* * *
Amos Perkins was hired in the spring to shoot muskrats, which were overrunning the mill dam. An acquaintance paused to chat one day with Amos, who was sitting at ease on the bank of the stream, his gun safely out of reach.
"I hear the muskrats are undermining the dam," the acquaintance said.
"So they be, so they be!" Amos agreed.
"Hi! there goes one!" cried the visitor, pointing. "Shoot! Why don't you shoot, man?"
Amos spat tobacco juice emphatically, and answered: "Huh! think I want to lose my job?"
* * *
The disgruntled fisherman at the club lifted his voice and complained loudly. He protested against the base trickery of his two companions on the trip.
"It was agreed," he explained, "before we started, that the one who caught the first fish must stand treat to a supper. Now, you'd hardly believe it, but it's a fact that when we got to fishing, both those fellows deliberately refused to pull in their lines when they had bites, just so I'd be stuck."
"That was a mean trick," one of the auditors asserted sympathetically. "How much did the supper cost you?"