“Let the prisoner be discharged,” said the Judge; “a man who has no enemies has no friends. The courts are not for such.”
The Alderman and the Raccoon
“I see quite a number of rings on your tail,” said an Alderman to a Raccoon that he met in a zoölogical garden.
“Yes,” replied the Raccoon, “and I hear quite a number of tales on your ring.”
The Alderman, being of a sensitive, retiring disposition, shrank from further comparison, and, strolling to another part of the garden, stole the camel.
The Flying-Machine
An Ingenious Man who had built a flying-machine invited a great concourse of people to see it go up. At the appointed moment, everything being ready, he boarded the car and turned on the power. The machine immediately broke through the massive substructure upon which it was builded, and sank out of sight into the earth, the aeronaut springing out barely in time to save himself.
“Well,” said he, “I have done enough to demonstrate the correctness of my details. The defects,” he added, with a look at the ruined brick-work, “are merely basic and fundamental.”
Upon this assurance the people came forward with subscriptions to build a second machine.