inity students, and how he had to put on a pair of nankeen pants and
hide his cassimeres in the boat house until the watermelon scrape blew
over and he could get them mended.

Then the small brunette minister asked if he was not entitled to some
credit for blacking the farmer's eyes. Says he: "When he got over the
fence and grabbed the near horse by the bits, and said he would have the
whole gang in jail, I felt as though something had got to be done, and
I jumped out on the other side of the wagon and walked around to him and
put up my hands and gave him 'one, two, three' about the nose, with my
blessing, and he let go that horse and took his dog back to the house."

"Well," says the red haired minister, "those melons were green, anyway,
but it was the fun of stealing them that we were after."

At this point the door opened and the host entered, and, pushing the
smoke away with his hands, he said: "Well, gentlemen, are you enjoying
yourselves?"

They threw their cigar stubs in the spittoon, the solemn man laid the
brier wood pipe where he got it, and the fat man said:

"Brother Drake, we have been discussing the evil effects of indulging
in the weed, and we have come to the conclusion that while tobacco is
always bound to be used to a certain extent by the thoughtless, it is
a duty the clergy owe to the community to discountenance its use on all
possible occasions. Perhaps we had better adjourn to the parlor, and
after asking divine guidance take our departure."

After they had gone the host looked at his cigar box, and came to
the conclusion that somebody must have carried off some cigars in his
pocket.

AN ARM THAT IS NOT RELIABLE.

A young fellow about nineteen, who is going with his first girl, and who
lives on the West Side, has got the symptoms awfully. He just thinks
of nothing else but his girl, and when he can be with her,--which is
seldom, on account of the old folks,--he is there, and when he cannot be
there, he is there or thereabouts, in his mind. He had been trying for
three months to think of something to give his girl for a Christmas
present, but he couldn't make up his mind what article would cause
her to think of him the most, so the day before Christmas he unbosomed
himself to his employer, and asked his advice as to the proper article
to give. The old man is baldheaded and mean. "You want to give her
something that will be a constant reminder of you?" "Yes," he said,
"that was what wa