the beau had made a rapid exit, the father turned to the girl and
said in astonishment:

"What was the matter with that fellow? My watch has run down, and I
simply wanted to know the time."

"What were you and Mr. Smith talking about in the parlor?" asked her
mother. "Oh, we were discussing our kith and kin," replied the young
lady.

The mother look dubiously at her daughter, whereupon her little brother,
wishing to help his sister, said:

"Yeth they wath, Mother. I heard 'em. Mr. Thmith asked her for a kith
and she thaid, 'You kin.'"

During a discussion of the fitness of things in general some one asked:
"If a young man takes his best girl to the grand opera, spends $8 on a
supper after the performance, and then takes her home in a taxicab,
should he kiss her goodnight?"

An old bachelor who was present growled: "I don't think she ought to
expect it. Seems to me he has done enough for her."

A young woman who was about to wed decided at the last moment to test
her sweetheart. So, selecting the prettiest girl she knew, she said to
her, though she knew it was a great risk.

"I'll arrange for Jack to take you out tonight--a walk on the beach in
the moonlight, a lobster supper and all that sort of thing--and I want
you, in order to put his fidelity to the proof, to ask him for a kiss."

The other girl laughed, blushed and assented. The dangerous plot was
carried out. Then the next day the girl in love visited the pretty one
and said anxiously:

"Well, did you ask him?"

"No, dear."

"No? Why not?"

"I didn't get a chance. He asked me first."

Uncle Nehemiah, the proprietor of a ramshackle little hotel in Mobile,
was aghast at finding a newly arrived guest with his arm around his
daughter's waist.

"Mandy, tell that niggah to take his arm from around yo' wais'," he
indignantly commanded.

"Tell him you'self," said Amanda. "He's a puffect stranger to me."

"Jack and I have parted forever."

"Good gracious! What does that mean?"

"Means that I'll get a five-pound box of candy in about an hour."

Here's to solitaire with a partner,
The only game in which one pair beats three of a kind.

_See also_ Love; Proposals.

COWARDS

Mrs. Hicks was telling some ladies about the burglar scare in her house
the night before.

"Yes," she said, "I heard a noise and got up, and there, from under the
bed, I saw a man's legs sticking out."

"Mercy!" exclaimed a woman. "The burglar's