MXCIX.—A SLIGHT DIFFERENCE.
"I keep an excellent table," said a lady, disputing with one of her boarders. "That may be true, ma'am," says he, "but you put very little upon it."
MC.—MORE HONORED IN THE BREACH.
A laird of Logan sold a horse to an Englishman, saying, "You buy him as you see him; but he's an honest beast." The purchaser took him home. In a few days he stumbled and fell, to the damage of his own knees and his rider's head. On this the angry purchaser remonstrated with the laird, whose reply was, "Well, sir, I told you he was an honest beast; many a time has he threatened to come down with me, and I kenned he would keep his word some day."
MCI.—"YOU'LL GET THERE BEFORE I CAN TELL YOU."
Mr. Neville, formerly a fellow of Jesus College, was distinguished, by many innocent singularities, uncommon shyness, and stammering of speech, but when he used bad words he could talk fluently. In one of his solitary rambles a countryman met him and inquired the road. "Tu—u—rn," says Neville, "to—to—to—" and so on for a minute or two; at last he burst out, "Confound it, man! you'll get there before I can tell you!"
MCII.—ON MR. MILTON, THE LIVERY STABLE-KEEPER.
Two Miltons, in separate ages were born,
The cleverer Milton 'tis clear we have got;
Though the other had talents the world to adorn,
This lives by his mews, which the other could not!
MCIII.—A LONG RESIDENCE.
The following complacent Scottish remark upon Bannockburn was made to a splenetic Englishman, who had said to a Scottish countryman that no man of taste would think of remaining any time in such a country as Scotland. To which the canny Scot replied, "Tastes differ; I'se tak' ye to a place no far frae Stirling, whaur thretty thousand o' yer countrymen ha' been for five hunder years, an' they've nae thocht o' leavin' yet."