SHORT STORIES.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 38, 3 December 1920, Page 16

SHORT STORIES.

When an energetic man finds a four-leaf clover, it generally means that he will have good luck. Indignant Wife (to irate husband) : lou miserable man! YTou seem to think I'm wrong every time you are in the right ! SAME OLD CHAP. "I didn't think the automobile would ever become popular. Or moving picture shows." "How about airplanes?" "I don't think they will ever become popular." ON THE MOTHER'S SIDE. Poor father gets it from the most unex. pected places, even from the cemetery. Certainly there is no taffy — no epitaphy, so to speak- — handed him in the following in. scription on a tombstone, in Birmingham, in England : — • "Iiere lies the mother of children seven, Four on earth and tliree in heaven ; The three in heaven preferring rather To die with mother than live with father." A MATTER OF TRALnLNG. Executive ability has been variously defined, but the following from ,an executive with a sense of humour seems to cover the whole subject. He said : "Executive ability is the ability to hire someone to do the work for which you will get the credit, and, if there is a slip-up, having someone at whose door to lay the blame." MONEY AND CREDIT. The unsefctlement of ioreign exchange has bred a considerable contempt for foreign currency in the minds of certain Americans. The American father of one uank who had stayed in France to "clean things up" had established a generous line of credit for him. Friend Son began to hit things up rather hard, and in consequence the father received a cabiegram j reading : "Y'our son's account already | overdrawn one hundred thousaind." To which he cabled hack to the bankers : j "If you mean dollars, send him horne ; j if you mean pcunds, tell him to be careful ; if you mean those funny little things, let him have all he wants." DEPRECIATED CURRENCY. The depreciation of our currency to-day is nothing to be thought of in cofnparison with the slump in Confederate paper money after the civil war. General Mul- ! holland relates that ehortly after Lee's ( siurender he heard two Confederate sol- j diers bargaining over a very ordinary- j looking horse. "He'll do for my farm, ' John," said one. I'll give you 20,000 j dollars for him," "No," said the other. I "Give you 50,000 dollars." "No." "Give you 100,000." "Not much!" replied the owner. "I just paid 120,000 dollars to have him shod." SUGAR. A well-known criminal lawyer had a client in who told a story of one trouble following on another. "Me husband," she said, "is doing a month for pinching a bag of sugar. I've got three children to support, and now I've got a summons from a woman in our street for assaulting her." "Give me the particulars," said the lawyer, as he dipped his pen in ink to take down on foclscap of legal blue the case for the defence. "Well, eir, it was this way. - I was at 'er house with some other married ladies, and she was 'anding us each a cup 'o tea. She looked at the other women in a mean. in' sort of way, and then looking at me, she says, says she, 'Do you take sugar?' Me blood boilea. I could see the dirty throw off at rr.e husband, and I swung 'er a right which gave her a 'eadache. It's for that she's pullin' me to oourt."