YOU beat your pate, and fancy wit will come: Knock as you will, there's nobody at home. CCXCVI.--TOO COLD TO CHANGE. A LADY reproving a gentleman during a hard frost for swearing, advised him to leave it off, saying it was a very bad habit. "Very true, madam," answered he, "but at present it is too cold to think of parting with any _habit_, be it ever so bad." CCXCVII.--SEALING AN OATH. "Do you," said Fanny, t' other day, "In earnest love me as you say; Or are those tender words applied Alike to fifty girls beside?" "Dear, cruel girl," cried I, "forbear, For by those eyes,--those _lips_ I swear!" She stopped me as the oath I took, And cried, "You've sworn,--_now kiss the book_." CCXCVIII.--A NEAT QUOTATION. LORD NORBURY asking the reason of the delay that happened in a cause, was told that Mr. Serjeant _Joy_, who was to lead, was absent, but Mr. _Hope_, the solicitor, had said that he would return immediately. His lordship humorously repeated the well-known lines:-- "_Hope_ told a flattering tale, That _Joy_ would soon return." CCXCIX.--GOOD SPORT. A GENTLEMAN on circuit narrating to Lord Norbury some extravagant feat in sporting, mentioned that he had lately shot thirty-three hares before breakfast. "Thirty-three _hairs_!" exclaimed Lord Norbury: "zounds, sir! then you must have been firing at a _wig_." CCC.--AN UNRE-HEARSED EFFECT. A NOBLE lord, not over courageous, was once so far engaged in an affair of honor, as to be drawn to Hyde Park to fight a duel. But just as he arrived at the Porter's Lodge, an empty _hearse_ came by; on which his lordship's antagonist called out to the driver, "Stop here, my good fellow, a few minutes, and I'll send _you a fare_." This operated so strongly on his lordship's nerves, that he begged his opponent's pardon, and returned home in a whole skin. CCCI.--A GOOD SERVANT. "I CAN'T conceive," said one nobleman to another, "how it is that you manage. Though your estate is less than mine, I could not afford to live at the rate you do."--"My lord," said the other, "I have a place."--"A place? you amaze me, I never heard of it till now,--pray what place?"--"_I am my own steward_." CCCII.--BALANCING ACCOUNTS. THEOPHILUS CIBBER, who was very extravagant, one day asked his father for a hundred pounds. "Zounds, sir," said Colly, "can't you live upon your salary? When I was your age, I never spent a farthing of my father's money."--"But you have spent a great deal of _my father's_," replied Theophilus. This retort had the desired effect. CCCIII.--A NOVELTY. A PERSON was boasting that he had never spoken the truth. "Then," added another, "you have _now_ done it for the first time." CCCIV.--SCOTCH UNDERSTANDING.