“Stay in the cave, you idiot!”

“You don’t know nothing about this hole,” bawled the other.  “There’s a bear in it!”

DINING

A twelve course dinner might be described as a gastronomic marathon.—­John E. Rosser.

“That was the spirit of your uncle that made that table stand, turn over, and do such queer stunts.”

“I am not surprised; he never did have good table manners.”

“Chakey, Chakey,” called the big sister as she stood in the doorway and looked down the street toward the group of small boys:  “Chakey, come in alreaty and eat youseself.  Maw she’s on the table and Paw he’s half et.”

  There was a young lady of Cork,
  Whose Pa made a fortune in pork;
    He bought for his daughter
    A tutor who taught her
  To balance green peas on her fork.

An anecdote about Dr. Randall Davidson, bishop of Winchester, is that after an ecclesiastical function, as the clergy were trooping in to luncheon, an unctuous archdeacon observed:  “This is the time to put a bridle on our appetites!”

“Yes,” replied the bishop, “this is the time to put a bit in our mouths!”—­Christian Life.

  There was a young lady named Maud,
  A very deceptive young fraud;
    She never was able
    To eat at the table,
  But out in the pantry—­O Lord!

“Father’s trip abroad did him so much good,” said the self-made man’s daughter.  “He looks better, feels better, and as for appetite—­honestly, it would just do your heart good to hear him eat!”

Whistler, the artist, was one day invited to dinner at a friend’s house and arrived at his destination two hours late.

“How extraordinary!” he exclaimed, as he walked into the dining-room where the company was seated at the table; “really, I should think you might have waited a bit—­why, you’re just like a lot of pigs with your eating!”

  A macaroon,
    A cup of tea,
  An afternoon,
    Is all that she
  Will eat;
    She’s in society.

  But let me take
    This maiden fair
  To some cafe,
    And, then and there,
  She’ll eat the whole
    Blame bill of fare.

  —­The Mystic Times.

The small daughter of the house was busily setting the tables for expected company when her mother called to her: 

“Put down three forks at each place, dear.”

Having made some observations on her own account when the expected guests had dined with her mother before, she inquired thoughtfully: 

“Shall I give Uncle John three knives?”

For a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner—­Samuel Johnson.

DIPLOMACY

WIFE—­“Please match this piece of silk for me before you come home.”