Gentleman: “Would you mind not talking, madam. I cannot hear a a word.

Lady: “Well educated people do not need to hear. They know ‘Rigoletto’ by heart.”

Reassured.

Sam Simpson worked hard. All day long he carried heavy iron baulks and girders. Toward evening he said to the foreman, who was a notorious slave-driver:

“Boss, you am suah got me down on dat pay-roll, yeh?”

The foreman glanced at his list.

“Yes,” he said, “here you are, Sam Simpson. That's right, isn't it?”

“Yaas, boss, but Ah thought mebbe yuh had got me down here as Samson.”

Muddled Menu.

Some tourists at an hotel in a small Italian town were looking through the menu when a polite waiter came to their assistance.

“The ham is not, and the chicken never was,” he explained, “so will you have your eggs tight or loose?”

* * *