If, for instance, Miss Kettell was to be married, one would ask if she was a "tin" kettle, and another would "go bail" she was, and the next would say that "the larger the kettle the more tin it would have." "And the more iron in (g), too!" some one would ejaculate. Then another would say that "after she was married there would be none of the Kettle left," and the next wit would say, "And none of the 'tin' either," and so the badinage would pass about.
It made no difference what the subject was, it was always suggestive. If it was a dog, they would ask, "What kind of a bark he had on him?" If it was a pump, "Is it well with it?" If it was a shepherd, they would like to inquire "if he was not a baa-keeper?" and the first would reply that he would have to "ruminate" on it before he made his answer; and the second would hope his reply would be "spirited; if not he had better be punched up."
"Have you seen my umbrella?" asked one. "What sort of an umbrella was it?" was the inquiry. "It had a hooked end," said number one. "I have not seen it," was the reply, "but I had a nice one once, and the end was exactly like yours; it was hooked!"
Passing a rosy-cheeked, unkempt boy, Miss—remarked to her friend, "Isn't he a little honey?" "Yes," she replied, struck by his traits, "honey without a comb!"
"Do you not think Miss B. is beautiful? She bows to perfection." "Yes; but she hasn't bowed to me. Has she to you?"
"Who are those girls out in the boat with the old man?" (The name of the boat was "the Dart.") "Why, his darters, of course," was the reply.
And how could any one do differently when the great Archon himself was first and foremost in the fray, poking fun at all? "Don't do that," he said one day to me when I put something unusual in the swine's mess, "the hogs will all die after it!" with a most serious look on his pleasant face. In my seat at the table, looking down the hall to where the Archon was, I saw him full of frolic, and oftentimes wondered what he could joke so much about.
There was one occasion when he quoted Watts in a comical way to an offending member which brought him to terms. It was at the Eyry. There was a meeting of the Industrial Council. It was necessary to have a quorum to pass certain important votes, and one of the members, being a trifle weary of business, had stepped out to converse with a friend in the vestibule. After a while, hearing some one coming, he slipped behind the vestibule door. It was the "Archon," who came for the member to make a quorum. Presently, discovering his retreat, he hailed him—as he remembered it—thus:—
"'And are you there, you sinner d—d,
And do you fare so well!
Were it not for redeeming grace
You'd long since been in hell.'"
The unworthy member succumbed and returned to the meeting, wondering whether the verse was an impromptu or whether it was part of one of the inspiring Sunday hymns our grandfathers sang in their cheerless, unwarmed meeting-houses. In a version of Watts' Hymns this verse is found:—