s are undermining the dam," the acquaintance said.

"So they be, so they be!" Amos agreed.

"Hi! there goes one!" cried the visitor, pointing. "Shoot! Why don't you
shoot, man?"

Amos spat tobacco juice emphatically, and answered: "Huh! think I want
to lose my job?"

* * *

The disgruntled fisherman at the club lifted his voice and complained
loudly. He protested against the base trickery of his two companions on
the trip.

"It was agreed," he explained, "before we started, that the one who
caught the first fish must stand treat to a supper. Now, you'd hardly
believe it, but it's a fact that when we got to fishing, both those
fellows deliberately refused to pull in their lines when they had bites,
just so I'd be stuck."

"That was a mean trick," one of the auditors asserted sympathetically.
"How much did the supper cost you?"

The grouchy fisherman relaxed slightly.

"Oh," he explained, "it wasn't as bad as that. You see, I didn't have
any bait on my hook."

* * *

A G. A. R. veteran told to some members of the American Legion the story
of a private in the Civil War, who during the first battle of Bull Run
found a post hole into which he lowered himself, so that only his eyes
were above the level of the ground. An officer, noting this display of
cowardice, darted to the spot, and with a threatening gesture of his
sword, shouted fiercely, "get out of that hole!"

But the skulker did not come out. On the contrary, he put his thumb to
his nose and waggled his fingers insultingly.

"Not on your life," he retorted. "Hunt a hole for yourself. This belongs
to me."

* * *

The woman hesitated over buying the silver service.

"Of course," she said, "I take your word for it that it's solid silver,
but somehow it doesn't look it."

"A great advantage, ma'am," the shopkeeper declared suavely. "That
service can be left right out in plain sight, and no burglar will look
at it twice."

SANITY

It is a matter of uncommon knowledge that personal perfection is a most
trying thing to live with. In the United States recently, a woman sued
for divorce, alleging in the complaint against her husband that he had
no faults. It was probably a subtle subconscious realization of the
unpleasantness, even the unendurableness, of perfection in the domestic
companionship that caused the obvious misprint in