“Owl” number five plumed his feathers and opened his short but silvery-toned beak, as follows:
“Out in Nevada, during a race week, a rider was thrown from a horse and taken up insensible. As he lay on a stretcher near the judges’ stand many wagers were made among the sporting fraternity present, upon his death or recovery.
“A surgeon present proposed to bleed the boy, but the gamblers interposed, for, they said, it would seriously affect the fairness of the bets.”
“I don’t believe that story,” said “Owl” Number Six: “but here is one which has been in our family for over forty years, and we all know it to be true:
“An old gentleman—who, by the way, was almost entirely deaf, had brought a suit against one of his neighbors, claiming certain damages. The case was one which the justice thought ought not to go to a jury, but should be settled between the parties. He therefore instructed the attorney to ask the old gentleman what he would take to settle the suit. The lawyer, putting his mouth near the deaf man’s ear, said, in a loud tone:
“‘The court wants to know what you will take.’
“Turning his eye blandly toward the judge’s bench, the old gentleman replied:
“‘Thank the squire for me, and tell him I will take a leetle Santy Cruise rum without sugar.’”
“Owl” Number Seven, looking uncommon wise, got off the following:
“Two shad fishermen got into a dispute lately about a fish net, which they both laid claim to, and, as the war of words was reaching its hight, a son of one of the beligerents coming upon the scene, cried out to his venerable parent: