'Mean? Why, I intended to borrow a guinea of you. I have only got half; but I'm not in a hurry for t' other. Name your own time, only pray keep it!' saying which, he disappeared round the corner.

'John Phœnix' the American humorist being one night at a theatre, fancied he saw a friend some three seats in front of him. Turning to his next neighbour he said: 'Would you be kind enough to touch that gentleman with your stick?' 'Certainly,' was the reply, and the thing was done; but when the individual thus assaulted turned round, Phœnix saw he was not the man he took him for, and became at once absorbed in the play, leaving his friend with the stick to settle matters with the gentleman in front, which, as he had no excuse handy, was not done without considerable trouble. When the hubbub was over, the victim said: 'Didn't you tell me to tap that man with my stick?' 'Yes.' 'And what did you want?' 'Oh,' said Phœnix, with imperturbable gravity, 'I wanted to see whether you would tap him or not!'

'Jack Holmes,' a man-about-town, living no one knew how, was once under cross-examination by a certain sergeant-at-law, who knew his man too well. 'Now, sir,' said the learned gentleman, 'tell the jury how you live?'

'Well,' said Holmes, 'a chop or a steak, and on Sunday perhaps a little bit of fish; I am a very plain-living man.'

'You know what I mean, sir,' thundered the questioner. 'What do you do for a living?'

'The same as you, sergeant,' said the witness, tapping his forehead suggestively; 'and when that fails, I do'—going through the pantomime of writing across his hand—'a little bit of stuff—the same as you again.'

'My lud, I shall not ask this obtuse witness any more questions,' said the angry counsel.

'Brother,' said Baron Martin, 'I think you had better not.'

Here is a hint for our old friend the clown in the pantomime. At the burning of a provision store, the crowd helped themselves freely. One man grasped a huge cheese as his share of the salvage; rising up with it he found himself face to face with a policeman, and with admirable presence of mind put the plunder into the officer's arms, saying: 'You had better take care of that, policeman, or some one will be walking off with it.'

Equally ready to relinquish his loot when there was no help for it was a Chicago negro, caught by a poultry fancier in the act of carrying off some of his live stock, and challenged with: 'What are you doing with my chickens?' 'I wuz gwine fer ter fetch 'em back, boss,' explained he. 'Dere's a nigger roun' here what's bin disputin along er me 'bout dem chickens. I said dey wuz Coachin Chyniz; an he said dey wuz Alabarmar pullets; an I wuz jes takin 'em roun' fer ter stablish my nollidge. Dey don't lay no aigs, does dey, boss? Ef dey does, I'm mighty shamed of hustlin 'em roun'. Aigs is scase.'