LXXIX.—BLACK OILS.
"What's the matter?" inquired a passer-by, observing a crowd collected around a black fellow, whom an officer was attempting to secure, to put on board an outward-bound whale ship, from which he had deserted. "Matter! matter enough," exclaimed the delinquent, "pressing a poor negro to get oil."
LXXX.—A BAD CROP.
A seedsman being lately held to bail for using inflammatory language respecting the Reform Bill, a wag observed, it was probably in the line of his profession—to promote business, he wished to sow sedition.
LXXXI.—A GRAVE DOCTOR.
Counsellor Crips being on a party at Castle-Martyr, one of the company, a physician, strolled out before dinner into the churchyard. Dinner being served, and the doctor not returned, some one expressed his surprise where he could be gone to. "Oh," says the counsellor, "he is but just stept out to pay a visit to some of his old patients."
LXXXII.—WASTE POWDER.
Dr. Johnson being asked his opinion of the title of a very small volume remarkable for its pomposity, replied, "That it was similar to placing an eight-and-forty pounder at the door of a pigsty."
LXXXIII.—THE SADDLE ON THE RIGHT HORSE.
As a man who, deeply involved in debt, was walking in the street with a very melancholy air, one of his acquaintance asked him why he was so sorrowful. "Alas!" said he, "I am in a state of insolvency."—"Well," said his friend, "if that is the case, it is not you, but your creditors, who ought to wear a woful countenance."