Metaphoric.

“She wanted me to 'ave a finger in the pie, but I smelt a rat an' nipped it in the bud.”

Cook: “Lor' Mrs. Jones, 'ow you do mix your semaphores!”

* * *

“Out of the Mouths of Babes-”

The little daughter of enormously wealthy parents was showing a visitor round the poultry farm which was her father's hobby. “And do your hens lay eggs, my dear?” asked the visitor. “Well, they can,” replied the little girl, “but in our position they're not obliged to.”

* * *

The Imperturbable Scot.

“Saxpence?” said Sandy to an Edinburgh chemist who had charged him that amount for a packet of sulphur; “why, man, I get it for fourpence in Glasgow.” “Aye,” said the chemist, “an' for a' I care ye can gang tae anither place no much waur where ye can get it for naething.”

* * *

Not So Dusty.

An enterprising reporter, writing of a wreck at sea, stated that no fewer than fourteen of the unfortunate crew and passenger bit the dust.

* * *

His Only Mother.

A barrister, defending a prisoner in Limerick said: “Gentlemen of the jury, think of his poor mother-his only mother.”

* * *

An Adequate Punishment.

Drill Sergeant (to awkward recruit): “You unmitigated rhinoceros, if you don't quit flinging your legs around as if you were trying to catch flies with them, I'll hit you a whack on the top of your fool head that will knock the birds at the antipodes out of their nests.”

* * *

Schoolboy Humour.

Here are some of the best “howlers” recent examination papers have given me, writes a schoolmaster:—

Posters are sheets of paper pasted on blackguards.

Alibi means away when the crime was committed.

Gray wrote “Energy in a Country Churchyard.”

Queue is Latin for two by two.

Raleigh invented potatoes, tobacco, and also the bicycle.

The Old Hundredth is the name of an inn.

A molecule is a girlish boy.

Pompeii was overwhelmed by a great eruption of saliva.

A little goose is called a goblin.

Saul was anointed by Samuel, who poured petrol on his head.

Lystra was where Paul healed a hypocrite.

Habeas Corpus was a phrase used during the great plague of London, and means “Bring out your dead.”

An aristocrat is a man who performs tricks on the stage.

* * *

A Tribute!

Bill: “You say that again, and I'll give you a punch on the nose.”

Joe: “I said you were a liar, a thief and a drunkard.”

Bill: “Was that all you said?”

Joe: “Yes.”

Bill: “Then I beg your pardon. I thought you said something offensive.”

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