"MATCHING" STORIES.
The President looking in at the telegraph-room in the White House, happened to find Major Eckert in. He saw he was counting greenbacks. So he said jokingly:
"I believe you never come to business now but to handle money!"
The officer pleaded that it was a mere coincidence, and instanced a story in point:
"A certain tailor in Mansfield, Ohio, was very stylish in dress and airy in manner. Passing a storekeeper's door one day, the latter puffed himself up and emitted a long blow, expressive of the inflation to oozing-point of the conceited tailor, who indignantly turned and said: 'I will teach you to blow when I am passing!' to which the storekeeper replied: 'And I'll teach you not to pass when I am blowing!'"
"Very good!" returned the hearer. "That is very like a story I heard of a man driving about the country in an open buggy, caught at night by a pouring rain. Passing a farmhouse, a man, apparently struggling with the effects of whisky, thrust his head out of a window, and shouted loudly:
"'Hello!'
"The traveler stopped for all of his hurry for shelter and asked what was wanted.
"'Nothing of you!' was the blunt reply.
"'Well, what in the infernals are you shouting 'Hello' for when people are passing?' angrily asked the traveler.
"'Well, what in the infernals are you passing for when people are shouting hello?'"
The rival story-tellers parted "at evens."