"BUBBY, why don't you go home and have your mother sew up that awful
hole in your trowsers?"
"Oh, you git eout, old 'oman," was the respectful reply, "our folks are
economizing, and a hole will last longer than a patch any day."
QUAKER _vs._ QUAKER.
OLD JACOB J---- was a shrewd Quaker merchant in Burlington, New Jersey,
and, like all shrewd men, was often a little too smart for himself.
An old Quaker lady of Bristol, Pennsylvania, just over the river, bought
some goods at Jacob's store, _when he was absent_, and in crossing the
river on her way home, she met him aboard the boat, and, as was usual
with him upon such occasions, he immediately pitched into her bundle of
goods and untied it to see what she had been buying.
"Oh now," says he, "how much a yard did you give for that, and that?"
taking up the several pieces of goods. She told him the price, without,
however, saying where she had got them.
"Oh now," says he again, "I could have sold you those goods for so much
a yard," mentioning a price a great deal lower than she had paid. "You
know," says he, "I can undersell every body in the place;" and so he
went on criticising and undervaluing the goods till the boat reached
Bristol, when he was invited to go to the old lady's store, and when
there the goods were spread out on the counter, and Jacob was asked to
examine the goods again, and say, in the presence of witnesses, the
price he would have sold them at per yard, the old lady, meanwhile,
taking a memorandum. She then went to the desk and made out a bill of
the difference between what she had paid and the price he told her; then
coming up to him, she said,
"Now, Jacob, thee is sure thee could have sold those goods at the price
thee mentioned?"
"Oh now, yes," says he.
"Well, then, thy young man must have made a mistake; for I bought the
goods from thy store, and of course, under the circumstances, thee can
have no objection to refund me the difference."
Jacob, being thus cornered, could, of course, under the circumstances,
have no objection. It is to be presumed that thereafter Jacob's first
inquiry must have been, "Oh now, where did you get such and such goods?"
instead of "Oh now, how much did you pay?"
HEM _vs._ HAW.
MR. OBERON (a man about town) was lately invited to a sewing party. The
next day a friend asked him how the entertainment came off. "Oh, it was
very amusing," replied Oberon, "the ladies hemmed and I hawed."