A Good Shot
A recruit, who was standing guard one night near an observatory, was staring thoughtlessly at the sky and up at the tower. Suddenly somebody appeared on the observatory, and, as the recruit thought, pointed with a long gun into the night. “Now I should just like to know what that man up there wants to shoot in the dark,” he said to himself, while his eyes followed the direction of the telescope. All at once a star fell. The gun dropped from the astonished recruit’s hand as he cried: “Well, I’ll be jiggered; he hit it!”
Remedy for Don Juans
General:—“Were you at my house?”
Adjutant:—“Yes, sir; your gracious wife is at home, and Lieutenant von Schneidewitz is there.”
General:—“Again? Have an alarm sounded at once.”
CHAPTER XII
Crowned Heads and Some of Their Famous Statesmen and Generals
No Money, No Gun
Markgraf Johann von Brandenburg, reigning Prince of Neumark, was in the habit of leaving his debts stand for a long time. His gunsmith at Nuremberg was well aware of this. So having filled an order, he wrote one day the following laconic letter to him;