A bridegroom noticing deep wrinkles on the face of his bride, asked her how old she was, to which she replied, “About forty-five or forty-six.” “Your age is stated on the marriage contract,” he rejoined, “as thirty-eight; but I am sure you are older than that, and you may as well tell me the truth.” “I am really fifty-four,” answered the bride. The bridegroom, however, was not satisfied, and determined to set a trap for her. Accordingly he said, “Oh, by the by, I must just go and cover up the salt jar, or the rats will eat every scrap of it.” “Well, I never!” cried the bride, taken off her guard. “Here I’ve lived sixty-eight years, and I never before heard of rats stealing salt.”
A woman who was entertaining a paramour during the absence of her husband, was startled by hearing the latter knock at the house-door. She hurriedly bundled the man into a rice-sack, which she concealed in a corner of the room; but when her husband came in he caught sight of it, and asked in a stern voice, “What have you got in that sack?” His wife was too terrified to answer; and after an awkward pause a voice from the sack was heard to say, “Only rice.”
A scoundrel who had a deep grudge against a wealthy man, sought out a famous magician and asked for his help. “I can send demon soldiers and secretly cut him off,” said the magician. “Yes, but his sons and grandsons would inherit,” replied the other; “that won’t do.” “I can draw down fire from heaven,” said the magician, “and burn his house and valuables.” “Even then,” answered the man, “his landed property would remain; so that won’t do.” “Oh,” cried the magician, “if your hate is so deep as all that, I have something precious here which, if you can persuade him to avail himself of it, will bring him and his to utter smash.” He thereupon gave to his delighted client a tightly closed package, which, on being opened, was seen to contain a pen. “What spiritual power is there in this?” asked the man. “Ah!” sighed the magician, “you evidently do not know how many have been brought to ruin by the use of this little thing.”
A doctor who had mismanaged a case was seized by the family and tied up. In the night he managed to free himself, and escaped by swimming across a river. When he got home, he found his son, who had just begun to study medicine, and said to him, “Don’t be in a hurry with your books; the first and most important thing is to learn to swim.”
The King of Purgatory sent his lictors to earth to bring back some skilful physician. “You must look for one,” said the King, “at whose door there are no aggrieved spirits of disembodied patients.” The lictors went off, but at the house of every doctor they visited there were crowds of wailing ghosts hanging about. At last they found a doctor at whose door there was only a single shade, and cried out, “This man is evidently the skilful one we are in search of.” On inquiry, however, they discovered that he had only started practice the day before.
A general was hard pressed in battle and on the point of giving way, when suddenly a spirit soldier came to his rescue and enabled him to win a great victory. Prostrating himself on the ground, he asked the spirit’s name. “I am the God of the Target,” replied the spirit. “And how have I merited your godship’s kind assistance?” inquired the general. “I am grateful to you,” answered the spirit, “because in your days of practice you never once hit me.”
A portrait-painter, who was doing very little business, was advised by a friend to paint a picture of himself and his wife, and to hang it out in the street as an advertisement. This he did, and shortly afterwards his father-in-law came along. Gazing at the picture for some time, the latter at length asked, “Who is that woman?” “Why, that is your daughter,” replied the artist. “Whatever is she doing,” again inquired her father, “sitting there with that stranger?”
A man who had been condemned to wear the cangue, or wooden collar, was seen by some of his friends. “What have you been doing,” they asked, “to deserve this?” “Oh, nothing,” he replied; “I only picked up an old piece of rope.” “And are you to be punished thus severely,” they said, “for merely picking up an end of rope?” “Well,” answered the man, “the fact is that there was a bullock tied to the other end.”
A man asked a friend to stay and have tea. Unfortunately there was no tea in the house, so a servant was sent to borrow some. Before the latter had returned the water was already boiling, and it became necessary to pour in more cold water. This happened several times, and at length the boiler was overflowing but no tea had come. Then the man’s wife said to her husband, “As we don’t seem likely to get any tea, you had better offer your friend a bath!”
A monkey, brought after death before the King of Purgatory, begged to be reborn on earth as a man. “In that case,” said the King, “all the hairs must be plucked out of your body,” and he ordered the attendant demons to pull them out forthwith. At the very first hair, however, the monkey screeched out, and said he could not bear the pain. “You brute!” roared the King, “how are you to become a man if you cannot even part with a single hair?”