“Heathen are paragons (pagans) that wash up idle things.”
“The Indians call their women squabs.”
A certain curate in the course of conversation at a dinner party some time ago remarked to a friend, “I had a curious dream last night, but as it was about my vicar I hardly like to tell it.” On being pressed, however, he began: “I dreamt I was dead and was on my way to Heaven, which was reached by a very long ladder. At the foot I was met by an angel, who pressed a piece of chalk into my hand and said, ‘If you climb long enough you will reach Heaven, but for every sin you are conscious of having committed you must mark a rung of the ladder with the chalk as you go up.’ I took the chalk and started. I had climbed up very, very far and was feeling very tired when I suddenly met my vicar coming down. ‘Hullo!’ I said, ‘what are you going down for?’ ‘More chalk.’”
Mrs. McKinley used to tell of a colored widow whose children she had helped educate. The widow, rather late in life, married.
“How are you getting on?” Mrs. McKinley asked her a few months after her marriage.
“Fine, thank yo’, ma’am,” the bride answered.
“And is your husband a good provider?”