AN IRISH WAGER.
Two natives of the Emerald Isle, who were travelling together, finding their means run short, and being in want of a “dhrop of the craythur,” devised the ways and means for raising a supply. Catching a frog in a ditch, one of them went on with it in advance of his companion, and stopping at the first public-house he came to, asked the landlord if he could tell what sort of an animal that was? “What sort of an animal?” exclaimed Boniface, “why, you booby, it’s a frog, to be sure.” “Booby here, booby there,” said Pat, “it strikes me you’re mistaken, for as ’cute as you think yourself, I’ll bet you the price of a pint of whisky it’s a mouse; and I’ll lave it to the first traveller that comes up to decide between us.” “Agreed,” said the landlord. Pat’s confederate came up; and being required to say what sort of an animal it was, after much examination and deliberation, declared it to be a mouse; and thus the landlord, in spite of the evidence of his senses, had to pay the wager.