MXCIV.—A MYSTERY CLEARED UP.
W——, they say, is bright! yet to discover
The fact you vainly in St. Stephen's sit.
But hold! Extremes will meet: the marvel's over;
His very dulness is the extreme of wit.
MXCV.—BRAHAM AND KENNEY.
The pride of some people differs from that of others. Mr. Bunn was passing through Jermyn Street, late one evening, and seeing Kenney at the corner of St. James's Church, swinging about in a nervous sort of manner, he inquired the cause of his being there at such an hour. He replied, "I have been to the St. James's Theatre, and, do you know, I really thought Braham was a much prouder man than I find him to be." On asking why, he answered, "I was in the green-room, and hearing Braham say, as he entered, 'I am really proud of my pit to-night,' I went and counted it, and there were but seventeen people in it."
MXCVI.—HOW TO ESCAPE TAXATION.
"I would," says Fox, "a tax devise
That shall not fall on me."
"Then tax receipts," Lord North replies,
"For those you never see."
MXCVII.—A BED OF—WHERE?
A Scotch country minister had been invited, with his wife, to dine and spend the night at the house of one of his lairds. Their host was very proud of one of the very large beds which had just come into fashion, and in the morning asked the lady how she had slept in it. "O very well, sir; but, indeed, I thought I'd lost the minister a' thegither."
MXCVIII.—ENVY.
A drunken man was found in the suburbs of Dublin, lying on his face, by the roadside, apparently in a state of physical unconsciousness. "He is dead," said a countryman of his, who was looking at him. "Dead!" replied another, who had turned him with his face uppermost; "by the powers, I wish I had just half his disease!"—in other words, a moiety of the whiskey he had drunk.