The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun Part 18
ALL CORNED.
A SHOWMAN giving entertainments in Lafayette, Ind., was offered by one man a bushel of corn for admission. The manager declined it, saying that all the members of his company had been corned for the last week.
THE SEWING MACHINE.
"WHAT do you think of the new sewing machine?" inquired a gentleman of his friend, who was somewhat of a wag. "Oh," replied the punster, "I consider it a capital make shift."
POLITENESS.
AN Irish officer, in battle, happening to bow, a cannon ball pa.s.sed over his head, and took off the head of a soldier who stood behind him; "You see," said he, "that a man never loses by politeness."
GEORGE SELWYN.
GEORGE SELWYN, as everybody knows, delighted in seeing executions; he never missed _being in at a death_ at Tyburn. When Lord Holland (the father of Charles Fox) was confined to bed, by a dangerous illness, he was informed by his servant that Mr. Selwyn had recently called to inquire for him. "On his next visit," said Lord Holland, "be sure you let him in, whether I am alive or a corpse; for, if I am alive, I shall have great pleasure in seeing _him_; and if I am a corpse, _he will have great pleasure in seeing me_."
CHANCERY PUN.
LORD ELDON (the Chancellor) related of his predecessor, _Lord Erskine_, that, being at a dinner party with Captain Parry, after his first voyage of discovery, he (Lord Erskine) asked the intrepid navigator, what himself and his hardy crew lived on, when frozen up in the polar seas.
"On _the Seals_, to be sure," replied Parry. "And a very good living, too," said the ex-chancellor, "if you keep them long enough!"--_Twiss's Life of Lord Eldon._
KILTS.
I SHALL be off to the Highlands this fall; but cuss 'em, they han't got no woods there; nuthin' but heather, and that's only high enough to tear your clothes. That's the reason the Scotch don't wear no breeches; they don't like to get 'em ragged up that way for everlastinly; they can't afford it; so they let 'em scratch and tear their skin, for that will grow agin, and trousers won't.--_Sam Slick._
LORD ELLENBOROUGH.
LORD ELLENBOROUGH had infinite wit. When the income-tax was imposed, he said that Lord Kenyon (who was not very nice in his habits) intended, in consequence of it, to lay down--his pocket-handkerchief.
A lawyer, one day, pleading before him, and using several times, the expression, "my unfortunate client," Lord Ellenborough suddenly interrupted him: "There, sir, the court is with you."
EVIDENCE.
THE following is the next best thing to the evidence concerning the stone "_as big as a piece of chalk_." "Were you traveling on the night this affair took place?" "I should say I was, Sir." "What kind of weather was it? Was it raining at the time?" "It was so dark that I could not see it raining; but I felt it dropping, though." "How dark was it?" "I had no way of telling; but it was not light, by a jug full."
"Can't you compare it to something?" "Why, if I was going to compare it to anything, I should say it was about as dark as a stack of black cats."
AN UP AND DOWN REPLY.
DURING the examination of a witness, as to the locality of stairs in a house, the counsel asked him, "Which way the stairs ran?" The witness, who, by the way, was a noted wag, replied, that "One way they ran up stairs, but the other way they ran down stairs." The learned counsel winked both eyes and then took a look at the ceiling.
SNORING.
A WESTERN statesman, in one of his tours in the Far West, stopped all night at a house, where he was put in the same room with a number of strangers. He was very much annoyed by the snoring of two persons. The black boy of the hotel entered the room, when our narrator said to him:
"Ben, I will give you five dollars if you will kill that man next to me who snores so dreadfully."
"Can't kill him for five dollars, but if ma.s.sa will advance on the price, I'll try what I can do."
By this time the stranger had ceased his nasal fury. The other was now to be quieted. So stepping to him he woke him, and said:
"My friend, [he knew who he was,] you're talking in your sleep, and exposing all the secrets of the Brandon Bank, [he was a director,] you had better be careful."
He was careful, for he did not go to sleep that night.
TANNING.
"DADDY," said a hopeful urchin to his parental relative, "why don't our schoolmaster send the editor of the newspaper an account of all the lickings he gives to the boys?"