Page:Everybody's Book of English wit and humour (1880).djvu/65

 "I believe you are right," said an old gentleman. "So far as the abstract is concerned; but—"

Just then he slipped and struck his head against the asphalt pavement.

"But," he continued, as he got up, "I don't care to discuss the matter in concrete."

John Foster, referring to a couple whom he had known, said that "Their courtship was carried on in poetry. Alas! many an enamoured pair have courted in poetry, and after marriage lived in prose." As Colton says, "Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner."

The late Sir Henry Smith, long M. P. for Colchester, was one of the Tories of the old school; and, among the advocates of Reform, his resolute opposition to all change gave him a reputation for folly and obstinacy which was not borne out by his real character.

On one occasion he was canvassing in presence of numerous friends, and on asking a heavy-looking farmer for his vote, the man replied: "I'd vote for ye, Sir Henry, as usual, only you're such a fool."

"Fool, am I?" retorted Sir Henry; "then I'm the very man to represent you."

This diamond shaft of wit went to the farmer's heart, and with a loud guffaw he promised his vote.

"I wonder what makes my eyes so weak," said an ultra-Radical to Mr Disraeli, "Why, they are in a weak place," said the latter.

Writing lines is the penance Harrow boys do for all their sins, in and out of school. If a boy is late for school, he writes lines; if he misses "bill," he writes lines. If the lines are not finished at a stated time, their number is doubled.

There was one clever boy who escaped writing half the ordered quantity; and the masters tell the story of how he did it to this day. He was an untidy boy, and was often taken to task for his carelessness and disorder. One day his master, who had very