He had only to
put his notes on Boswell's Johnson in front of the British lines, and
all the Bonapartes that ever existed could never _get through_ them!"

"Grace Greenwood" has probably made more puns in print than any other
woman, and her conversation is full of them. It was Grace Greenwood who,
at a tea-drinking at the Woman's Club in Boston, was begged to tell one
more story, but excused herself in this way: "No, I cannot get more than
one story high on a cup of tea!"

You see puns are allowed at that rarely intellectual assemblage--indeed,
they are sometimes _very_ bad; as when the question was brought up
whether better speeches could be made after simple tea and toast, or
under the influence of champagne and oysters. Miss Mary Wadsworth
replied that it would depend entirely upon whether the oysters were
cooked or raw; and seeing all look blank, she explained: "Because, if
raw, we should be sure to have a raw-oyster-ing time."

Louisa Alcott's puns deserve "honorable mention." I will quote one.
"Query--If steamers are named the Asia, the Russia, and the Scotia, why
not call one the _Nausea_?"

At a Chicago dinner-party a physician received a menu card with the
device of a mushroom, and showing it to the lady next him, said: "I hope
nothing invidious is intended." "Oh, no," was the answer, "it only
alludes to the fact that you spring up in the night."

A gentleman, noticeable on the porch of the sanctuary as the pretty
girls came in on Sabbath mornings, but _not_ regarded as a devout
attendant on the services within, declared that he was one of the
"pillars of the church!" "Pillar-sham, I am inclined to think," was the
retort of a lady friend.

To a lady who, in reply to a gentleman's assertion that women sometimes
made a good pun, but required time to think about it, had said that
_she_ could make a pun as quickly as any man, the gentleman threw down
this challenge: "Make a pun, then, on horse-shoe." "If you talk until
you're horse-shoe can't convince me," was the instant answer.

* * * * *

The best punning poem from a woman's pen was written by Miss Caroline B.
Le Row, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a teacher of elocution, and the writer of
many charming stories and verses. It was suggested by a study in butter
of "The Dreaming Iolanthe," moulded by Caroline S. Brooks on a
kitchen-table, and exhibited at the Centennial in Philadelphia. I do not
remember any other poem in the language t