relevancy to the
motion that I am about to make. Your Honour, I
move that the judgment of the Court be set aside and the case
reopened."
"Upon what ground, sir?" the Judge asked in surprise.
"Upon the ground," said the Attorney, "that after paying all fees
and expenses of litigation and all charges against the
estate there
will still be something left."
"There may have been an error," said His Honour,
thoughtfully -
"the Court may have underestimated the value of the
estate. The
motion is taken under advisement."
The Wooden Guns
AN Artillery Regiment of a State Militia
applied to the Governor
for
wooden guns to
practise with.
"Those," they explained, "will be cheaper than real ones."
"It shall not be said that I sacrificed
efficiency to economy,"
said the Governor. "You shall have real guns."
"Thank you, thank you," cried the warriors, effusively. "We will
take good care of them, and in the event of war return them to the
arsenal."
The Reform School Board
THE members of the School Board in Doosnoswair being suspected of
appointing
female teachers for an
improperconsideration, the
people elected a Board
composedwholly of women. In a few years
the
scandal was at an end; there were no
female teachers in the
Department.
The Poet's Doom
AN Object was walking along the King's
highway wrapped in
meditation and with little else on, when he suddenly found himself
at the gates of a strange city. On applying for admittance, he was
arrested as a necessitator of ordinances, and taken before the
King.
"Who are you," said the King, "and what is your business in life?"
"Snouter the Sneak," replied the Object, with ready invention;
"pick-pocket."
The King was about to command him to be released when the Prime
Minister suggested that the prisoner's fingers be examined. They
were found greatly flattened and calloused at the ends.
"Ha!" cried the King; "I told you so! - he is addicted to counting
syllables. This is a poet. Turn him over to the Lord High
Dissuader from the Head Habit."
"My liege," said the Inventor-in-Ordinary of Ingenious Penalties,
"I
venture to suggest a keener affliction.
"Name it," the King said.
"Let him
retain that head!"
It was so ordered.
The Noser and the Note
THE Head Rifler of an insolvent bank,
learning that it was about to
be visited by the official Noser into Things, placed his own
personal note for a large
amount among its resources, and, gaily
touching his
guitar, awaited the
inspection. When the Noser came
to the note he asked, "What's this?"
"That," said the Assistant Pocketer of Deposits, "is one of our
liabilities."
"A
liability?" exclaimed the Noser. "Nay, nay, an asset. That is
what you mean, doubtless."
"Therein you err," the Pocketer explained; "that note was written
in the bank with our own pen, ink, and paper, and we have not paid
a stationery bill for six months."
"Ah, I see," the Noser said,
thoughtfully; "it is a
liability. May
I ask how you expect to meet it?"
"With
fortitude, please God," answered the Assistant Pocketer, his
eyes to Heaven raising - "with
fortitude and a firm reliance on the
laxity of the law."
"Enough, enough," exclaimed the
faithful servant of the State,
choking with e
motion; "here is a
certificate of solvency."
"And here is a bottle of ink," the
gratefulfinancier 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 permitted 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?"
"The King of the Mice."
The
sovereign was so pleased with the wit of the reply that he gave
her
permission to
scratch his Prime Minister's eyes out.
The Literary Astronomer
THE Director of an Observatory, who, with a thirty-six-inch
refractor, had discovered the moon, hastened to an Editor, with a
four-column
account of the event.
"How much?" said the Editor, sententiously, without looking up from
his essay on the circularity of the political horizon.
"One hundred and sixty dollars," replied the man who had discovered
the moon.
"Not half enough," was the Editor's comment.
"Generous man!" cried the Astronomer, 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 gathered 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 the human eye; and near by was a Rattlesnake 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 replied as well as he then
could, with his mouth full of bird, "you better give it up."
A
half-hour later, the Lion,
thoughtfully 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."
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
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 appointed moment,
everything being ready, he boarded the car and turned on the power.