Herr von N. was a passionate lover of hunting, and though he seldom hit anything, he boasted the more. He was giving a large dinner-party, and, as usual on such occasions, had his man-servant standing behind his chair, so he could appeal to him, as a witness of his heroic deeds. “Now, gentlemen, I must tell you of a very remarkable shot I made the other day. I shot a very large deer through the right hind leg and the right ear. What do you think of that?” Everybody laughed.
“John, you were there,” cried Herr von N., “you can testify to it.”
“Most certainly,” replied the servant, “it is all perfectly true. The deer—if the gentlemen will forgive my mentioning it—was scratching his ear at the very moment my master hit it.” The laughter grew to a roar. John stooped over his master and whispered in his ear: “When your Honor tells a story next, please don’t have things so far apart or I might not be able to put them together as well.”
A Kind Neighbor
“Will you permit me, friend, to shoot one of the ducks in this pond? I’ll give you two marks for it.”
“Certainly, sir!”
The gunner pays the money, kills the duck, and, encouraged by his luck, asks the farmer if he may have a second one, pays him two more marks and kills another duck.
“Would you allow me to shoot a third one?”
“Sure, shoot all you want to; the ducks don’t belong to me, but to my neighbor.”