A JOKE IN A SERIOUS PLACE
Certainly no one would think of reading a dictionary for amusement or pleasure--as the Irishman said, he would lose the thread of the story in the great mass of detail. Nor would one expect to find jokes in such a book, barring Mark Twain's about the carbuncle. But that learned and otherwise serious dictionary, the Century, contains at least one laughable entry.
Under the word "question" is the following:
"To pop the question--see pop."
INSIDE INFORMATION
A Christian Scientist, while walking in the country, met a small boy sitting under an apple-tree doubled up with pain.
"My little man," she said, "what is the matter?"
"I ate some green apples," moaned the boy, "and oh, how I ache!"
"You don't ache," answered the apostle of Mrs. Eddy; "your pain is imagination. It's all in your mind."
The boy looked up in grave astonishment at such a statement and then replied in a most positive manner: