A baronet scientifically skilled in pugilism, enjoyed no pleasure so much as giving gratuitous instructions in his favorite art. A peer paying him a visit, they had a sparring-match, in the course of which he seized his lordship behind, and threw him over his head with a violent shock. The nobleman not relishing this rough usage, "My lord," said the baronet, respectfully, "I assure you that I never show this manœuvre except to my particular friends."
A CHARM.
Buchanan the historian was, from his learning, thought in his days of superstition to be a wizard. An old woman, who kept an ale-house in St. Andrews, consulted George, in hopes that by necromantic arts he might restore her custom, which was unaccountably decreasing. He readily promised his aid. "Every time you brew, Maggy," says he, "go three times to the left round the copper, and at each round take out a ladle-full of water in the devil's name; then turn three times round to the right, and each time throw in a ladle-full of malt in God's name; but above all, wear this charm constantly on your breast, and never during your life attempt to open it, or dread the worst." She strictly conformed, and her business increased astonishingly. On her death her friends ventured to open and examine the charm, when they found it to contain these words:
"If Maggy will brew good ale,
Maggy will have good sale."
SHORT DIALOGUE.
Lady: You can not imagine, captain, how deeply I feel the want of children, surrounded as I am by every comfort—nothing else is wanting to render me supremely happy.
Captain O'Flinn: Faith, ma'am, I've heard o' that complaint running in families; p'rhaps your mother had not any childer either?
A BLUNT WITNESS.
At a late term of the Court of Sessions a man was brought up by a farmer, accused of stealing some ducks.
"How do you know they are your ducks?" asked the defendant's counsel.