YANKEE INGENUITY.
In some of our towns we don't allow smokin' in the streets, though most of them we do, and where it is agin law, it is two dollars fine in a gineral way. Well, Sassy went down to Boston, to do a little chore of business there, where this law was, only he didn't know it. So, soon as he gets off the coach, he outs with his case, takes a cigar, lights it, and walks on, smoking like a furnace flue. No sooner said than done. Up steps a constable and says, "I'll trouble you for two dollars for smokin' agin law, in the streets." Sassy was as quick as wink on him. "Smokin'!" says he; "I warn't a smokin'." "O, my!" says constable, "how you talk, man! I won't say you lie, 'cause it aint polite, but it's very like the way I talk when I fib. Didn't I see you with my own eyes?" "No," says Sassy, "you didn't. It don't do always to believe your own eyes, they can't be depended on more than other people's. I never trust mine, I can assure you. I own I had a cigar in my mouth, but it was because I liked the flavor of tobacco, but not to smoke. I take it don't convene with the dignity of a free and enlightened citizen of our almighty nation, to break the law, seein' that he makes the law himself, and is his own sovereign, and his own subject, too. No, I warn't smokin', and if you don't believe me, try this cigar yourself, and see if it aint so. It han't got no fire in it." Well, constable takes the cigar, puts it into his mug, and draws away at it, and out comes the smoke like anythin'. "I'll trouble you for two dollars, Mr. High Sheriff's representative," says Sassy, "for smokin' in the streets; do you underconstand, my old coon?" Well, constable was taken all aback; he was finely bit. "Stranger," says he, "where was you raised?" "To Canady line," says Sassy. "Well," says he, "you're a credit to your broughtens up. We'll let the fine drop, for we are about even, I guess. Let's liquor," and he took him into a bar and treated him to a mint julep. It was generally considered a great bite, that, and I must say, I don't think it was bad—do you?—Sam Slick.
COMFORTABLE.
Theodore Hook, when surprised, one evening, in his arm-chair, two or three hours after dinner, is reported to have apologised, by saying: "When one is alone, the bottle does come round so often." It was Sir Hercules Langrishe, who, being asked, on a similar occasion, "Have you finished all that port (three bottles) without assistance?" answered, "No, not quite that; I had the assistance of a bottle of Madeira."
HORNE TOOKE.
When Horne Tooke was at school, the boys asked him "what his father was?" Tooke answered, "A Turkey merchant." (He was a poulterer.)
He once said to his brother, a pompous man, "You and I have reversed the natural course of things; you have risen by your gravity; I have sunk by my levity."
To Judge Ashhurst's remark, that the law was open to all, both to the rich and to the poor, Tooke replied, "So is the London tavern."
He said that Hume wrote his history, as witches say their prayers—backwards.