_.

A Lady there was of Antigua,
Who said to her spouse, "What a pig you are!"
He answered, "My queen,
Is it manners you mean,
Or do you refer to my figure?"

--_Gilbert K. Chesterton_.

They were at dinner and the dainties were on the table.

"Will you take tart or pudding?" asked Papa of Tommy.

"Tart," said Tommy promptly.

His father sighed as he recalled the many lessons on manners he had
given the boy.

"Tart, what?" he queried kindly.

But Tommy's eyes were glued on the pastry.

"Tart, what?" asked the father again, sharply this time.

"Tart, first," answered Tommy triumphantly.

TOMMY'S AUNT--"Won't you have another piece of cake, Tommy?"

TOMMY (on a visit)--"No, I thank you."

TOMMY'S AUNT--"You seem to be suffering from loss of appetite."

TOMMY--"That ain't loss of appetite. What I'm sufferin' from is
politeness."

There was a young man so benighted,
He never knew when he was slighted;
He would go to a party,
And eat just as hearty,
As if he'd been really invited.

EUROPEAN WAR

OFFICER (as Private Atkins worms his way toward the enemy)--"You fool!
Come back at once!"

TOMMY--"No bally fear, sir! There's a hornet in the trench."--_Punch_.

"You can tell an Englishman nowadays by the way he holds his head up."

"Pride, eh?"

"No, Zeppelin neck."

LITTLE GIRL (who has been sitting very still with a seraphic
expression)--"I wish I was an angel, mother!"

MOTHER--"What makes you say that, darling?"

LITTLE GIRL--"Because then I could drop bombs on the Germans!"--_Punch_.

From a sailor's letter to his wife:

"Dear Jane,--I am sending you a postal order for 10s., which I
hope you may get--but you may not--as this letter has to pass
the Censor."

--_Punch_.

Two country darkies listened, awe-struck, while some planters discussed
the tremendous range of the new German guns.

"Dar now," exclaimed one negro, when his master had finished expatiating
on the hideous havoc wrought by a forty-two-centimeter shell, "jes' lak
I bin tellin' yo' niggehs all de time! Don' le's have no guns lak dem
roun' heah! Why, us niggehs could start runnin' erway, run all day, git
almos' home free, an' den git kilt jus' befo' suppeh!"

"Dat's de trufe," assented his companion, "an' lemme tell yo' sumpin'
else, Bo. All dem guns needs is jus' yo' _ad_-dress, dat's all; jes'
giv' em de _ad_-dress an' they'll git yo'."

_See also_