ary squire, sitting over his pint of wine in the
coffee-room. "My dear fellow," said he, "what are you about? For the
honor of Tipperary, don't be after sitting over a pint of wine in a
house like this!"--"Make yourself aisy, countryman," was the reply,
"It's the _seventh_ I have had, and every one in the room _knows it_."

MDLXIV.--WITTY THANKSGIVING.

BARHAM having sent his friend, Sydney Smith, a brace of pheasants, the
present was acknowledged in the following characteristic epistle: "Many
thanks, my dear sir, for your kind present of game. If there is a pure
and elevated pleasure in this world, it is that of roast pheasant and
bread sauce; barn-door fowls for dissenters, but for the real churchman,
the thirty-nine times articled clerk, the pheasant, the pheasant.--Ever
yours, _S.S._"

MDLXV.--A REASON FOR NOT MOVING.

THOMSON, the author of the "Seasons," was wonderfully indolent. A friend
entered his room, and finding him in bed, although the day was far
spent, asked him why he did not get up. "Man, I hae _nae motive_,"
replied the poet.

MDLXVI.--KILLED BY HIS OWN REMEDY.

THE surgeon of an English ship of war used to prescribe salt water for
his patients in all disorders. Having sailed one evening on a party of
pleasure, he happened by some mischance to be drowned. The captain, who
had not heard of the disaster, asked one of the tars next day if he had
heard anything of the doctor. "Yes," answered Jack: "he was drowned last
night in his _own medicine chest_."

MDLXVII.--NOTHING SURPRISING.

ADMIRAL LEE, when only a post captain, being on board his ship one very
rainy and stormy night, the officer of the watch came down to his cabin
and cried, "Sir, the sheet-anchor is coming home."--"Indeed," says the
captain, "I think the sheet-anchor is perfectly in the _right_ of it. I
don't know what would _stay out_ such a stormy night as this."

MDLXVIII.--RUNNING NO RISK.

"I'M very much surprised," quoth Harry,
"That Jane a gambler should marry."
"I'm not at all," her sister says,
"You know he has such _winning ways_!"

MDLXIX.--A HUMORIST PIQUED.

THEODORE HOOK was relating to his friend, Charles Mathews, how, on one
occasion, when supping in the company of Peake, the latter
surreptitiously removed from his plate several slices of tongue; and,
affecting to be very much annoyed by such practical joking, Hook
concluded with the que