A young man greatly addicted to smoking, and who, to my knowledge, was exceedingly lazy, was seated by the writer’s fireside, listless and idle, save barely drawing slowly in and out the tobacco smoke of an old pipe, when, after repeated requests of his sister that he should go out to the shed and bring in some wood to replenish the dying embers, she got out of patience with him, and exclaimed,—
“There, Ed, you’re the laziest fellow I ever saw, sitting there and smoking till the fire has nearly gone out, on a cold day like this.”
“Ugh!” he grunted, and slowly added, “I once heard tell of a lazier boy than I am, sister.”
“How could that be possible? Do tell me,” she exclaimed, impatiently.
“Well, you see,”—spitting on the floor,—“when he came to die, he couldn’t do it. He was too lazy to draw his last breath, and they had to get a corkscrew to draw it for him.”
“SHALL I ASSIST YOU TO ALIGHT?”
WORK FOR TONGUES AND FINGERS.