Page:Everybody's Book of English wit and humour (1880).djvu/42

 "That's not my dog," said the visitor.

"But he follows you."

"Well, so do you."

The sexton growled, and removed the dog with unnecessary violence.

Hospitable Host: "Does any gentleman say pudden?"

Precise Guest: "No, sir. No gentleman says 'pudden.'"

Douglas Jerrold's veterinary surgeon at Putney—a great character—was a favourite subject with him. His bill, especially, was preserved as a most laughable curiosity, one of the items being put thus (referring to a sick horse):—

"His nose was warm, his ears was cold, and

everything gave signs of approaching

desolation. £0 5s. Od." [25]

"What do you make a week?" said a magistrate to an Italian organ-grinder who charged a man with breaking his instrument the other day.

"Vour pound, sare."

"Eh, what? Four pounds for grinding an organ?"

"No, sare; not for grind—vor shut up and go away!"

—A celebrated wit was asked why he did not marry a young lady to whom he was much attached. "I know no reason," replied he, "except the great regard we have for each other."

—The gate through which the happy lover leaves his enchanted regions and returns to earth.—"Did you ever," says Sydney Smith, "hear my definition of marriage? It is, that it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them." [2]—A clergyman, while engaged in catechising a number of boys, asked one of them