THE LOST FOUND.
A servant being sent with half a dozen living partridges in a present, had the curiosity to open the lid of the basket containing them, when they all made their escape. He proceeded, however, with the letter: the gentleman to whom it was addressed having read it, said, "I find in this letter half a dozen of partridges." "Do you, indeed?" cried Pat, "I am glad you have found them in the letter, for they all flew out of the basket."
A FILLIP TO A KING.
The Earl of St. Albans was, like many other staunch loyalists, little remembered by Charles II. He was, however, an attendant at court, and one of his majesty's companions in his gay hours. On one such occasion, a stranger came with an important suit for an office of great value, just vacant. The king, by way of joke, desired the earl to personate him, and ordered the petitioner to be admitted. The gentleman, addressing himself to the supposed monarch, enumerated his services to the royal family, and hoped the grant of the place would not be deemed too great a reward. "By no means," answered the earl, "and I am only sorry that as soon as I heard of the vacancy I conferred it upon my faithful friend the Earl of St. Albans [pointing to the king], who has constantly followed the fortunes both of my father and myself, and has hitherto gone unrewarded." Charles granted for this joke what the utmost real services looked for in vain.
A MERITED REWARD.
A physician, during his attendance on a man of letters, remarking that the patient was very punctual in observing his regimen and taking his prescriptions, exclaimed with exultation, "My dear sir, you really deserve to be ill!"
COCKNEYISM.
A Londoner told his friend that he was going to Margate for a change of hair. "You had better," said the other, "go to the wig-maker's shop."
A STORY APPLIED.
Mr. Balfour, a Scotch advocate of dry humour, but much pomposity, being in a large company, where the convivial Earl of Kelly presided, was requested to give a song, which he declined. Lord Kelly, with all the despotism of a chairman, insisted that if he would not sing, he must tell a story or drink a pint bumper of wine. Mr. Balfour, being an abstemious man, would not submit to the latter alternative, but consented to tell a story. "One day," said he, "a thief, prowling about, passed a church, the door of which was invitingly open. Thinking that he might even there find some prey, he entered, and was decamping with the pulpit-cloth, when he found his exit interrupted, the doors having been in the interim fastened. What was he to do to escape with his plunder? He mounted the steeple, and let himself down by the bell-rope; but scarcely had he reached the bottom when the consequent noise of the bell brought together people, who seized him. As he was led off to prison he addressed the bell, as I now address your lordship; said he, 'Had it not been for your long tongue and your empty head I had made my escape.'"