“Well, what is it?”
“It’s a bird, sor,” said Finnegan with evident pride.
Senator Pettus, of Alabama, was writing with a noisy, spluttering pen. Laying it down, he smiled and said: “Once I was spending the evening with a friend of mine in Selma. We sat in the dining-room and from the kitchen came a dreadful scratching sound. ‘Martha,’ said my friend to the maid, ‘what is that scratching? it must be the dog trying to get in.’ ‘Huh!’ said Martha, ‘Dat ain’ no dog, dat’s cook writin’ a love-letter to heh honeysuckle.’”
“No smoking in this coach, sir,” said the conductor of a passenger train. “I’m not smokin’,” answered the passenger with an injured air from the depths of his seat.
“You’ve got your pipe in your mouth,” declared the conductor with emphasis, sharply confident. “I hov,” retorted the Hibernian, “and I hov me fut in me shoe, too, but I’m not walkin’.”
Little Alice is old for her years. One evening after she had gone to bed she heard mama and papa laughing in much enjoyment over a game of flinch; she longed to get up and join them, but knew she must not. The next morning at breakfast she was very quiet. Presently she drew a deep sigh, and said, “What a good time you and papa had last night. Oh, I feel the need of a husband, mama, I do feel it!”