FACETIÆ.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 133, 25 August 1870, Page 7

FACETIÆ.

" I say, Bill, Jem's got ten years' penal -servitude for stealing a horse." " Serve him right: why didn't he buy one, and not pay for it, like any other gentleman ?" In a singing class a Mr Pain was the teacher, and a Miss Patience one of the pupils. In the course of the evening the teacher gave out the tune set to the words — " Come, gentle patiev.ce, smile on pain." The pupils were so excited by laughter that all singing was deferred until another occasion. The other day, in Holborn, an excited individual, with a carpet-bag in one hand, an umbrella in the other, and a shawl ■Ranging over his arm, accosted one of the &treet boys with the question, " I say, boy •which is the qiiickest way for me to get to che Charing Cross station?" — "Run !" -was the laconic response. Dr Sharp, of Hart Hall Oxford, had a ridiculous habit of prefacing all his sentences with the words, "I say." An under-graduate having mimicked this peculiarity, the doctor sent for him to give him a jobation, which he began thus: — "I say, they say you say, I say I say;" when, finding the ridiculous combination, he concluded by bidding him quit the room. A chemical lecturer, while expiating on discoveries in chemical science, remarked that snow had been found to possess a considerable degree of heat. An Irishman present replied that truly "chemistry ■was a valuable science" and anxious that the discovery might be made profitable, he inquired of the lecturer "what number of snowballs would be sufficient to boil a tea kettle ?" A traveller domiciling at an American hotel, exclaimed one morning to the waiter ■"What are you about, you black rascal, you have roused me twice from my sleep by telling me breakfast is ready, and now you are attempting to strip off the bedclothes; what do you mean?" " Why," replied Pompey, " if you isn't goin to git up, I must hab de sheet anyhow, cause dey're waitin for de table clof." A lady once heard a man preach, and ■was so enraptured with him that she sent him a letter to the following effect: — " Dear Sir,— There's my hand (my heart you have already) with my fortune, which is very considerable. Will you accept ? I am, &c ' Anna." The clergyman unmoved by the entreaties of the lovely fair one, replied in the following terms; — " Madam, — Give your hand to industry, your dowry to the poor, and your heart :to God." Foote's humour was of a reckless kind, but always hard-hitting and well aimed. Once at the dinner-table a Cornish parson was holding forth at a wearisome length on the profits of his living, and as he expatiated, waving about two dirty hands — "I'm not surprised at all at your profits," struck in Foote, ''for I see you keep the glebe in your own hands." Dining in Paris with Lord Stormont, the ambassador, the thrifty Scotchman produced some very old Tokay in very small glasses enlarging all the time on its delicious flavour and enormous antiquity. "It's very little, though, for its age," gaid Foote cruelly, holding up the diminutive glass." As Foote, the comedian, was one day passing by the King's Bench his attention was attracted by a barber's shop, the owner of which not being able to pay for .several broken panes of glass, had substituted paper for them, aud over the shop iioor appeared the following doggerel: "Here lives Jemmy Wright, Shaves as well as any man in England Almost, note quite." Foote was convinced that Jemmy was a natural curiosity, and a genius withal; still he was determined to ascertain this thoW roughly; so, popping his head in through " one of the paper panes, he exclaimed, "Is Jemmy Wright at home, pray?" The facetious barber immediately realised the pudden arrival of Foote, popping his head outside through another paper pane, and giving a rejoinder thus. "No, he's just popped oujb !" Both laughed heartily, as Tjrell they might; and Foote gave Jemmy # gjuinea f or his witty reply,