Two noble ladies chatting over their tea: "Only think, my dear, we are obliged to discharge our man." "Why?" "Oh, he begins to be too familiar. What do you think? I saw him cleaning the boots, and I discovered, to my horror, that he had my husband's boots, my son's, and _his own_, all mixed together!" A lady hurrying home from an approaching shower, dragging her little boy with her. _Boy._ "But, mother, why should we be so afraid of the thunder storm? Those hay-makers yonder don't care." _Mother._ "Child, they are poor people, who don't attract the lightning as we do, who always have gold and ready cash about us." A scene in a police court, the magistrate questioning a witness: "You are a carpenter, are you not?" "I am." "You were at work in the vicinity of the place where the scuffle occurred?" "I was." "How far from the two combatants were you standing?" "Thirty-six feet and a half, Rhenish measure." "How can you speak so exactly?" "Because I measured it. I thought that most likely some fool would be asking about that at the trial." These may suffice as examples of the average comic force of the German joke. A very few of the above--perhaps four or five in all--might have been accepted by the editors of _Punch_, with the requisite changes of scene and dialect. We must also bear in mind that the dialect counts for much in a comic scene, as we can easily perceive by changing a Yorkshire bumpkin's language in a comedy into London English. Half of the laugh-compelling power of some of the specimens given may lie in peculiarities of dialect and grammar of which no one but a native of the country can feel the force. A few of the more vivid and telling examples are given in the accompanying illustrations. The glimpses of German life which the comic artists afford remind us that the children of men are of one family, the several branches of which do not differ from one another so much as we are apt to suppose. German fathers, too, as we see in these pictures, stand amazed at the quantity of property their daughters can carry about with them in the form of wearing apparel. A domestic scene exhibits a young lady putting the last fond touches to her toilet, while a clerk presents a long bill to the father of the family, who throws his hands aloft, and exclaims, "Oh, blessed God! Thou who clothest the lilies of the field, provide also for my daughter, at least during the Carnival!" [Illustration: Strict Discipline in the Field--Major going the Rounds at Night. _Sentinel._ "Who goes there? Halt!" (Major, not regarding the summons, the soldier fires, and misses.) _Major._ "Three days in the guard-house for your bad shooting."]