Section 3

" Ah, I see," the Noser said, thought- fully; " it is a liability. May I ask how you expect to meet it ? "
"With fortitude, please God," an- swered the Assistant Pocketer, his eyes to Heaven raising — " with fortitude and a firm reliance on the laxity of the law. ' '
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" Enough, enough," exclaimed the faithful servant of the State, choking with emotion; " here is a certificate of solvency."
" And here is a bottle of ink," the grateful financier said, slipping it into the other's pocket; " it is all that we have."
The Cat and the King
A CAT was looking at a King, as per- mitted by the proverb.
' Well," said the monarch, observing her inspection of the royal person, " how do you like me ? "
" I can imagine a King," said the Cat, " whom I should like better."
" For example ? "
41 The King of the Mice."
The sovereign was so pleased with the wit of the reply that he gave her permis- sion to scratch his Prime Minister's eyes out.
The Literary Astronomer
THE Director of an Observatory, who, with a thirty-six-inch refractor, had dis-
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covered the moon, hastened to an Editor, with a four-column account of the event.
" How much? " said the Editor, senten- tiously, without looking up from his essay on the circularity of the political horizon.
" One hundred and sixty dollars," re- plied the man who had discovered the moon.
" Not half enough," was the Editor's comment.
" Generous man! " cried the Astrono- mer, glowing with warm and elevated sentiments, " pay me, then, what you will."
" Great and good friend," said the Editor, blandly, looking up from his work, " we are far asunder, it seems. The paying is to be done by you."
The Director of the Observatory gath- ered up the manuscript and went away, explaining that it needed correction ; he had neglected to dot an m.
The Lion and the Rattlesnake
A MAN having found a Lion in his path undertook to subdue him by the power of
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the human eye ; and near by was a Rat- tlesnake engaged in fascinating a small bird.
" How are you getting on, brother ? " the Man called out to the other reptile, without removing his eyes from those of the Lion.
" Admirably," replied the serpent. " My success is assured ; my victim draws nearer and nearer in spite of her efforts."
" And mine," said the Man, " draws nearer and nearer in spite of mine. Are you sure it is all right ? "
" If you don't think so," the reptile re- plied as well as he then could, with his mouth full of bird, " you 'd better give it up."
A half-hour later, the Lion, thought- fully picking his teeth with his claws, told the Rattlesnake that he had never in all his varied experience in being subdued, seen a subduer try so earnestly to give it up. " But," he added, with a wide, significant smile, " I looked him into countenance."
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The Man with No Enemies
AN Inoffensive Person walking in a public place was assaulted by a Stranger with a Club, and severely beaten.
When the Stranger with a Club was brought to trial, the complainant said to the Judge:
" I do not know why I was assaulted; I have not an enemy in the world."
' That," said the defendant, " is why I struck him."
" Let the prisoner be discharged," said the Judge; " a man who has no enemies has no friends. The courts are not for such."
The Alderman and the Raccoon
" I SEE quite a number of rings on your tail," said an Alderman to a Raccoon that he met in a zoological garden.
' Yes," replied the Raccoon, " and I hear quite a number of tales on your ring."
The Alderman, being of a sensitive, retiring disposition, shrank from further
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comparison, and, strolling to another part of the garden, stole the camel.
The Flying-Machine
AN Ingenious Man who had built a flying-machine invited a great concourse of people to see it go up. At the ap- pointed moment, everything being ready, he boarded the car and turned on the power. The machine immediately broke through the massive substructure upon which it was builded, and sank out of sight into the earth, the aeronaut springing out barely in time to save himself.
" Well," said he, " I have done enough to demonstrate the correctness of my de- tails. The defects," he added, with a look at the ruined brick-work, " are merely basic and fundamental."
Upon this assurance the people came forward with subscriptions to build a second machine.
The Angel's Tear
AN Unworthy Man who had laughed at the woes of a Woman whom he loved,
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was bewailing his indiscretion in sack- cloth-of-gold and ashes-of-roses, when the Angel of Compassion looked down upon him, saying:
" Poor mortal! — how unblest not to know the wickedness of laughing at another's misfortune!"
So saying, he let fall a great tear, which, encountering in its descent a cur- rent of cold air, was congealed into a hail- stone. This struck the Unworthy Man on the head and set him rubbing that bruised organ vigorously with one hand while vainly attempting to expand an umbrella with the other.
Thereat the Angel of Compassion did most shamelessly and wickedly laugh.
The City of Political Distinction
JAMRACH the Rich, being anxious to reach the City of Political Distinction be- fore nightfall, arrived at a fork of the road and was undecided which branch to fol- low; so he consulted a Wise-Looking Person who sat by the wayside.
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" Take that road," said the Wise- Looking Person, pointing it out; "it is known as the Political Highway."
" Thank you," said Jamrach, and was about to proceed.
' ' About how much do you thank me ? ' ' was the reply. " Do you suppose I am here for my health ? "
As Jamrach had not become rich by stupidity, he handed something to his guide and hastened on, and soon came to a toll-gate kept by a Benevolent Gentle- man, to whom he gave something, and was suffered to pass. A little farther along he came to a bridge across an im- aginary stream, where a Civil Engineer (who had built the bridge) demanded something for interest on his investment, and it was forthcoming. It was growing late when Jamrach came to the margin of what appeared to be a lake of black ink, and there the road terminated. Seeing a Ferryman in his boat he paid something for his passage and was about to embark.
" No," said the Ferryman. " Put your neck in this noose, and I will tow
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you over. It is the only way," he added, seeing that the passenger was about to complain of the accommodations.
In due time he was dragged across, half strangled, and dreadfully beslubbered by the feculent waters. ' There," said the Ferryman, hauling him ashore and disen- gaging him, " you are now in the City of Political Distinction. It has fifty millions of inhabitants, and as the colour of the Filthy Pool does not wash off, they all look exactly alike."
" Alas! " exclaimed Jamrach, weeping and bewailing the loss of all his posses- sions, paid out in tips and tolls; " I will go back with you."
" I don't think you will," said the Ferryman, pushing off; " this city is situ- ated on the Island of the Unreturning."
The Party Over There
A MAN in a Hurry, whose watch was at his lawyer's, asked a Grave Person the time of day.
" I heard you ask that Party Over There the same question," said the Grave
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Person. ' What answer did he give you ?"
" He said it was about three o'clock," replied the Man in a Hurry; " but he did not look at his watch, and as the sun is nearly down, I think it is later."
" The fact that the sun is nearly down," the Grave Person said, " is immaterial, but the fact that he did not consult his timepiece and make answer after due de- liberation and consideration is fatal. The answer given," continued the Grave Per- son, consulting his own timepiece, " is of no effect, invalid, and absurd."
' What, then," said the Man in a Hurry, eagerly, " is the time of day ? "
' The question is remanded to the Party Over There for a new answer," replied the Grave Person, returning his watch to his pocket and moving away with great dignity.
He was a Judge of an Appellate Court,
The Poetess of Reform
ONE pleasant day in the latter part of eternity, as the Shades of all the great
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writers were reposing upon beds of aspho- del and moly in the Elysian fields, each happy in hearing from the lips of the others nothing but copious quotation from his own works (for so Jove had kindly be- deviled their ears), there came in among them with triumphant mien a Shade whom none knew. She (for the new- comer showed such evidences of sex as cropped hair and a manly stride) took a seat in their midst, and smiling a superior smile explained :
" After centuries of oppression I have wrested my rights from the grasp of the jealous gods. On earth I was the Poetess of Reform, and sang to inattentive ears. Now for an eternity of honour and glory."
But it was not to be so, and soon she was the unhappiest of mortals, vainly de- sirous to wander again in gloom by the infernal lakes. For Jove had not be- deviled her ears, and she heard from the lips of each blessed Shade an incessant flow of quotation from his own works. Moreover, she was denied the happiness of repeating her poems. She could not
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recall a line of them, for Jove had decreed that the memory of them abide in Pluto's painful domain, as a part of the apparatus.
The Unchanged Diplomatist
THE republic of Madagonia had been long and well represented at the court of the King of Patagascar by an officer called a Dazie, but one day the Madagonian Par- liament conferred upon him the superior rank of Dandee. The next day after being apprised of his new dignity he hast- ened to inform the King of Patagascar.
" Ah, yes, I understand," said the King; " you have been promoted and given increased pay and allowances. There was an appropriation ?" ' Yes, your Majesty."
" And you have now two heads, have you not ? "
Oh, no, your Majesty — only one, I assure you."
Indeed ? And how many legs and arms ? "
' ' Two of each, Sire— only two of each. ' '
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" And only one body ? "
" Just a single body, as you perceive."
Thoughtfully removing his crown and scratching the royal head, the monarch was silent a moment, and then he said :
" I fancy that appropriation has been misapplied. You seem to be about the same kind of idiot that you were before."
An Invitation
A PlOUS Person who had overcharged his paunch with dead bird by way of at- testing his gratitude for escaping the many calamities which Heaven had sent upon others, fell asleep at table and dreamed. He thought he lived in a country where turkeys were the ruling class, and every year they held a feast to manifest their sense of Heaven's goodness in sparing their lives to kill them later. One day, about a week before one of these feasts, he met the Supreme Gobbler, who said:
" You will please get yourself into good condition for the Thanksgiving dinner."
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" Yes, your Excellency," replied the Pious Person, delighted, " I shall come hungry, I assure you. It is no small privilege to dine with your Excellency."
The Supreme Gobbler eyed him for a moment in silence ; then he said :
" As one of the lower domestic animals, you cannot be expected to know much, but you might know something. Since you do not, you will permit me to point out that being asked to dinner is one thing ; being asked to dine is another and a different thing."
With this significant remark the Su- preme Gobbler left him, and thencefor- ward the Pious Person dreamed of himself as white meat and dark until rudely awak- ened by decapitation.
The Ashes of Madame Blavatsky
THE two brightest lights of Theosophy being in the same place at once in com- pany with the Ashes of Madame Blavat- sky, an Inquiring Soul thought the time propitious to learn something worth while.
Of
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So he sat at the feet of one awhile, and then he sat awhile at the feet of the other, and at last he applied his ear to the keyhole of the casket containing the Ashes of Madame Blavatsky. When the Inquir- ing Soul had completed his course of in- struction he declared himself the Ahkoond of Swat, fell into the baleful habit of standing on his head, and swore that the mother who bore him was a pragmatic paralogism. Wherefore he was held in high reverence, and when the two other gentlemen were hanged for lying the Theosophists elected him to the leader- ship of their Disastral Body, and after a quiet life and an honourable death by the kick of a jackass he was reincarnated as a Yellow Dog. As such he ate the Ashes of Madame Blavatsky, and Theosophy was no more.
The Opossum of the Future
ONE day an Opossum who had gone to sleep hanging from the highest branch of a tree by the tail, awoke and saw a large
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Snake wound about the limb, between him and the trunk of the tree.
" If I hold on," he said to himself, " I shall be swallowed ; if I let go I shall break my neck."
But suddenly he bethought himself to dissemble.
" My perfected friend," he said, " my parental instinct recognises in you a noble evidence and illustration of the theory of development. You are the Opossum of the Future, the ultimate Fittest Survivor of our species, the ripe result of progress- ive prehensility — all tail! "
But the Snake, proud of his ancient eminence in Scriptural history, was strictly orthodox, and did not accept the scientific view.
The Life-Savers
SEVENTY-FIVE Men presented them- selves before the President of the Humane Society and demanded the great gold medal for life-saving.
" Why, yes," said the President; " by
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diligent effort so many men must have saved a considerable number of lives. How many did you save ? "
" Seventy-five, sir/' replied their Spokesman.
" Ah, yes, that is one each — very good work — very good work, indeed," the President said. " You shall not only have the Society's great gold medal, but its recommendation for employment at the various life-boat stations along the coast. But how did you save so many lives?"
The Spokesman of the Men replied :
" We are officers of the law, and have just returned from the pursuit of two murderous outlaws."
The Australian Grasshopper
A DISTINGUISHED Naturalist was trav- elling in Australia, when he saw a Kanga- roo in session and flung a stone at it. The Kangaroo immediately adjourned, tracing against the sunset sky a parabolic curve spanning seven provinces, and evanished
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below the horizon. The Distinguished Naturalist looked interested, but said nothing for an hour; then he said to his native Guide:
" You have pretty wide meadows here, I suppose ? "
" No, not very wide," the Guide an- swered; " about the same as in England and America."
After another long silence the Distin- guished Naturalist said :
' The hay which we shall purchase for our horses this evening — I shall expect to find the stalks about fifty feet long. Am I right ?"
" Why, no," said the Guide; " a foot or two is about the usual length of our hay. What can you be thinking of ? "
The Distinguished Naturalist made no immediate reply, but later, as in the shades of night they journeyed through the desolate vastness of the Great Lone Land, he broke the silence :
" I was thinking," he said, " of the uncommon magnitude of that grass- hopper."
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The Pavior
AN Author saw a Labourer hammering stones into the pavement of a street, and approaching him said :
My friend, you seem weary. Ambi- tion is a hard taskmaster."
" I 'm working for Mr. Jones, sir," the Labourer replied.
' ' Well, cheer up, ' ' the Author resumed ; " fame comes at the most unexpected times. To-day you are poor, obscure, and disheartened, and to-morrow the world may be ringing with your name."
" What are you giving me ? " the La- bourer said. " Cannot an honest pavior perform his work in peace, and get his money for it, and his living by it, without others talking rot about ambition and hopes of fame ? "
" Cannot an honest writer ? " said the Author.
The Tried Assassin
AN Assassin being put upon trial in a New England court, his Counsel rose and