A romantic youth, promenading in a fashionable street in New York, picked up a thimble. He stood awhile, meditating upon the probable beauty of the owner, when he pressed it to his lips, saying, "Oh, that it were the fair cheek of the wearer!" Just as he had finished, a stout, elderly negress looked out of an upper window, and said, "Massa, jist please to bring dat fimble of mine in de entry—I jist drapt it."
BRIGHT AND BLUE.—597.
I met her in the sunset bright, her gingham gown was blue; her eyes, that danced with pure delight, were of the same dear hue. And always when the sun goes down, I think of the girl in the gingham gown.
OYSTERS.—598.
A man seeing an oyster vendor pass by, called out, "Give me a pound of oysters!" "We sell oysters by measure, not by weight," replied the other. "Well," said he, "give me a yard of them."
ABSTRACTION.—599.
An editor at a dinner-table being asked if he would take some pudding, replied in a fit of abstraction, "Owing to a crowd of other matter we are unable to find room for it."
MODERN DEFINITIONS NOT FOUND IN ANY OF THE ANCIENT DICTIONARIES.—600.
Hard Times.—Sitting on a cold grindstone and reading the President's message.