One afternoon Mrs. Murphy appeared at the settlement house, all dressed up in her best bonnet and shawl. A huge black and blue spot disfigured one side of her face, however, and one eye was nearly closed. “Why, Mrs. Murphy, what is the matter?” cried one of the teachers; and then, realizing that she might have asked a tactless question, she hastily turned it off, by saying, “Well, cheer up, you might be worse off.” “Sure an’ I might,” responded the indignant Mrs. Murphy. “I might not be married at all!”
A young woman in Central Park overheard an old negress call to a piccaninny: “Come heah, Exy, Exy!”
“Excuse me, but that’s a queer name for a baby, aunty?”
“Dat ain’t her full name,” explained the old woman with pride; “dat’s jes’ de pet name I calls for short. Dat chile got a mighty grand name. Her ma picked it out in a medicine book—yessum, de child’s full name is Eczema.”
Sir Richard Bethell, afterward Lord Westbury, with a suave voice and a stately manner, nevertheless had a way of bearing down the foe with almost savage wit. Once, in court, he had to follow a barrister who had delivered his remarks in very loud tones. “Now that the noise in court has subsided,” murmured Bethell, “I will tell your Honor in two sentences the gist of the case.”
The resemblance of the Rev. Robert Collyer to Henry Ward Beecher was often remarked. One day, when walking through Central Park, hat in hand, as the day was hot, at a sharp turn in the path he came upon an old lady seated on one of the park benches. At sight of him she jumped to her feet, exclaiming: