ands.

"Hello, doctor," he said effusively. "Vell, here I am _again_."

The Jews are among the aristocracy of every land; if a literature is
called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies what shall we
say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which
the poets and the actors were also the heroes.--_George Eliot_.

_See also_ Failures; Fires.

JOKES

A nut and a joke are alike in that they can both be cracked, and
different in that the joke can be cracked again.--_William J.
Burtscher_.

JOKELY--"I got a batch of aeroplane jokes ready and sent them out last
week."

BOGGS--"What luck did you have with them?"

JOKELY--"Oh, they all came flying back."--_Will S. Gidley_.

"I ne'er forget a joke I have
Once heard!" Augustus cried.
"And neither do you let your friends
Forget it!" Jane replied.

--_Childe Harold_.

A negro bricklayer in Macon, Georgia, was lying down during the noon
hour, sleeping in the hot sun. The clock struck one, the time to pick up
his hod again. He rose, stretched, and grumbled: "I wish I wuz daid.
'Tain' nothin' but wuk, wuk from mawnin' tell night."

Another negro, a story above, heard the complaint and dropped a brick on
the grumbler's head.

Dazed he looked up and said:

"De Lawd can' stan' no jokes. He jes' takes ev'ything in yearnist."

The late H.C. Bunner, when editor of _Puck_, once received a letter
accompanying a number of would-be jokes in which the writer asked: "What
will you give me for these?"

"Ten yards start," was Bunner's generous offer, written beneath the
query.

NEW CONGRESSMAN--"What can I do for you, sir?"

SALESMAN (of Statesmen's Anecdote Manufacturing Company)--"I shall be
delighted if you'll place an order for a dozen of real, live, snappy,
humorous anecdotes as told by yourself, sir."

Jokes were first imported to this country several hundred years ago from
Egypt, Babylon and Assyria, and have since then grown and multiplied.
They are in extensive use in all parts of the country and as an antidote
for thought are indispensable at all dinner parties.

There were originally twenty-five jokes, but when this country was
formed they added a constitution, which increased the number to
twenty-six. These jokes have married and inter-married among themselves
and their children travel from press to press.

Frequently in one week a joke will travel from New York to San
Francisco.

The jok