Page:Everybody's Book of English wit and humour (1880).djvu/33

 foreigner. Discussing one day with Mr Planché this vexed question, this gentleman insisted upon claiming some of his characters as strictly original creations.

"Do you remember my baroness in Ask no Questions?" said Mr Planché.

"Yes. Indeed, I don't think I ever saw a piece of yours without being struck by your barrenness," was the retort.

This closed the discussion with a hearty laugh. [25]

A celebrated punster was once asked to make an extemporaneous pun. "Upon what subject?" inquired the punster. "Upon the King," said one of the company. "Oh," said the wit, "the King is no subject."

A friend—let us say Barlow—was describing to my father the story of his courtship and marriage—how his wife had been brought up in a convent, and was on the point of taking the veil when his presence burst upon her enraptured sight. My father listened to the end of the story, and by way of comment said, "Ah! she evidently thought Barlow better than nun." [25]

We have heard of a minister who, when the anthem had concluded, rose and commenced reading Acts xx. :—"And after the uproar was ceased." That is a story on the side of the pulpit. We are favoured with the following on the side of the choir. The minister finished his discourse and sat down, and the choir rose and sang, "It is time to awake from sleep."

In the reign of George II., the see of York falling vacant, and his Majesty being at a loss for a fit person to appoint to the exalted office, asked the opinion of the Rev. Dr Mountain, who had raised himself, by his remarkably facetious temper, from being the son of a beggar to the see of Durham. The doctor wittily replied, "Hadst thou faith as a grain of mustard-seed, thou wouldst say to this Mountain" (at the same time laying his hand on his breast), "'Be removed, and be cast into the sea (see).'" The king laughed heartily, and forthwith conferred the preferment on the facetious doctor. [11]

A parish minister once took occasion, in the pulpit, to describe