FACETIAE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 254, 12 December 1872, Page 9

FACETIAE.

Jones, what's the matter with ydur eye 1" " Oh, nothing ; only my wife safe this morning, ' You'd better get up and light the fire,' and I told her to do it herself ; that's all." In an article on a recent fair in that city, th.c editor of a Macon paper says a brother editor took a valuable premium ; but an unkind policeman made him put it right back where he took it from. A young man, sitting by Ms girl, with whom he was quarrelling, petulantly remarked that she was nothing. She said she would not admit that, but she would say that she was next to nothing. - A New York paper, in a fit of revolutionary enthusiasm, says, "Hurrah for the girls of '76 !" A New Jersey paper, says, " Thunder ! that's far too old ! No, no ! Hurrah for the girls of 17 !" Mules, and donkeys and camels have appetities that anything will relieve temporarily, but nothing satisfy. In Syria once, at the head waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a critical eye all over, with ■as much interest as if he had an icba of getting one made like it ; and then, after he was done figuring on it as an article of apparel, he began fco contemplate it as an* article of diet. He put -his foot on it and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed at it ; gradually taking it in, and all the while opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstacy, as if he had never tasted anything as good as an overcoat before in his life. Then he smacked his lips once or twice and reached after the other sleeve. Next he tried the vel-

vet collar, and smiled a smile of aucu ■contentment that it was plain to see that he regarded that as the daintiest thing about an overcoat. The tails went next,

along with some percussion caps andcough *candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople. And then my newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a chance in that — manuscript letters written for the home papers. But he was treading on dangerous ground now. He began to come across solid wisdom in those doc-

nments that was rather weighty on his

stomach. ; and occasionly he would take a j ** joke that would shake him up till ik loos- i ened his teeth. It was getting to be peril:^r»3 times with him, but he held his grip ■with good courage and hopefully, till at j last he began to stumble on statements that not even a camel could swallow with impunity. He began to gag and gasp, -and. his eyes to stand out, aud his forelegs to spread, and in about a quarter of aminute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter's work-bench, and died a death of indes•cribable agony. I went and pulled the manuscript out of his mouth, and found -that the sensitive creature had choked to •death on one of the mildest and gentlest statements of fact that I had everlaid fcefore a trusting public. — MarhHwain. When the late Captain W was aspiring for the then vacant seat in parliament, to represent the county of , he was visiting the constituency, and, uoming to the house of a worthy electress, he observed a nice ham suspended from the ceiling, which roused his gastric propensities so much that he forgot all about the main point (the vote), and asked, as a favour, if the good housewife wonld cook & slice for his dinner. She at once acquiesced ; and, while still'cooking, who should pop in, before the captain had time to mention the vote, but his opponent, Mr L ; but W — "-'s ready wit decided the all important object of their visit, by saying, Come awa Mr L , come awa', in bye ; ye're ower late for the vote nog ; but.ye're time enough for a bit o' the

kam.', During the brief existence of the Maine Liquor Law, a showman made his appearance in a certain town with a small, dirty, tattered canvas tent, a half -starved wolf, ■and a suspicious-looking keg. The admission fee of 10 cents was cheerfully paid "by a number of persons, vrho manifested a peculiarly strong desire to see this very common and villanous-looking specimen of the animal kingdom. But the oddest -part of the show to the bystanders was that one visitor went in to " take another look at that wolf" no less than semftn times during the afternoon. The secfet -wasat last revealed. After some unsufccessful attempts to start for home he approached the tent door with an unsteady step, and handing his last dime to the showman, hiccoughed, "I b-believe Fll take just one more look at that wolf." i A situation-seeking young lady noticed ■an advertisement for one to do ligJft housekeeping. She wrote to the adver-tiser-asking where the lighthoule was, and if there was any way of getting to the ~/»hore on Sundays, "