Once upon a time there was a minister, a very orthodox man, and he was very fond of pepper-sauce, and he liked it piping hot, the very strongest kind on the market. Distrusting that furnished by the hotels, he always carried with him on his travels a bottle of his favorite brand. One day as he was seated at the dinner table of a hotel, a man on the other side of the table asked him to “please pass the pepper-sauce.” “Certainly,” said he, “with pleasure. This bottle is my own private property, I always carry it with me. I think you will find it very good.” The man helped himself freely, and when he had got done coughing and had recovered enough breath to enable him to speak, he said: “Pardon me, sir. I believe you are a preacher?” “Yes, that is my calling in life.” “An orthodox preacher, I presume?” “Yes, sir.” “And you really believe in hell-fire?” “Yes—I feel it my duty to warn the inpenitent of their danger.” “And you do preach and believe in a literal hell-fire?” “I cannot do otherwise with the Scriptures before me.” “Well”—said the man, “I have met a good many preachers in my time who believe and preach just as you do, sir, but I must say I never before met a man who carries his samples with him.”
ONE PLACE OR THE OTHER
“When I get to heaven,” said Brown, as he laid down the book he had been reading—“when I get to heaven, the very first person I want to see will be Shakespeare.”
“And what do you want to see Shakespeare for?” inquired his wife.
“Why, I just want to ask him whether he wrote his own plays, or whether he got some one else to write them for him, and have this question settled.”
“Well, but”—objected his wife, “how do you know he’ll be there? Not all people will get to heaven.”
“That’s so, that’s so,” said Brown meditatively. “Well, I’ll tell you what we’ll do—if he isn’t there, then suppose you ask him?”
“LOUDER!”
At a criminal trial both judge and counsel had a deal of trouble to make the timid witnesses speak loud enough to be heard by the jury, and it is possible that the temper of the counsel may thereby have been turned from the even tenor of its way. After this gentleman had gone through the various stages of bar pleading, and had coaxed, threatened and even bullied the witnesses, there was called into the box a young hostler who appeared to be simplicity itself.
“Now, sir,” said the counsel, in a tone that would at any other time have been denounced as vulgarly loud, “I hope we shall have no difficulty in making you speak out.”