sbands.

A very man--not one of nature's clods--
With human failings, whether saint or sinner:
Endowed perhaps with genius from the gods
But apt to take his temper from his dinner.

--_J. G. Saxe_.

A woman mounted the steps of the elevated station carrying an umbrella
like a reversed saber. An attendant warned her that she might put out
the eye of the man behind her.

"Well, he's my husband!" she snapped.

OLD MONEY (dying)--"I'm afraid I've been a brute to you sometimes,
dear."

YOUNG WIFE--"Oh, never mind that darling; I'll always remember how very
kind you were when you left me."

An inveterate poker player, whose wife always complained of his late
hours, stayed out even later than usual one night and tells in the
following way of his attempt to get in unnoticed:

"I slipped off my shoes at the front steps, pulled off my clothes in the
hall, slipped into the bedroom, and began to slip into bed with the ease
of experience.

"My wife has a blamed fine dog that on cold nights insists on jumping in
the bed with us. So when I began to slide under the covers she stirred
in her sleep and pushed me on the head.

"'Get down, Fido, get down!' she said.

"And, gentlemen, I just did have presence of mind enough to lick her
hand, and she dozed off again!"

MR. HOMEBODY--"I see you keep copies of
all the letters you write to your wife. Do you do it to avoid repeating
yourself?"

MR. FARAWAY--"No. To avoid contradicting myself."

There is gladness in his gladness, when he's glad,
There is sadness in his sadness, when he's sad;
But the gladness in his gladness,
Nor the sadness in his sadness,
Isn't a marker to his madness when he's mad.

_See also_ Cowards; Domestic finance.

HYBRIDIZATION

We used to think that the smartest man ever born was the Connecticut
Yankee who grafted white birch on red maples and grew barber poles. Now
we rank that gentleman second. First place goes to an experimenter
attached to the Berlin War Office, who has crossed carrier pigeons with
parrots, so that Wilhelmstrasse can now get verbal messages through the
enemy's lines.--_Warwick James Price_.

HYPERBOLE

"Speakin' of fertile soil," said the Kansan, when the others had had
their say, "I never saw a place where melons growed like they used to
out in my part of the country. The first season I planted 'em I thought
my fortune was sure made. However, I didn't harvest one."