“My face is my fortune! my pretty maid.”

“Then you’ve plenty of brass, kind sir,” she said.

True.

Oh, where are you going, my pretty maid?”

“I’m going a chestnutting, sir,” she said.

And she spoke sober truth, in sooth, for lo!

She had a ticket for the minstrel show.

Detroit Free Press. July 24, 1886.

(Chestnuts—Americanism for stale jokes.)