“What a homely woman!"

"Sir, that is my wife. I'll have you understand it is a woman's privilege to be homely."

“Gee, then she abused the privilege.”

Beauty is worse than wine; it intoxicates both the holder and the beholder.-Zimmermann.

BEDS

A western politician tells the following story as illustrating the inconveniences attached to campaigning in certain sections of the country.

Upon his arrival at one of the small towns in South Dakota, where he was to make a speech the following day, he found that the so-called hotel was crowded to the doors. Not having telegraphed for accommodations, the politician discovered that he would have to make shift as best he could. Accordingly, he was obliged for that night to sleep on a wire cot which had only some blankets and a sheet on it. As the politician is an extremely fat man, he found his improvised bed anything but comfortable.

"How did you sleep?" asked a friend in the morning. "Fairly well," answered the fat man, "but I looked like a waffle when I got up."

BEER

A man to whom illness was chronic,
When told that he needed a tonic,

Said, "O Doctor dear,

Won't you please make it beer?"

"No, no," said the Doc., "that's Teutonic."

BEES

TEACHER "Tommy, do you know 'How Doth the Little Busy Bee'?"

TOMMY-“No; I only know he doth it!"

BEETLES

Now doth the frisky June Bug
Bring forth his aeroplane,
And try to make a record,
And busticate his brain!

He bings against the mirror,
He bangs against the door,
He caroms on the ceiling,
And turtles on the floor!

He soars aloft, erratic,

He lands upon my neck,

And makes me creep and shiver,

A neurasthenic wreck!

-Charles Irvin Junkin.

BEGGING

THE "ANGEL" (about to give beggar a dime)-"Poor man! And are you married?"

BEGGAR "Pardon me, madam! D'ye think I'd be relyin' on total strangers for support if I had a wife?"

MAN "Is there any reason why I should give you five cents?"

Boy-"Well, if I had a nice high hat like yours I wouldn't want it soaked with snowballs."

MILLIONAIRE (to ragged beggar)—“You ask alms and do not even take your hat off. Is that the proper way to beg?"

BEGGAR "Pardon me, sir. A policeman is looking at us from across the street. If I take my hat off he'll arrest me for begging; as it is, he naturally takes us for old friends."

Once, while Bishop Talbot, the giant "cowboy bishop," was attending a meeting of church dignitaries in St. Paul, a tramp accosted a group of churchmen in the hotel porch and asked for aid.

"No," one of them told him, "I'm afraid we can't help you. But you see that big man over there?" pointing to Bishop Talbot.

“Well, he's the youngest bishop of us all, and he's a very generous man. You might try him."

The tramp approached Bishop Talbot confidently. The others watched with interest. They saw a look of surprise come over the tramp's face. The bishop was talking eagerly. The tramp looked troubled. And then, finally, they saw something pass from one hand to the other. The tramp tried to slink past the group without speaking, but one of them called to him: "Well, did you get something from our young brother?" The tramp grinned sheepishly. "No," he admitted, "I gave him a dollar for his damned new cathedral at Laramie !"

To get thine ends, lay bashfulnesse aside;
Who feares to aske, doth teach to be deny'd.
-Herrick.

Well, whiles I am a beggar I will rail
And say, there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say, there is no vice but beggary.

-Shakespeare.

See also Flattery; Millionaires.

BETTING

The officers' mess was discussing rifle shooting.

"I'll bet anyone here," said one young lieutenant, "that I can fire twenty shots at two hundred yards and call each shot correctly without waiting for the marker. I'll stake a box of cigars that I can."

"Done!" cried a major.

The whole mess was on hand early next morning to see the experiment tried.

The lieutenant fired.

“Miss,” he calmly announced.

A second shot.

"Miss," he repeated.

A third shot.

"Miss."

"Here, there! Hold on!" protested the major. "What are you trying to do? You're not shooting for the target at all." "Of course not," admitted the lieutenant. "I'm firing for those cigars." And he got them.

Two old cronies went into a drug store in the downtown part of New York City, and, addressing the proprietor by his first name, one of them said:

"Dr. Charley, we have made a bet of the ice-cream sodas. We will have them now and when the bet is decided the loser will drop in and pay for them."

As the two old fellows were departing after enjoying their temperance beverage, the druggist asked them what the wager

was.

"Well," said one of them, "our friend George bets that when the tower of the Singer Building falls, it will topple over toward the North River, and I bet that it won't."

BIBLE INTERPRETATION

"Miss Jane, did Moses have the same after-dinner complaint my papa's got?" asked Percy of his governess.

"Gracious me, Percy! Whatever do you mean, my dear?" “Well, it says here that the Lord gave Moses two tablets."

"Mr. Preacher," said a white man to a colored minister who was addressing his congregation, "you are talking about Cain, and you say he got married in the land of Nod, after he killed Abel. But the Bible mentions only Adam and Eve as being on earth at that time. Who, then, did Cain marry?"

The colored preacher snorted with unfeigned contempt. "Huh!" he said, "you hear dat, brederen an' sisters? You hear dat fool question I am axed? Cain, he went to de land o' Nod just as de Good Book tells us, an' in de land o' Nod Cain gits so lazy an' so shif'less dat he up an' marries a gal o' one o' dem no' count pore white trash families dat de inspired apostle didn't consider fittin' to mention in de Holy Word."

BIGAMY

There once was an old man of Lyme,
Who married three wives at a time:
When asked, "Why a third?"
He replied, “One's absurd!
And bigamy, sir, is a crime."

BILLS

The proverb, "Where there's a will there's a way" is now revised to "When there's a bill we're away."

YOUNG DOCTOR-"Why do you always ask your patients what they have for dinner?"

OLD DOCTOR "It's a most important question, for according to their ménus I make out my bills."

Farmer Gray kept summer boarders. One of these, a schoolteacher, hired him to drive her to the various points of interest around the country. He pointed out this one and that, at the same time giving such items of information as he possessed.

The school-teacher, pursing her lips, remarked, “It will not be necessary for you to talk."

When her bill was presented, there was a five-dollar charge marked "Extra."

"What is this?" she asked, pointing to the item.

"That," replied the farmer, "is for sass. I don't often take it, but when I do I charge for it."-E. Egbert.

PATIENT (angrily)—“The size of your bill makes my blood boil."

DOCTOR "Then that will be $20 more for sterilizing your system."