Page:Everybody's Book of English wit and humour (1880).djvu/93

 such a position as to be in full view of a skeleton standing in one corner of the room.

"Ah!" exclaimed the patient, somewhat scared, "a skeleton!"

"Yes, sir," replied the doctor, "it is that of one of my deceased patients. He never would pay his fees, and so I was compelled to sue the relatives for his bones."

"I will slip in again presently! good morning, doctor!" and the patient hastily retired.

Next morning the doctor received payment in full of his long-standing account.

"Joseph," said the merchant to the bright young man with the best references, "the book-keeper tells me that you have lost the key of the safe, and he cannot get at the books."

"Yes, sir, one of them. You gave me two, you remember."

"Yes, I had duplicates made in case of accident. And the other?"

"Oh, sir, I took care of that. I was afraid I might lose one of them, you know."

"And is the other all right?"

"Yes, sir. I put it where there was no danger of its being lost. It is in the safe, sir."

A well-known divine rebuked an ignorant preacher for exercising his oratorical gift. In defence the man said: "We are commanded to preach the Gospel to every critter."

"Yes," replied the divine, "but every critter is not commanded to preach the Gospel."

A commercial traveller who occupied the same railway carriage with a clergyman, asked him if he had ever heard that in Paris as often as a priest was hanged a donkey was hanged at the same time. The victim of the joke replied in his blandest manner:

"Well, then, let us both be thankful that we are not in Paris."

Counsel—"How do you identify this handkerchief?"

Witness—"By its general appearance, and the fact that I have others like it."