Algernon (suddenly to his aunt and cousin). "Look here, I hope you both understand that when we get to the Academy I don't know you. I can't be seen there with women after this Sargent business!"
"An extraordinary amount of destruction and annoyance is annually perpetrated by the somewhat unsociable creatures known as wasps."—Amateur Gardening.
They are still more annoying when they are sociable.
"Masterman jumped out of the conveyance, which also contained several ladies, and, overtaking the animals, succeeded in turning them into a telegraph pole."
Lincolnshire Echo.
This trick is a favourite one with all good conjurers, but rarely comes in so opportunely. The second part of it—in which the telegraph pole is turned into a couple of rabbits—is rather in the nature of an anti-climax.
The Pall Mall Gazette on John Burns:—
"Johannes locutur est; res finite est. Or so we hope."