VIRTUE CHEAP.
A stone mason was employed to engrave the following epitaph on a tradesman's wife: "A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband." The stone, however, being narrow, he contracted the sentence in the following manner: "A virtuous woman is 5s. to her husband."
THOROUGH WORK.
A bricklayer fell through the rafters of an unfinished house, and nearly killed himself; a bystander declared that he ought to be employed, as he went smartly through his work.
NOT TO BE DONE BROWN.
Dr. Brown courted a lady for many years unsuccessfully; during which time, he had always accustomed himself to propose her health, whenever he was called upon for a lady. But being observed, one evening, to omit it, a gentleman reminded him that he had forgotten to toast his favorite lady. "Why, indeed," said the doctor, "I find it all in vain; I have toasted her so many years, and cannot make her Brown, that I am determined to toast her no longer."
FITNESS OF THINGS.
An Irish sergeant, on a march, being attacked by a dog, pierced the animal with his halbert. On the complaint of the owner, the superior officer said to the offender, "Murphy, you were wrong in this. You should have struck the dog with the butt end of your halbert, and not with your blade." "Plaise your honor," says Murphy, "and I would have been glad for to save myself the trouble of claining my iron, if he had only been so kind as to bite me with his tail, instead of his teeth."
LETTING ON.
A lawyer, in Ireland, who was pleading the cause of an infant plaintiff, took the child up in his arms, and presented it to the jury, suffused with tears. This had a great effect, till the opposite lawyer asked what made him cry? "He pinched me!" answered the little innocent. The whole court was convulsed with laughter.