The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; / containing a collection of over one thousand of the most / laughable sayings and jokes of celebrated wits and / humorists.

by Various

A STORY APPLIED.

Mr. Balfour, a Scotch advocate of dry humour, but much pomposity, being in a large company, where the convivial Earl of Kelly presided, was requested to give a song, which he declined. Lord Kelly, with all the despotism of a chairman, insisted that if he would not sing, he must tell a story or drink a pint bumper of wine. Mr. Balfour, being an abstemious man, would not submit to the latter alternative, but consented to tell a story. "One day," said he, "a thief, prowling about, passed a church, the door of which was invitingly open. Thinking that he might even there find some prey, he entered, and was decamping with the pulpit-cloth, when he found his exit interrupted, the doors having been in the interim fastened. What was he to do to escape with his plunder? He mounted the steeple, and let himself down by the bell-rope; but scarcely had he reached the bottom when the consequent noise of the bell brought together people, who seized him. As he was led off to prison he addressed the bell, as I now address your lordship; said he, 'Had it not been for your long tongue and your empty head I had made my escape.'"