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

DEAR WINE.

Mr. Elwes, who united the most rigid parsimony with the most gentlemanly sentiments, received a present of some very fine wine from a wine merchant, who knew that nothing could so win his heart as small gifts. It had the effect to obtain from him the loan of several hundred pounds. Mr. Elwes, who could never ask a gentleman for money, and who was a perfect philosopher as to his losses, used jocularly to say, "It was indeed very fine wine; for it cost him twenty pounds a bottle."