bad humor for the rest of the day.
* * * * *
In the rush and crush of business in the general post-office the other
day an Irishman's answer was heard that is worth repeating. It was at
the general-delivery window, and the Irishman was poor, and a typical
son of the sod. He had applied for a letter.
"Letter? All right, sir. What name?"
The Irishman gave his name, but the clerk, not catching it, asked,
"How do you spell it?"
"Spell it!" answered the Irishman. "Shure, if a foine smart clerk loike
you can't spell it, how d'ye think a poor man loike me can?"
* * * * *
THE TERRIBLE PLIGHT OF THE WISE MAN.
There was a man in our town
Who was so wondrous wise
That nobody dared speak to him;
And so he winked his eyes,
And said, "I don't know anything,
But all these people here
Are so afraid, they dare not speak,
And call me sage and seer;
"But, oh, if some one should forget,
And speak to me some day,
I really haven't an idea
Of what I then should say!"
And so this sage pretended that
His temper was most vile,
And people, when they met him,
Turned and ran away a mile.
And so it is unto this day--
He's magnified in size,
So that though he knows nothing,
All the town folks think him wise.
J. K. B.
* * * * *
THE BEST OF ALL.
"What are you going to be when you are a man, Jack?" asked Uncle George.
"A man," said Jack.
End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, August 18, 1896, by Various