“I will forfeit my head if you are not wrong,” exclaimed a dull and warm orator, to the president Montesquieu, in an argument. “I accept it,” replied the philosopher: “any trifle among friends has a value.”
MILITARY ZEAL.
One of the king’s soldiers, in the Civil War, being full of zeal and liquor, staggered against a church; and, clapping the wall of it repeatedly with his hand, hiccupped out,—“D—n you, you old b—h, I’ll stand by you to the last!”
SAVING ONE’S BACON.
A boy, who had not returned after the holidays to Winchester school, which the master charged him to do, came back at last loaded with a fine ham, as a bribe to the master, who took the ham, but flogged the lad, and told him, “You may give my compliments to your mother for the ham, but I assure you it shall not save your bacon.”
BUILDING CASTLES IN THE AIR.
During the Civil War, some persons of the royal party having mixed with the republicans in company, were talking of their future hopes. “’Tis all building castles in the air,” observed a surly republican. “Where can we build them else?” replied a cavalier; “you have robbed us of every inch of land.”
SOCIABLE AND SULKY.
A coachmaker remarking the fashionable stages or carriages, said, “That a sociable was all the ton during the honey-moon, and a sulky after.”