"How does a hardware dealer differ from a bootmaker?" asked a bright boy
of one of his playmates. The latter, somewhat puzzled, gave it up.
"Why," said the other, "because the one sold the nails, and the other
nailed the soles."
* * * * *
Little Lucy fell and hurt her knee badly, which her mother, when she
went to bed in the dark, tried to bandage. Soon the little one was heard
calling. "Mamma," she said, "this bandage is not in the right place. I
fell down higher up."
* * * * *
A grandfather, coming to read his paper, found that he had mislaid his
spectacles, and thereupon declared, "I have lost my glasses somewhere,
and can't read the paper." A little three-and-a-half-year-old girl,
desiring to assist him, answered; "G'an'pa, you go outside and look froo
ze window, and I'll hold ze paper up so you can read it."
* * * * *
A "Menagerie Race" was recently the source of great amusement to a party
of army officers in India. Each competitor had an animal to enter, which
he drove as straight as he could. There was a frog, a goose, a young
pig, a cock, a cat, a dog, a turkey, a kid, a duck, a young monkey, and
a pelican. The latter got away from his string and flew up into a high
tree just as the race was going to begin. The animals had ribbons round
their necks. The goose won the race, as he was the only one who went
straight; the dog made for the pig, and a battle-royal ensued; the
monkey and the cat laid down and would not move a step. It was a very
amusing scene, so say the spectators, and the curious antics of the
astonished animals caused a vast amount of laughter.
* * * * *
We had a parrot once which knew how to talk so well that it seemed as if
he must certainly be able to think and reason as well as any of us. Two
instances may be given to show what Polly could do in the way of
conversation: One fine summer's morning, a young woman bringing a
message to the house was asked into the kitchen, and while, as she
supposed, quite alone there, a rather gruff voice remarked that it was
"a very hot day," which it certainly was. As she did not know the parrot
was there, she was considerably startled, and would scarcely believe it
was the bird which had spoken to her. Another day Polly's cage was hung
up on a tree near the poultry-yard, where a fight for supremacy was
going on between two cocks, and the gardener, who was at work hard by,
distinctly heard Polly say, "You idiots! Bran" (calling to the big dog
which lay asleep in his kennel)--"Bran, bite them! bite them!"
* * * * *
Who could have believed that even among the famous riders of Hungaria
would be found one who could perform the following feat? While a noble
stag of ten was being hotly chased by the Kàposzátsmegyerer hounds--a
subscription pack--one Karl Pörös, a discharged hussar, managed to bring
the terrified animal to a stand-still in some close cover through which
it was forcing its way, and, by an almost superhuman effort of strength
and agility, to vault upon its back. After several desperate but
unsuccessful attempts to dislodge its rider from his seat, the stag,
stimulated anew to flight by the cry of the fast-approaching hounds,
resumed its course, but it soon broke down under the weight of its
unaccustomed burden, and died from sheer exhaustion and terror.
Pörös--at least so the story goes--was found by the huntsmen sitting on
the unwounded carcass of the stag, which he had literally ridden to
death and resolutely claimed as the just reward of an achievement,
unprecedented in the annals of the chase.