[NO MATTER WHAT COLOUR]
An eminent Scottish divine met two of his own parishioners at the house of a lawyer, whom he considered too sharp a practitioner. The lawyer ungraciously put the question, "Doctor, these are members of your flock; may I ask, do you look upon them as white sheep or as black sheep?" "I don't know," answered the divine drily, "whether they are black or white sheep; but I know, if they are long here, they are pretty sure to be fleeced."
[OF COMPOSITIONS]
A lady at a dinner-party was sitting next to a musician, and, thinking she ought to say something about music, turned to her neighbour and said: "Has Bach been composing much of late?" "No, madam, but I hear he has been decomposing for some time!"
[PETER'S WIFE'S MOTHER]
A parson in the country, taking his text from St. Matthew, chap. viii. 14, "And Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever," preached for three Sundays together on the same subject. Soon after, two country fellows going across the churchyard and hearing the bell toll, one asked the other, who it was for. "Perhaps," replied he, "it is for Peter's wife's mother, for she has been sick of a fever these three weeks."
[THE TRIALS OF THE DEAF]
An old gentleman went out to tea, and being somewhat deaf was unable to join in the general conversation. A kind-hearted lady wishing to make him feel at home, said: "Do you like bananas?" To which he replied, "No; I prefer the old-fashioned nightshirt."
[ANTICIPATION]
Towards the close of a meeting at Exeter Hall at which Bishop Wilberforce had made an eloquent speech the audience began to go away. A gentleman whose name was on the programme said to the Bishop, "I need not speak; I hardly think they expect me." "To be sure they do," said Wilberforce; "don't you see they are all going."