A CLOSE CALL.
An American who was travelling in the hills of Scotland paid ten dollars for a first-class ticket for a stage-coach ride over the mountains. Soon after the start he noticed that a man who had a second-class ticket, which cost five dollars, and several who had third-class tickets, price two dollars and a half, were enjoying as good seats and apparently as many privileges as he was. The American concluded that the canny Scotsmen had gotten the better of him, but decided to hold his peace and pay for the experience. When the end of the journey was reached, at evening, however, the traveller had changed his mind; he felt he had had his money's worth. For every time that day when the coach came to the foot of a steep hill the horses were stopped, and the driver called out, "First-class passengers, keep your seats; second-class passengers, get out and walk; third-class passengers, get out and push!" And they all did every time.
There had been a lack of men joining the ranks, and the Colonel was visiting a recruiting-station, inspecting the workings of his recruiting sergeants. Suddenly a terrific noise of shouting and shuffling of feet came through the open window. Now it came from the stairway, intermingled with sundry loud bumps and knocks, and the door burst open, showing a red-faced perspiring little sergeant pushing, hauling, and tugging at a big country lad. The latter was doing his best to escape the firm grip of the soldier.
"Halt!" cried the Colonel. "How is this, sir?" he said to the sergeant. "Is this the way you secure recruits—by force, sir!"
The red-faced sergeant looked up and down, then at the Colonel, and blurted out, "Sure, sir, the only way to get them volunteers is by force, sir."
Pat was an Irishman, and he was trying to ride a bicycle. "The pesky wheel," as he put it, wouldn't stay straight, but wriggled this way and that, every now and then landing him in a heap on the road. A number of people gathered around to see the fun. At last, however, he got started fairly well, and was moving along smoothly, when the wheel gave a lurch, and in attempting to recover himself he made a desperate lunge, and over he went, hitting the curb-stone in his downfall. A policeman ran up, and after straightening him out, demanded that he give an account of himself.
"Faith!" said Pat, "I'd loike to see any man give an account when he has once lost his balance."
It was a battered, war-scarred veteran that ambled into the pension-office one day last week, and slowly approaching the clerk of the office, asked, in a quavering voice, where he could get a pension.
"In what company did you serve?" asked the clerk.
"Company G, of the Sixth Volunteers."
"Ever injured in battle?"
The veteran drew himself up to his full height, which was distressingly little, and exclaimed, in as loud a voice as he could muster,
"Yes, sir; I was hit by a shell in the battle of Bull Run, and knocked all to pieces."
"Dear me!" said the clerk, smiling. "You're a wonderful veteran. Where do you live, and how do you manage to keep alive your many pieces?"
"That's the trouble, sir, and the very reason I want a pension, 'cause I've had trouble ever since taking up my quarters wherever I could find them."
Mary and Martha, two little sisters, had been promoted to the dignity of a big bed, where they slept together. "I sleep on the front side," announced Mary, with an air of importance.
"And where do you sleep, Martha?" inquired the visitor.
"I sleep where Mary doesn't," replied Martha, with a rueful glance at her restless little sister.
"Sam, I find you are an incorrigible story-teller. Did you ever in your life tell the truth?"
"Massa, de truth am a virtue, am it not?"
"Yes Sam, it is; but I'm afraid you lack that virtue."
"No, sah, dat am not so. It am such a powerful good virtue, sah, an' I's got so much ob it, sah, dat I's am not goin' to let any of it escape, so's I's done waste any of it, sah."
Two little girls were out walking, when they passed the big brick building of an orphan asylum. "That, Martha," said Mary, anxious to impart her knowledge to her younger sister, "is where the little orphans live. Mr. and Mrs. Orphan are both dead."