The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun Part 66

THE PROPER PERSON.

A GENTLEMAN pa.s.sing through Clement's Inn, and receiving abuse from some impudent clerks, was advised to complain to the Princ.i.p.al, which he did thus: "I have been abused here, by some of the _rascals_ of this inn, and I come to acquaint you of it, as I understand you are the _Princ.i.p.al_."

AN AWKWARD SITUATION.

LORD LYTTLETON asked a clergyman the use of his pulpit for a young divine he had brought down with him. "I really know not," said the parson, "how to refuse your Lords.h.i.+p; but if the gentleman preach better than I, my congregation will be dissatisfied with me afterwards; and if he preach worse, he is not fit to preach at all."

CALL AGAIN TO-MORROW.

A HERETIC in medicine being indisposed, his physician happened to call.

Being told that the doctor was below, he said, "Tell him to call another time; I am unwell, and can't see him now."

JOKE FROM HARPER'S DRAWER.

WHO is not carried back to good old times as he reads this sketch of Connecticut goin' to meetin' fifty years ago? It is a genuine story contributed to the Drawer:

"In the early part of the ministry of Rev. Jehu C----k, who preached many years in one of the pleasant towns in the western part of Connecticut, it was the custom of many of the good ladies from the distant parts of his parish to bring with them food, which they ate at noon; or as they used to say, 'between the intermission.' Some brought a hard-boiled egg, some a nut-cake, some a sausage; but one good woman, who had tried them all, and found them all too dry, brought some pudding and milk. In order to bring it in a dish from which it would not spill over on the road, and yet be convenient to eat from, she took a pitcher with a narrow neck at the top, but spreading at the bottom. Arrived at the meeting-house, she placed it under the seat. The exercises of the day soon commenced, and the old lady became wholly rapt in her devotional feelings. Though no philosopher, she knew by practice--as many church-goers seem to have learned--that she could receive and 'inwardly digest' the sermon by shutting her eyes, and opening her mouth, and allowing all her senses to go to sleep. While thus prepared, and lost to all external impressions, she was suddenly startled by a rustling and splas.h.i.+ng under the seat. She had no time to consider the cause before she discovered her dog, Put, backing out with the neck of the pitcher over his head, and the pudding and milk drizzling out. Poor Put had been fixing his thoughts on material objects alone; and taking advantage of the quietness of the occasion, had crept under the seat of his mistress, where he was helping himself to a dinner. His head had glided easily through the narrow portion of the pitcher; but, when quite in, it was as securely fixed as an eel in a pot. Unable to extricate himself, he had no alternative but to be smothered or back out. The old lady bore the catastrophe in no wise quietly. A thousand terrible thoughts rushed into her mind; the ludicrous appearance of the dog and pitcher, the place, the occasion, the spattering of her garments, the rascally insult of the puppy--but, above all, the loss of her 'Sabber-day' dinner. At the top of her voice she cried,

"'Get out, Put! get out! Oh, Jehu! I'm speakin' right out in meetin'!

Oh! I'm talkin' all the time!'

"The scene that followed is not to be described. The frightened old lady seized her dog and pitcher, and rushed out of meeting; the astonished preacher paused in the midst of his discourse, while the whole congregation were startled out of their propriety by the explosion; and it was some time before order and the sermon were again resumed."

ARMOND.

ARMOND, the great comedian, had a great curiosity to see Louis XIV. in chapel, and accordingly presented himself one morning during service at the door. The sentinel refused to admit him.

"But, friend," said Armond, "you must let me pa.s.s; I am his majesty's barber."

"Ah, that may be," said the sentinel, "but the king does not shave in church."

MRS. PARTINGTON'S VERY LAST.

"WHERE did you get so much money, Isaac?" said Mrs. Partington, as he shook a half handful of copper cents before her, grinning all the while like a rogue that he is; "have you found the hornicopia or has anybody given you a request?" She was a little anxious. "I got it from bets,"

said he, chucking them into the air, and allowing half of them to clatter and rattle about the floor with all the importance of dollars.

"Got them from Bets, did you?" replied she; "and who is Bets that she should give you money?--she must be some low creature, or you would not speak of her so disrespectably. I hope you will not get led away by any desolate companions, Isaac, and become an unworthy membrane of society."

How tenderly the iron-bowed spectacles beamed upon him! "I mean bets,"

said he, laughing, "that I won on Burlingame." "Dear me!" she exclaimed, "how could you do so when gaming is such a horrid habit? Why, sometimes people are arranged at the bar for it." She was really uneasy until he explained that, in imitation of older ones, he had bet some cents on Burlingame and had won.

ADORATION.

AT a late court, a man and his wife brought cross actions, each charging the other with having committed a.s.sault and battery. On investigation, it appeared that the husband had pushed the door against the wife, and the wife in turn pushed the door against the husband. A gentleman of the bar remarked that he could see no impropriety in a man and his wife a-_door_-ing each other.

NAUGHTY CHARLES LAMB.

CHARLES LAMB once, while riding in company with a lady, descried a party denuded for swimming a little way off. He remarked: "Those girls ought to go to a more retired place." "They are boys," replied the lady. "You may be right," rejoined Charlie, "I can't distinguish so accurately as you, at such a distance."

TOO GREEN.

"SALLIE," said a young man to his red-haired sweetheart, "keep your head away from me; you will set me on fire."

"No danger," was the contemptuous answer, "you are too green to burn."

HIGH COMPANY.

A GASCON was vaunting one day, that in his travels he had been caressed wherever he went, and had seen all the great men throughout Europe.

"Have you seen the Dardanelles?" inquired one of the company. "Parbleu!"

says he; "I most surely have seen them, when I dined with them several times."