CDLXXVII.—INQUESTS EXTRAORDINARY.
Found dead, a rat—no case could sure be harder;
Verdict—Confined a week in Eldon's larder.
Died, Sir Charles Wetherall's laundress, honest Sue;
Verdict—Ennui—so little work to do.
CDLXXVIII.—"I'VE DONE THE SAME THING OFTEN."
A Mr. John Smith, who is described, evidently not without reason, as a "fast" talker, gave the following description of the blowing up of a steamboat on the Mississippi: "I had landed at Helena for a minute to drop some letters into the post-office, when all of a sudden I heard a tremendous explosion, and, looking up, saw that the sky was for a minute darkened with arms, legs, and other small bits and scraps of my fellow-travellers. Amongst an uncommonly ugly medley, I spied the second clerk, about one hundred and fifty feet above my own level. I recognized him at once, for ten minutes before I had been sucking a sherry-cobbler with him out of the same rummer. Well, I watched him. He came down through the roof of a shoemaker's shop, and landed on the floor close by the shoemaker, who was at work. The clerk, being in a hurry, jumped up to go to the assistance of the other sufferers, when the 'man of wax' demanded five hundred dollars for the damage done to his roof. 'Too high,' replied the clerk; 'never paid more than two hundred and fifty dollars in my life, and I've done the same thing often.'"
CDLXXIX.—CONFIDENCE.
"Why," said a country clergyman to one of his flock, "do you always sleep in your pew when I am in the pulpit, while you are all attention to every stranger I invite?"—"Because, sir," was the reply, "when you preach I'm sure all's right, but I can't trust a stranger without keeping a good look-out."
CDLXXX.—THE CUT INFERNAL.
Said Wetherall the other night
Of ——: "He's the silliest elf
I ever knew." Sir Charles was right,
For no one ever knows himself.
CDLXXXI.—FEELING HIS WAY.
"Uncle," said a young man (who thought that his guardian supplied him rather sparingly with pocket-money), "is the Queen's head still on the sovereign?"—"Of course it is, you stupid lad! Why do you ask that?"—"Because it is now such a length of time since I saw one."