MISMATED
A Texas lad, lacking a team of horses or oxen or mules for his ploughing, engaged his sister to direct the plough, while he yoked himself to a steer for the pulling. The steer promptly ran away, and the lad had no choice but to run too. They came shortly into the village and went tearing down the street. And as he raced wildly, the young man shouted:
"Here we come—darn our fool souls! Somebody head us off!"
MIXED METAPHORS
A babu, or native clerk, in India, who prided himself on his mastery of the English tongue and skill in its idioms, sent the following telegram in announcement of his mother's death:
"Regret to announce that hand which rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket."
MODESTY
A British journalist, in an article on Sir Henry Irving for a London weekly wrote:
"I was his guest regularly at all Lyceum first nights for a whole quarter of a century.... He delighted in the company of third-rate people."