THE HIGHWAYMAN OFF HIS GUARD. WITHOUT THE PROMPTER. GEORGE COLMAN, getting out of a hackney coach one night, gave the driver a shilling. "This is a bad shilling," said Jarvey. "Then it's all right," said George, with his inimitable chuckle; "yours is a bad coach." BARTLEY, the eminent actor, was called upon by the midnight minstrels on the morning of Boxing Day. "We are the parish waits, an' please you," said the spokesman: "we played before your door last night." "You did, indeed," was his reply in mournful tones; and he looked upon his visitors with the air of a man who knew not their errand. "We have come to hope, sir," went on the clarionet, "for your kind contribution." "Oh, dear!" said Bartley, with affected surprise, "I thought you had come to apologise." Ir is complained of Shakespeare that he unnecessarily murdered Hamlet. But the Dane has been amply avenged; a great many Hamlets have murdered Shakespeare. DURING a theatrical engagement at Manchester, Kemble and Lewis were walking one day along the street, when a chimney-sweeper and his boy came up. The boy stared at them with open mouth, and exclaimed, "They be play-actors." "Hold your tongue, you dog," said the old sweep; "you don't know what you may come to yourself." SHERIDAN agreed with Walker that the pronunciation of wind should be wynde, but insisted, contrary to Walker, that gold should be goold. Mr. Sheridan tells us that Swift used to jeer those who pronounced wind with a short i, by saying, "I have a great minn'd to finn'd why you pronounce it winn'd." An illiberal critic retorted this upon Mr. Sheridan by saying, "If I may be so boold I should be glad to be toold why you pronounce it goold?" 437 FOOTE, being once annoyed by a poor fiddler "straining harsh discords" under his window, sent him a shilling, with a request that he would play elsewhere, as one scraper at the door was sufficient. MR. REYNOLDS, the dramatist, once met a freeand-easy actor, who told him that he had passed three festive days at the seat of the Marquis and Marchioness of, without any invitation. He had gone there on the assumption that as my lord and lady were not on speaking terms, each would suppose the other had asked him; and so it turned out. "Do you know what made my voice so melodious?" said a celebrated vocal performer, of awkward manners, to Charles Bannister.. "No," replied the other. "Why, then, I'll tell you: when I was about fifteen I swallowed, by accident, some train oil." "I don't think," rejoined Bannister, "it would have done you any harm if, at the same time, you had swallowed a dancing-master." THEOPHILUS CIBBER was very extravagant: he one day asked his father for a hundred pounds. "Zounds, sir!" says Colly, can't you live upon your salary? When I was your age I never spent any of my father's money." "But I am sure, sir, you have spent a great many hundred pounds of my father's money," replied the young man. This retort had its effect. IN Dearer than Life the inebriated Ben, absent on furlough from the workhouse, speaks to his brother about the "rules and reg-reglle-reglleations of the social institution in which I am doomed, I repeat, I am doomed, doomed." To which Mr. Toole replies: "Well, keep on saying I am doomed' if it's any relief to you. It sounds like swearing, when it ain't." THE HIGHWAYMAN OFF HIS GUARD, A RIDER to a commercial house in London was attacked a few miles beyond Winchester by a single highwayman, who robbed him of his purse and pocket-book, containing cash and notes to a considerable amount. "Sir," said the rider, "I have suffered you to take my property, and you are welcome to it. It is my master's, and the loss cannot do him much harm; but as it will look very cowardly in me to have been robbed without making any defence, I should wish you just to fire a pistol through my 66 66 Here," said the rider, "just by the side of the button." The unthinking highwayman was as good as his word; but as soon as he had fired the rider knocked him off his horse, and, with the assistance of a traveller, who came up, lodged him in gaol. GOING A JOURNEY.* ELL, was that there wor two or three chaps i' the train yo wa-grumblin' cos we wor craaping along so slow. know, And nothin' partickler happened arter that till I 'a bin to we got to a plaace about ten miles fudder on. There Lunnen, we stopped a few minutes, and a pleasant-luking and now I'll middle-aged man with a twinkle in his eye goes tell'ee all round and lukes in the carriages, and ses in a about it serious solemn woice, jest as if he wor givin' out from fust tew lines of a hymn long mater at a Mathodist to laast. chapelPuer owd aunt Jaane in going to see Sairey Tippens and a few o' the sights o' Lunnen. So I got a letter wrote, and towd Sairey, who wor a-living housemaid at one o' the nobs at Kensington, that I wor a-comin' to see her, and then I up and towd maaster that he must let me go for a waak. I said I had been cuped up here long enough athowt seein' more'n six miles outside the green, and he must let me go. 66 But maaster didn't seem to think much o' the job, and he kinder larft, and ses, "Giles, yowd better kaap yer money in the bank," he ses, where it'll cumulate, and then yow'll have summot handsome to live on in yer owd days." 66 "Well, maaster," I ses, " I'm kinder green jest at present, and it'll be many a year afore I shall want it, and I can go to Lunnen and still have enough left to taake the faarm up hinder and to kaap out the cowd wan the frost come." "Well, Giles," he ses, "yow can go; but, mind ye, Lunnen is a naation rum plaace." "All right, maaster," I ses, "yer advice is wery gude, but I've maade up my mind to go, and I'll chaance it." Wan I weant to the railway station, whip me if they din't want ninetaan shillin' to go to Lunnen, wan maaster towd me I could go for nine and fi'pence ha'penny. So I up and towd the man I wornt a-goin' to be done like that, and he sed if I wanted to go chaap I must go to the other station, but then I shon't get to Lunnen till late at night. "Or," ses he, "yow can go from here to-morrer mornin' at six o'clock." I ses, "That'll du for me if I can find lodgin's." Well, I wor up in gude time in the mornin', and got my ticket all right for 'zackly the money maaster said 'twould be. We weant off at a galloping pace, I can tell'ee, but what kinder 'mazed me "Change here for Elmswell, Thurston, and Bury: Bury, Thurston, and Elmswell, change here!" Presently he comes to my carriage, and he lukes in and he gives out the tew lines. I ses, "Du you pertickler want me to chaange here for them plaaces ?" He puts his hand on my showder and ses, "Where are ye goin' tu ?" "Lunnen," I ses. "Then," he ses, "yow set still, hev patience, and yow'll be there-some time or other," and he tips me a wink, larfs, and walks off, to guv out the saame tew lines in every one o' the carriages. Arter that we weant on kinder quiet till we come to what luked like a mile o' red brick housen, with a great charch with a spire on it a-lukin' down on 'em all. Here the train stopped, and a gentleman wot weighed about twenty stun come round and luked at the tickets, and towd us we should hev to wait about half-a-hour. As soon as we wor drawed up to the platform I jumped out, and faaling naation hungry, I luked round to see where I could buy summot. Presently I sees a pretty-luking mawther-nearly as pretty as Sairey-standing behind a counter, where there wor lots o' glasses with piles o' buns and biscuits on 'em. Seeing there wor a lot o' chaps ating and drinking, in I goes. "Glass o' ale," I ses, "plaase, young woman." "Glass o' ale, sir?" she ses, as perlite as possible, and it wor on the table in a moment. "I think I'll take one o' these 'ere," I ses, a-pinting to a little pile o' buns. One o' these, sir," she ses, and whips it on a plaate and puts it afore me. "Twor as nice a little bun as over I ate, and cost only tuppence. Twornt quite so big as one I bought in the great city the day afore for a penny, on a place they called the Walk, but then it had been kep' till 'twor fit to ate, and it din't make yer faal bad like them nasty new puffy things. Arter ating this I on'y felt more hungry, and I claps my eyes on to a plaate full o' little bits o' bread with little mites o' maat in atwaan 'em. "These'll du better," I ses to myself, "and I'll hev 'em." So as sune as the young woman comes my way I ses, "Wot be them ?" Them be sangwedges," she ses, "and they be fowerpence." She then shoves another plate toward me, and trips to the other end o' the plaace to 'tend to some nobs that had jest come in. All right," I ses, "I'll hev 'em." Rarely gude 66 • From "Giles's Trip to London." By kind permission of the Author. EPIGRAMS. they wor tu, and in about three minutes I had cleared off the lot 'cepting two or three that I whips into my pocket. When the young woman comes back, I lays down the fowerpence. "Thank'ee, sir," she ses, with a very nice smile; "but, gude gracious me!" she shraaks out all of a sudden, "you 'a bin and aten the whole plateful!" "O' course I has," I ses, "'cepting two or three I 'a got in my pocket. I've aten 'em, and paid for 'em, and I could wery well manage another lot at the same price." "Price!" she ses in a kind o' scraam, "du ye know what they all come to ?" "Why, yes," I ses; "fowcrpence-and fowerpence I'a paid." "Fowerpence aach," she ses," and there wor two dozen on 'em, and they come to eight shillins." I'll be hanged if I din't faal struck all of a haap, but I ses, "Yow must be joking, but whether yo are or not, you'll have no eight shillinses out o' me. Why, dang it!" I ses, "I could get two stun o' flour and two naat's chaaks for eight shillins, and they'd last me every day for a fortnight." "Now, young man," she ses, "doant be fulish. There's the price printed on that 'ere paper," and she pinted to a card that hung on the wall. Paapers be blowed!" I ses, wot are paapers to do wi' me? I'll never pay that money.' Jest then she beckoned to some one outside, and in came a gentleman dressed in blue close, with silver letters on his collar. "Wot's the matter?" he ses. "Why," she ses, "this young man 'a had tew dozen sangwedges and won't pay only fowerpence for 'em." 439 "Come," he ses," tip up, and doant be long about it, 'cause there's yer bell a-ringing, and yow'll luse yer ticket, and that'll spoil the luke o' yer eight shillins." "The bell may ring as long as it like," I ses, "but it oant ring eight shillins out o' me; and as for my ticket, that's safe enough in my weskit pocket, so yow doant want to trouble about my lusing that." Come," he ses, no nonsense; yow havn't a minute to luse, and I shall contain ye till yow pay the money." "I doant suppose he 'a got the money," the young woman ses, "and I think perhaps yow had better take his name and let him go." "Not got the money!" L ses, "taake it out o' that," I ses, and I chucked down a pound jest like a lord. "Luke 'ere," I ses, "yow'll never catch me inside one o' these sangwedge traps agin. Sairey 'a towd me there's a museum at Kensinton where they 'a got all sorts o' wittles in glass bottles, and I'll hev this perserved," I ses, a-takin' one out o' my pocket, "and put into a case and ticketed 'fowerpence,' and 'twill be the greatest c'rosity in the whole plaace." She guy me over the change, luking very gudetempered, and I goes out on the platform grumbling pretty tidily, when hang me if the train I wor going by worn't a-scraaming and a-whistling and a-dashing right into a great black hole like a normous rabbit's burrow made in the middle of a hill. Well, I roared and shouted, but 'twor no use. The train wor off, and there I stood a-luking like a fule, with a score of other duzzy fules a-grinning round me. THE SURPRISE. EPIGRAMS. RECIPE FOR A MODERN BONNET. Two scraps of foundation, some fragment of lace, A shower of French rosebuds to droop o'er the face; Fine ribbons and feathers, with crape and illusion, Then mix and derange them in graceful confusion; Inveigle some fairy, out roaming for pleasure, And beg the slight favour of taking her measure, The length and the breadth of her dear little pate, And hasten a miniature frame to create; Then pour, as above, the bright mixture upon it, And lo! you possess "such a love of a bonnet!" ON A PALE LADY WITH A RED-NOSED HUSBAND. WHENCE Comes it that, in Clara's face, The lily only has its place? Is it because the absent rose TO A LIVING AUTHOR. YOUR Comedy I've read, my friend, And like the half you pilfer'd best; But sure the piece you yet may mend: Take courage, man! and steal the rest. This Suim HOW TO BECOME A CONNOISSEUR. POSIN' it's pictures that's on the carpet, wait till you hear the name of the painter. If it's Rubens, or any o' them old boys, praise, for it's agin the law to doubt them; but if it's a new man, and the company ain't most especial judges, criticise. A leetle out o' keeping," Ob says you. "He don't use his greys enough, nor glaze down well. That shadder wants depth. General effect is good, though parts ain't. Those eyebrows are heavy enough for stucco," says you, and other unmeaning terms like these. It will pass, I tell you. Your opinion will be thought great. Them that judged the cartoons at Westminster Hall knew plaguy little more nor that. But if this is a portrait of the lady of the house hangin' up, or it's at all like enough to make it out, stop-gaze on it-walk back-close your fingers like a spy-glass, and look through 'em amazed like -enchanted-chained to the spot. Then utter, unconscious like, "That's a most beautiful pictur'. By heavens! that's a speakin' portrait. It's well painted, too. But whoever the artist is, he is an unprincipled man." "Good gracious!" she'll say, "how so?" "'Cause, madam, he has not done you justice." SEA-SICKNESS. AR-SEEING Thackeray, in his admirable "Yellow-plush Correspondence," thus makes his hero describe sea-sickness:-"Gentle reader, av you ever been on the otion? The sea, the sea, the open sea!' as Barry Cromwell says. As soon as we entered our little Bowessel, and I'd looked to master's luggitch and mine (mine was rapt up in a very small handcherker), as soon, I say, as we entered our little wessel; as soon as I saw the waivs, black and frothy, like fresh-drawn porter, a-dashin' against the ribbs of our gallant bark; the keal like a-splittink the billoes in two; the sails a-flappink in the hair; the standard of Hengland floatin' at the mask-head; the steward a-gettin' ready the basins and things; the capting proudly treadin' the deck, and givin' orders to the sailers; the white rox of Albany and the bathin'masheens disappearin' in the distans-then, then I felt for the first time in the mite, the madgisty of xistence! Yellow-plush, my boy,' says I to myself, your life is about to commence; your career, as a man, dates from your entrans on board this packit! Forgit what's past; throw off your inky clerk's jacket-throw up your Here, I recklect, I was obleeged to stopp. A feelink in the fust place singlar, in the next place paneful, and complely at last overpowerink, had come upon me while I was a-makin' the abuff speech, and I now found myself in a sityouation which Delixy for Bids to dixcribe. Suffis to say, that now I discovered what Basins was made for; that for many, many hours I lay in a hagony of exostion, dead to all intence and porpuses; the rain patterink in my face, the sailers a-tramplink over my body-the panes of purgertory goin' on inside!" ALL WELL. to a friend he met on the road; "are ye a' weel?" "Good morning, Saunders," said an old labourer "Ou, ay, thankye for speerin', we're a' weel, only the wife's dead." NOT FINDING HIMSELF. "How do you find yourself to-day ?" said an old friend to Jack Reeve, as he met him going in dinner costume to the City. "Thank you,' he replied, "the Lord Mayor finds me to-day." MAKING THE TWO ENDS MEET. THREE Irishmen crossing the Bridge of Cork one day, one of them, happening to look over the parapet, had a wish to touch the water; but how this was to be done puzzled the sons of St. Patrick not a little. At last it struck them that, by hanging from the feet of each other, their wish might be accomplished. So to it they went, going over the wall of the bridge somewhat in the manner of a chain-pump. After they had gone their full length, it was found that the water was still far below them. In this emergency the one at the top cried to the undermost, "Arrah, now, Paddy, hould you on till I come down to you, and then, my honey, we shall reach it." It is needless to add that this plan was successful. DIFFERENCE IN HANGING. Two Irish labourers being present at the execution of a number of malefactors on the scaffold before Newgate, "Pray now," said one of them to the other-"pray now, Pat, is there any difference between being hung on this new drop here, or hung in chains?" "Why, no," replied he, "no great difference; only on one you hang about an hour, and on the other you hang all the days of your life." CURE FOR DUMBNESS. AN Irish soldier got discharged by pretending to be dumb. Soon after, enlisting into another corps, he was met and recognised by a former comrade, who asked him how he had learned to speak so as to get into a new regiment. "By St. Patrick," answered the Milesian, "ten guineas would make any man spake." "HALF-AND-HALF." WOOING THE BROWN MARE. R. MEWINS was courting a young lady of some attractions, and something of a fortune into the bargain. After a liberal arrangement had been made for the young lady by her father, Mr. Mewins, having taken a particular fancy to a little brown mare, demanded that it should be thrown into the bargain; and upon a positive refusal the match was broken off. After a couple of years the parties accidentally met at a country ball. Mr. Mewins was quite willing to renew the engagement; but the lady appeared not to have the slightest recollection of him. 68 Surely you have not forgotten me!" said he. "What is your name, sir?" she inquired. 'Mewins," he replied; "I had the honour of paying my addresses to you about two years ago. remember a person of that name,' she rejoined, who paid his attentions to my father's brown mare." YANKEE ISH. Α "I FARMER once hired a man con him, and told Jonathan sliced 441 "Fair play!" The company ran up, and insisted on parting them. "No, no," said the woman, “let them fight it out; for it's the first fight I ever saw that I didn't care which whipped.' RETORT UPON RETORT. Ar a hunting party at Mr. Meynell's, one of the company, not very attentive to his dress, having sat down to dinner in a rather dishevelled state, and encrusted from head to heelch the mud of the country, it was proposed to roast" him. "Why, I am told, Mr. that you are the boldest hunter in the country," said one person. "That I am," returned the other, "but I am afraid you are ironing me" (a cant term for irony). "That would be ill-timed indeed," remarked Lord Barrymore, "to iron you before they have washed you." "HALF-AND-HALF." A GALLANT young gentleman, living somewhere in Bristol county, U.S., took the young lady to take the buttwhom he was "paying attention" to Boston, to end. Dinner see the sights. On his return from the pleasure came, and with trip, he presented one-half of the bill of expenses it a sugar-loaf to the lady's father for payment. That gentleman Indian pudding: peremptorily refused to liquidate the claim, and politely, but somewhat emphatically, requested the pecuniary lover not to call at his house either nights. This incident reminds us of the story of on the next or any number of coming Sunday the rustic who once took his "girl" to the City. The couple visited a confectionery establishment, and the country gentleman purchased a stick of candy, which he deliberately commenced eating. After it was nearly demolished he suddenly exclaimed to his sweetheart, "I say, why don't you buy a stick? It's awful good!"" off a generous portion of the largest end, giving the farmer the wink, and exclaimed, "Always take the butt-end." THE following story of "Life in Kentucky," being in print, ought of course to be believed:Early one morning the shouts of a female were heard. All ran to the spot. When they arrived they saw a man and a bear engaged in combat. They had it hip and thigh, up and down, over and under, the man's wife standing by and hallooing |