y yeoman, "it was this way--I see 'im on my
property with a gun; then I heerd the gun go off; then I see 'im putting
the chicken in his knapsack; and it didn't seem sense nohow to think the
bird committed suicide."

* * *

A WONDER!

"That fellow Jones is a hard-headed cuss," remarked Brown.

"That so?" asked Smith.

"Yes," replied Brown. "Why, he could read a patent medicine almanac and
not have a solitary symptom of some disease."

* * *

IN A FIX

_Mrs. Muggins:_ "It's raining, and Mrs. Goodsoul wants to go home, and I
have no umbrella to lend her except my new guinea one. Can't I let her
have yours?"

_Mr. Muggins:_ "Hardly! The only umbrella I have got has her husband's
name on the handle."

* * *

SUCKED!

It was a very wet night, so Bill and his sweetheart decided to visit the
picture palace.

On the way she evidently was annoyed with her lover, for she turned to
him, and said, angrily, "Aw wish tha would gie up sucking thi teeth;
it's so rude when people are about!"

"Don't thee talk so silly," he replied in aggrieved tones. "It's my
rubber 'eel pads that's causing that noise!"

* * *

HALF AND HALF

Mrs. Murphy is very fat, and the other day, laden with parcels and
packages, she was trying to mount the steps of a Dublin tramcar.
Helplessly looking on, stood the conductor, a diminutive little chap.

Mrs. Murphy, having reached the platform, said, with a glance of
withering scorn: "If ye was half a man ye would have helped me up."

The little conductor calmly replied: "Shure, ma'am, if ye was half a
woman I would!"

* * *

REVENGE IS SWEET

"Yes," proudly announced the ex-captain, who is manager of a new seaside
hotel, "all our employees are former Service men, every one of them. The
reception clerk is an old infantry man, the waiters have all been
non-coms., the chef was a mess-sergeant, the house doctor was a base
hospital surgeon, the house-detective was an intelligence man; even the
pages were cadets."

"And have you any former military police?" he was asked.

"Yes," he replied joyously. "When there's a good stiff wind blowing we
set them to clean the outsides of the windows on the eighth floor!"

* * *

NO EFFECT

"You tell me," said t