Auber happened to have a copy by him, and took it to his friend, with many apologies and excuses for the little merit it possessed. “My dear fellow,” was the candid reply, “ that was the very reason I asked for it. My pupils, in common with all who embrace music as a profession, are sometimes despondent and ready to abandon the career they have chosen. I shall give them your first score to read, and, when they see what wretched stuff such a man as you could write, they may be encouraged to try again.” When I was a little fellow in Stuttgart, with yellow hair and wooden shoes, there came, relates Carl Schurz, one day to the school where I attended an American boy named Jim Saunders, whose father was a New York broker. He was a quiet, simplelooking child, with great soulful brown eyes, and an innocent look in his face that made us all think he couldn’t know much. We used to make fun of his peaked face and thin legs, because in Germany, you know, the children are all round-faced and fat. Little Jimmy never seemed to know we were enjoying ourselves at his expense, and he made us think he must be too simple for any use. But after he had been in school about six months and he could speak German pretty well a circus came to the town, and of course, was the sole topic of conversation among the boys. One day we were discussing the matter, when Saunders, who had been sitting quietly in a corner of the room, said he should think a little boy might crowd in under the circus-tent and see the show* that way. We all laughed at this exhibition of ignorance, because we knew how closely the tent was watched, and more than one of us had been mad temporarily delirious by having the boss canvasman’s boot lean suddenly against the seat of our pants. So, when Jimmy said this, we laughed heartily, and Jacob Laudenheimer, who was the biggest boy in school, said that nobody but a Yankee would talk so foolishly. But Jimmy seemed to think he was right, and finally offered to bet him that he couldn’t get into the circus under the tent. Jimmy always had plenty of money, and he at once took the bet. Then several’more of the boys began betting the little fellow until I felt sorry for him, and finally I concluded to go him six groschen myself, so that I could give the money back to him when all the others had won theirs, and do a noble act. Little Jimmy took my bet, and, after all the money had been put up with Mr. Niersteiner, one of the teachers, the whole crowd went overto the circus-ground to see James lose. He went right up to the ticket-waggon and bought a ticket. Then he said to the man, ‘ I reckon there is no objection to my going under the canvas as long as I have paid my way ?’ The man said Certainly not ; if anybody wanted to take that trouble, he had no objection. So Jimmy crawled under the tent and came out of the main entrance in a minute, looking just as innocent as ever. Of course Mr. Niersteiner had to give him the money, because he had won it fairly ; and after he had put it into his pockets he winked at us and said, ‘ If you little tow-headed Dutchmen think I knocked around New York eight years for nothing, you will get left.’ ”
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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 120, 1 May 1884, Page 2
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1,297MISCELLANEOUS. Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 120, 1 May 1884, Page 2
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