FACETIAE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 150, 22 December 1870, Page 7

FACETIAE.

A Busy Auctioneer. — An Auctioneer announced in an advertisement that he has go much business that he has recentfy vrorn out two hammers, and is now on the ■second end of the third ! A leather medal having been offered for ir.= worst possible connundrum, the prize

w s unhesitatingly awarded to the f ollow-

ing. selected from several hundreds sent xO~' — " T^hy is rascality like the breast of a *^Afll?" "Because it is a "piece of chicane.' " ' ' Wobbert, have you heard of the gwate wiot on the Bwistol woad "—"" — " A what ?" — " Why, a wiot, a wiot."— - " What the deuce is a wiot 1" " Don't you know what a wiot is ? A wiot is a wurnpus." — " Well, now, what is a wumpus 1 You have me again. 3 ' — " Why you know what I mean. A wiot, a wumpus, a wow." — "Oh, ho ! a riot, a rumpus, a row ! Yes I have heard something of that." A Dutch woman kept a toll-gate. One foggy day a traveller asked, " Madam, how far is it to B !" Shoost a leetle ways," was the reply. Yes, but how far 1" again asks the traveller. Shoost a leetle ways," she replied more emphatically. " Madam is it one, two, three, four, or five miles ?" asked the traveller in desperation. The good woman ingenuously replied, " I dinks it is '" Life in Tropical Africa. — The daily life of a '•' black fellow " has been very graphically described in a few words. He gels a melon, cuts it in two, and scoops out

the inside, one half ne -pnts on his head, he sits on the other half, and eats the

An English gentleman of some distinction, who happened recently to visit Ayrshire, in one of his walks, after the fashion of the " Times'" Commissioner in

Ireland, entered a rude cottage on the hills with the view of making personal observation of the intellectual, physical,

and moral condition of the inmates. Old Janet was putting some peats on the fire as lie entered, when tne following dialogue ensued : — Visitor : Well, my good woman, how do you live here ? — Thank ye, sir, ■we mak'akin' o' a/en. Visitor: Fen? — Aye, sir, a kin' o' a fen. Visitor : What's a fen ? — Wi' a' yer lair, ken ye no

what a fen is ? Visitor : No, indeed. — Hoo ! the auld man in simmer digs awa at the tatties ; Leezie, thou kens, is in a place ; and Gibby there, puir fallow, gathers sticks, and whiles gets a peat or two. frae a neighbour like. [Gibby, who •was a stout lad, but rather imbecile, entered this moment with a bundle of firewood.] Visitor : How old is your aon I—He's1 — He's nae sin of mine. He ; s an oe. Visitor : An O ! an orphan perhaps ? — Tweel, no. But he's as quid's an orphan, for Leezie dishna fash her thum wi' him ; and his faither, the loun, ran awa afore he was born, whilk aiblins may account, thioughthe roither's distress, for the wean's no bein' athegither colleckit like. Visitor: Colleckit? — Aye, I'm

share ye may see he's no a' there. Visitor :

I do not understand you my good woman. • I'm share ye may understaun that he -wants tippence like. [Visitor Btares and hands a sixpence, which Gibby snatches and runs away. with.] Janet (impatiently ) : There, , he's awa twa mile to the clachan for curdymum. It wasna that I meant ava ; , 1 said he wanted tippence o* the shillin' 1 like. Visitor : I don't understand you

yefc.T-I mean he's no jist hims»l' like — ' he T»4mts{£ part— (&e visitor still shaking jMs head)— he's like yersel', unco dmtr J *' the uptak !