A nephew of Mr. Bagges, in explaining the mysteries of a tea-kettle, describes the benefits of the application of steam to useful purposes. “For all which,” remarked Mr. Bagges, “we have principally to thank—what was his name?” “Watt was his name, I believe, uncle,” replied the boy.
Of Dr. Keate many anecdotes are afloat among old Etonians. One was told that is well worth repeating. A boy named Rashleigh, with all the others of his class, was set to write a theme on the maxim: Temere nil facias. When the time came for giving in the papers, Rashleigh appeared without his. “Where is your theme, sir?” asked the formidable Doctor. “I haven’t done it, sir,” answered Rashleigh. “Not done your theme, sir?” “No, sir!” persisted he, undaunted by the near prospect of the “apple twigs.” “Why, you told me not to do it!” “I told you!” “Yes, sir; you said, Temere nil facias—do nothing, Rashleigh.” And the headmaster was so taken by the Latin pun that the apple twigs were allowed to repose on the shelf.
“So old Scrapetill is dead at last,” observed David from the interior of his evening paper; “oceans of money, too.” “What did he do with it?” queried Dora. “Oh, left it here and there,” said David. “That scapegrace son gets a quarter of a million. If he doesn’t paint the town red, now, then I’m a Canadian.” “I should think,” mused Dora, softly, as she helped herself to another needleful of silk—“I should think that anybody with a quart of vermilion might paint a town very red indeed.” And David was so astounded that he put his paper in the fire and laid a fresh stick of wood in the very centre of the plush-covered table.
Punning would not be so bad were it not so infectious. Puns leave germs which lie in idle minds until they fructify and bear a baleful crop of more puns. The other day some of us got to talking about that witty old cynic, Dean Swift, when one of the company took advantage of the opening and gave us this jeu de mot of his: “Why,” asked the Dean, “is it right, by the lex talionis, to pick an artist’s pocket?” It was given up, of course, and the answer was: “Because he has pictures.” A silence fell about the table round, until, one by one, we saw it. Then one thoughtful man observed, “It was impossible to give the answer—because the Dean had contrived to reserve the answer to himself. I could not, for instance, say that it is right for me to pick an artist’s pocket, because he has picked yours.” Here is another conundrum, founded upon a pun, which only the propounder can solve: An old man and a young one were standing by a meadow. “Why,” asked the young man, “is this clover older than you?” “It is not,” replied the other. “It is, though,” returned the man, “because it is pasturage.” Thereupon an abstracted looking person, who had not followed the line of remark, and who had not understood the illustration, startled us all with this irrelevant inquiry, “Why cannot a pantomimist tickle nine Esquimaux? Give it up? Why it’s because he can gesticulate.”
When Jonah interviewed the whale
And haunted his internals,
As erst it is recorded in
The truthfulest of journals,
What monarch did he symbolize?
(A far-fetched joke you’ll style it.)