—­Lewis J. Bates.

“Tommy,” said his brother, “you’re a regular little glutton.  How can you eat so much?”

“Don’t know; it’s just good luck,” replied the youngster.

A negro who was having one misfortune after another said he was having as bad luck as the man with only a fork when it was raining soup.

See also Windfalls.

MAINE

The Governor of Maine was at the school and was telling the pupils what the people of different states were called.

“Now,” he said, “the people from Indiana are called ‘Hoosiers’; the people from North Carolina ‘Tar Heels’; the people from Michigan we know as ‘Michiganders.’  Now, what little boy or girl can tell me what the people of Maine are called?”

“I know,” said a little girl.

“Well, what are we called?” asked the Governor.

“Maniacs.”

MAKING GOOD

“What’s become ob dat little chameleon Mandy had?” inquired Rufus.

“Oh, de fool chile done lost him,” replied Zeke.  “She wuz playin’ wif him one day, puttin’ him on red to see him turn red, an’ on blue to see him turn blue, an’ on green to see him turn green, an’ so on.  Den de fool gal, not satisfied wif lettin’ well enough alone, went an’ put him on a plaid, an’ de poor little thing went an’ bust himself tryin’ to make good.”

See also Success.

MALARIA

The physician had taken his patient’s pulse and temperature, and proceeded to ask the usual questions.

“It—­er—­seems,” said he, regarding the unfortunate with scientific interest, “that the attacks of fever and the chills appear on alternate days.  Do you think—­is it your opinion—­that they have, so to speak, decreased in violence, if I may use that word?”

The patient smiled feebly.  “Doc,” said he, “on fever days my head’s so hot I can’t think, and on ague days I shake so I can’t hold an opinion.”

MARKS(WO)MANSHIP

An Irishman who, with his wife, is employed on a truck-farm in New Jersey, recently found himself in a bad predicament, when, in attempting to evade the onslaughts of a savage dog, assistance came in the shape of his wife.

When the woman came up, the dog had fastened his teeth in the calf of her husband’s leg and was holding on for dear life.  Seizing a stone in the road, the Irishman’s wife was about to hurl it, when the husband, with wonderful presence of mind, shouted: 

“Mary!  Mary!  Don’t throw the stone at the dog! throw it at me!”

  Mary had a little lamb,
    It’s fleece was gone in spots,
  For Mary fired her father’s gun,
    And lamby caught the shots!

  —­Columbia Jester.

MARRIAGE