The Jest Book: The Choicest Anecdotes and SayingsLemon, Mark
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The Jest Book: The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings
Lemon, Mark
Anecdotes -- Great Britain; English wit and humor
A YOUNG lady visiting in the family asked John at dinner for a potato.
John made no response. The request was repeated; when John, putting his
mouth to her ear, said, very audibly, "There's jist _twa_ in the dish,
and they maun be _keepit_ for the strangers."
CCCXLII.--EVIDENCE OF A JOCKEY.
THE following dialogue was lately heard at an assize:--Counsel: "What
was the height of the horse?" Witness: "Sixteen feet." Counsel: "How old
was he?" Witness: "Six years." Counsel: "How high did you say he was?"
Witness: "Sixteen hands." Counsel: "You said just now sixteen _feet_."
Witness: "Sixteen _feet_! Did I say sixteen _feet_?" Counsel: "You did."
Witness: "_If I did say sixteen feet, it was sixteen feet_!--you don't
catch me crossing myself!"
CCCXLIII.--WAY OF THE WORLD.
DETERMINED beforehand, we gravely pretend
To ask the opinion and thoughts of a friend;
Should his differ from ours on any pretence,
We pity his want both of judgment and sense;
But if he falls into and flatters our plan,
Why, really we think him a sensible man.
CCCXLIV.--A BROAD-SHEET HINT.
IN the parlor of a public-house in Fleet Street, there used to be
written over the chimney-piece the following notice: "Gentlemen learning
to _spell_ are requested to use _yesterday's paper_."
CCCXLV.--MODEST MERIT.
A PLAYER applied to the manager of a respectable company for an
engagement for himself and his wife, stating that his lady was capable
of playing all the first line of business; but as for himself he was
"the worst actor in the world." They were engaged, and the lady answered
the character which he had given of her. The gentleman having the part
of a mere walking gentleman sent him for his first appearance, he asked
the manager, indignantly, how could he put him in such a paltry part.
"Sir," answered the other, "here is your own letter, stating that you
were the _worst_ actor in the world."--"True," replied the other, "but
then I had not _seen you_."
CCCXLVI.--SOFT, VERY!
SOME one had written upon a pane in the window of an inn on the Chester
road, "Lord M----ms has the softest lips in the universe.--PHILLIS."
Mrs. Abingdon saw this inscription, and wrote under it,--
"Then as like as two chips
Are his head and his lips.--AMARILLIS."
CCCXLVII.--CAMBRIDGE ETIQUETTE.
CAMBRIDGE etiquette has been very happily caricatured by the following
anecdote. A gownsman, one day walking along the banks of the Cam,
observing a luckless son of his Alma Mater in the agonies of _drowning_,
"What a pity," he exclaimed, "that I have not had the honor of being
_introduced_ to the gentleman; I might have saved him;" and walked on,
leaving the poor fellow to his fate.
CCCXLVIII.--EPIGRAM.
(On interminable harangues.)
YE fates that hold the vital shears,
If ye be troubled with remorse,
And will not cut ----'s _thread of life_,
Cut then the _thread of his discourse_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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