“That is true, sir—but I asked four times; and four half-hours make two hours, I think.”
As a diligence was passing along a part of the road reputed dangerous, some of the passengers expressed their fear of being attacked by robbers. “Do not be afraid,” said an Englishman, who was one of them; “I have foreseen everything—I have two loaded pistols at the bottom of my portmanteau.”
A Neapolitan, paying a visit to Milan, said to a countryman of his who had settled there, “Before leaving this place, I should like to have my portrait done in oil.” “Impossible, my dear fellow!” said his friend; “here they do everything in butter.”
So-and-so, who is in mourning for his mother, was one day riding out on a mare with a crimson saddle. A wag, meeting him, said, “That saddle does not look much like mourning.” “Excuse me,” replied our friend; “my mare’s mother is not dead—why should she go into black?”
A young man of these days, whose reputation is none of the best, was boasting in company of his skill as a physiognomist. “I have a thorough knowledge of rascals,” he said. “I can not only recognise them, but also thoroughly understand them, at first sight.” Hearing this, a respectable man, who was acquainted with him, said, “Did you ever look in the glass?”
A Knight Commander of Malta, who was exceedingly avaricious, had two pages, who one day complained to him that they had no shirts to wear. The miser called his major-domo, and said: “You will write to the steward of my estates in Sicily, and tell him to have some hemp sown at once. When the hemp is gathered, he is to have it spun, and then woven into cloth, to make shirts for these young men.” At this the pages laughed. “Ah! the rogues!” said the knight; “see how delighted they are, now that they have their shirts.”
A gentleman of Naples fought fourteen duels in order to maintain that Dante was a greater poet than Ariosto. The last of these encounters was fatal to the enthusiast, who exclaimed on his death-bed: “And yet I have never read either of them!”
An actor, asking the manager for his arrears of payment, told him that he was in danger of dying of starvation. The manager, looking at his plump and ruddy countenance, told him that his face did not bear out the assertion. “Don’t let yourself be misled by that,” said the actor; “this face is not mine; it belongs to my landlady, who has been letting me live on credit for the last six months!”
Gennaro, of Naples, said one day to a friend, “I receive an immense number of anonymous letters, which are quite insulting; but I despise them too much to let it vex me. When I lower myself so far as to write anonymous letters, I always sign them.”
Francesco Gallina, the lawyer, was disputing a point with his colleague, Giacomo Sanciotti. Being unable to support his reasoning, he improvised a law which justified the position he took. Sanciotti, perceiving this stratagem, immediately invented another which put Gallina in the wrong. The latter, never having heard of such a law, said, “Can you give me the reference?” “You will find it,” replied Sanciotti, without hesitating, “on the same page as the Act you have just quoted.”