A Western statesman, in one of his tours in the Far West, stopped all night at a house, where he was put in the same room with a number of strangers. He was very much annoyed by the snoring of two persons. The black boy of the hotel entered the room, when our narrator said to him:
"Ben, I will give you five dollars if you will kill that man next to me who snores so dreadfully."
"Can't kill him for five dollars, but if massa will advance on the price, I'll try what I can do."
By this time the stranger had ceased his nasal fury. The other was now to be quieted. So stepping to him he woke him, and said:
"My friend, [he knew who he was,] you're talking in your sleep, and exposing all the secrets of the Brandon Bank, [he was a director,] you had better be careful."
He was careful, for he did not go to sleep that night.
TANNING.
"Daddy," said a hopeful urchin to his parental relative, "why don't our schoolmaster send the editor of the newspaper an account of all the lickings he gives to the boys?"
"I don't know, my son," replied the parent, "but why do you ask me such a question?"
"Why, this paper says that Mr. B. has tanned three thousand hides at his establishment during the past year, and I know that old Grimes has tanned our hides more'n twice that many times—the editor ought to know it."