Page:Everybody's Book of English wit and humour (1880).djvu/90

 see," said he, "he has got his hand in his own pocket? 'Twould be as like again if he had it in somebody else's!"

"You never saw my hands as dirty as that," said a mother, reproachfully, to her little eight-year-old girl.

"Cause I never saw you when you was a little girl," was the prompt answer.

At a railway refreshment room, one of the passengers was hungry and in a hurry. "Please pass me them pertaters, mister," he said, addressing an elegant gentleman who sat next him.

The latter slowly focussed his gold eye-glass on the speaker. "Did you think I was one of the waiters?" he asked, icily.

The others held their knives and forks suspended in mid-air, expecting to see the man shrivel up; but no such phenomenon took place. He turned, and beckoned to the nearest waiter.

"George, come here, please."

"What is it, sir?" asked George.

"I want to apologise to you, that is all. You see, I mistook this party here for you, but I hope you won't be offended at it. Now, pass me them pertaters, and we'll go on with the rest of the meal."

"Mr Brief,'" said the judge, grimly, "it seems to me that you are wasting time; you might as well attempt to make the court believe that two and two do not make four."

Brief settled his eye-glasses a little more firmly on his nose, and responded blandly, "May it please your lordship, I am prepared to do that. Two and two make twenty-two."

The shadow of a smile played round the corner of the judge's mouth as he sat back in his chair and said, "You can proceed, Mr Brief."

On one occasion two ladies had paid a cabman a shilling for the distance they had ridden with one fourpenny bit, two three-penny pieces, one penny and two halfpence; when cabby looked