The Gentleman replied: "It is improbable that its authors have accurately expressed my views without consulting me; and if I indorsed their work without approving it I should be a liar." "You are a detestable hypocrite and an idiot!" shouted the Party Manager. "Even your good opinion of my fitness," replied the Gentleman, "shall not persuade me." The Legislator and the Citizen An ex-Legislator asked a Most Respectable Citizen for a letter to the Governor recommending him for appointment as Commissioner of Shrimps and Crabs. "Sir," said the Most Respectable Citizen, austerely, "were you not once in the State Senate?" "Not so bad as that, sir, I assure you," was the reply. "I was a member of the Slower House. I was expelled for selling my influence for money." "And you dare to ask for mine!" shouted the Most Respectable Citizen. "You have the impudence? A man who will accept bribes will probably offer them. Do you mean to--" "I should not think of making a corrupt proposal to you, sir; but if I were Commissioner of Shrimps and Crabs, I might have some influence with the water-front population, and be able to help you make your fight for Coroner." "In that case I do not feel justified in denying you the letter." So he took his pen, and, some demon guiding his hand, he wrote, greatly to his astonishment: "Who sells his influence should stop it, An honest man will only swap it." The Rainmaker An Officer of the Government, with a great outfit of mule-waggons loaded with balloons, kites, dynamite bombs, and electrical apparatus, halted in the midst of a desert, where there had been no rain for ten years, and set up a camp. After several months of preparation and an expenditure of a million dollars all was in readiness, and a series of tremendous explosions occurred on the earth and in the sky. This was followed by a great down-pour of rain, which washed the unfortunate Officer of the Government and the outfit off the face of creation and affected the agricultural heart with joy too deep for utterance. A Newspaper Reporter who had just arrived escaped by climbing a hill near by, and there he found the Sole Survivor of the expedition--a mule-driver--down on his knees behind a mesquite bush, praying with extreme fervour. "Oh, you can't stop it that way," said the Reporter. "My fellow-traveller to the bar of God," replied the Sole Survivor, looking up over his shoulder, "your understanding is in darkness. I am not stopping this great blessing; under Providence, I am bringing it." "That is a pretty good joke," said the Reporter, laughing as well as he could in the strangling rain--"a mule driver's prayer answered!" "Child of levity and scoffing," replied the other; "you err again, misled by these humble habiliments. I am the Rev. Ezekiel Thrifft, a minister of the gospel, now in the service of the great manufacturing firm of Skinn & Sheer. They make balloons, kites, dynamite bombs, and electrical apparatus."