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

FITNESS OF THINGS.

An Irish sergeant, on a march, being attacked by a dog, pierced the animal with his halbert. On the complaint of the owner, the superior officer said to the offender, "Murphy, you were wrong in this. You should have struck the dog with the butt end of your halbert, and not with your blade." "Plaise your honor," says Murphy, "and I would have been glad for to save myself the trouble of claining my iron, if he had only been so kind as to bite me with his tail, instead of his teeth."