rd the group and whispered with a dry
chuckle:

"Just send in your bills, gentlemen; that will bring it on at once."

"Thank Heaven, those bills are got rid of," said Bilkins, fervently, as
he tore up a bundle of statements of account dated October 1st.

"All paid, eh?" said Mrs. Bilkins.

"Oh, no," said Bilkins. "The duplicates dated November 1st have come in
and I don't have to keep these any longer."

BIRTHDAYS

When a man has a birthday he takes a day off, but when a woman has a
birthday she takes a year off.

BLUFFING

Francis Wilson, the comedian, says that many years ago when he was a
member of a company playing "She Stoops to Conquer," a man without any
money, wishing to see the show, stepped up to the box-office in a small
town and said:

"Pass me in, please."

The box-office man gave a loud, harsh laugh.

"Pass you in? What for?" he asked.

The applicant drew himself up and answered haughtily:

"What for? Why, because I am Oliver Goldsmith, author of the play."

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir," replied the box-office man, as he
hurriedly wrote out an order for a box.

BLUNDERS

An early morning customer in an optician's shop was a young woman with a
determined air. She addressed the first salesman she saw. "I want to
look at a pair of eyeglasses, sir, of extra magnifying power."

"Yes, ma'am," replied the salesman; "something very strong?"

"Yes, sir. While visiting in the country I made a very painful blunder
which I never want to repeat."

"Indeed! Mistook a stranger for an acquaintance?"

"No, not exactly that; I mistook a bumblebee for a black-berry."

The ship doctor of an English liner notified the death watch steward, an
Irishman, that a man had died in stateroom 45. The usual instructions to
bury the body were given. Some hours later the doctor peeked into the
room and found that the body was still there. He called the Irishman's
attention to the matter and the latter replied:

"I thought you said room 46. I wint to that room and noticed wan of thim
in a bunk. 'Are ye dead?' says I. 'No,' says he, 'but I'm pretty near
dead.'

"So I buried him."

Telephone girls sometimes glory in their mistakes if there is a joke in
consequence. The story is told by a telephone operator in one of the
Boston exchanges about a man who asked her for the number of a local
theater.

He got the wrong number and, without asking to whom he was talking, he
said, "Can