The following was, in consequence of an evening’s frolic, inscribed by some wags of Oxford, over an apothecary’s door:—
Hic venditur
Catharticum, Emeticum, Narcoticum,
Et omne quod exit in um,
Præter
Remedium.
WIT IN A FOOTMAN.
“How do you like your new place, Jack?” said a smart liveried footman, to an old fellow-servant whom he met in Pall Mall, bearing one of the lottery placards. “Pretty well,” replied the other: “if it’s not quite so genteel as yours, it is more independent; for, don’t you see, I get seventeen shillings per week, and my board,” pointing to the notice on his shoulder.
THE COUNTER-SIGN.
When those trusty defenders of the country, the Tower Hamlets militia, were doing duty, a fat shopkeeper having fallen asleep when sentry, was called upon to give the watchword. “The watchword!” said another; “ask him for the counter-sign.”
MAKING MONEY GO FAR.
Foote and Garrick were at the tavern together, when the former, pulling out his purse to pay the reckoning, asked the other what he should do with a light guinea he had? “Pshaw! it is worth nothing,” says Garrick; “fling it to the devil!” “Well, David,” says the other, “you are what I always took you for, ever contriving to make a guinea go further than any other man.”
COUNSEL’S OPINION.
An eminent barrister had a case sent to him for an opinion. The case stated was the most preposterous and improbable that had ever occurred to the mind of man, and concluded by asking, whether, under such circumstances, an action would lie? He took his pen, and wrote,—“Yes if the witnesses will lie too; but not otherwise.”