Emily (reads). In the summer they were naked, and instead of clothes they put paint upon their bodies. They were fond of a fine blue colour, which they made of a plant called woad, which they found in their woods. They squeezed out the juice of the woad, and then stained themselves all over with it, so that in summer they looked as if they were dressed in tight blue clothes.
Arthur. And did they walk in the park and go to church so?
A RURAL STUDY.
BURLESQUE-WRITER FORCING PUNS.
Genius. Ha! I may be unrecognized, my dear, but I’ll have my revenge on posterity. When the great cypher work is dug out of the Thames it will show that everything Meredith, Hardy, Kipling and Marie Corelli ever wrote was mine—mine!
HUMOURS OF THE PRINTING-HOUSE
The printing-house is notoriously the place for fun. Every shop has its selection of funny men who are ever ready to co-operate with the “devils” in manufacturing mirth. And there are always the “fossils,” who afford many an opportunity for a hearty laugh at them, if not with them. Often have I been amused with, the idiosyncrasies of these typographical gray beards; their chief charm being their colossal assurance as to their invariably being right, and everybody else, who presumes to differ from them, wrong. I recollect one of these ancient typesetters (an old Scotsman) who used to be the butt of countless jokes in the shop where he toiled so patiently. On one occasion he set up an article from my pen, beginning, “Long before the introduction of Pears’ Soap”; and I am bothered if he didn’t turn the last two words into “Pea Soup!” But the real fun of the matter was, that on his mistake being pointed out, he blandly suggested our letting the words appear as he had set them—“it wid dae jist as weel!”