“Back here again, are you, you old rascal!  Clear out with you, or I’ll—­”

The statesman retired precipitately.  The cottager sat in the road shaking his head in sorrow and embarrassment.  The statesman bent over him, and laid his hand in kindly fashion on his arm.

“Never mind, Henry,” said he, consolingly, “my chimney smokes sometimes, too.”—­Harper’s.

NODD—­“Are you sure your wife knows I’m going home to dinner with you?”

TODD—­“Knows!  Well, rather!  Why, my dear fellow, I argued with her about it this morning for nearly half an hour.”—­Life.

A recent experience of a Virginia clergyman throws light on the old English law requiring that marriages should be celebrated before noon.  A colored couple appeared before him, asking to be married, the man in a considerably muddled state.  The minister said to the woman, “I won’t perform this ceremony.”

“Why is dat, boss?” she queried.  “Ain’t de license all right?  An’ we is of age.”

“Yes, but the man is drunk.  Take him away and come back again.”  Several days later the couple again presented themselves, the man once more obviously intoxicated.  “See here, I told you I wouldn’t marry you when this man was drunk,” the minister said testily.  “Don’t you come back here till he’s sober.”

“Well, you see, suh,” the woman replied apologetically, “de trufe is dat he won’t come less’n he’s lit up.”

“Well,” cried Mrs. Henpeck, “our son is engaged to be married.  We will write to the dear lad and congratulate him.”

Mr. Henpeck agreed (he dare not do otherwise), and his wife picked up the pen.

“My darling boy,” read the son; “what glorious news!  Your father and I rejoice in your happiness.  It has long been our greatest wish that you should marry some good woman.  A good woman is Heaven’s most precious gift to man.  She brings out all the best in him and helps him to suppress all that is evil.”

Then there was a postscript in a different handwriting: 

“Your mother has gone for a stamp.  Keep single, you young noodle.”—­Judge.

“Women always have and always will keep men guessing,” declares the Wathena (Kan.) Times.  “A Wathena merchant employed a homely girl because he thought he could keep her.  Within a few months a young man married her for the same reason.”

A prominent New York debutante recently ordered “four seats on the aisle” at the theater.  When her party arrived at the performance, they were surprised to find themselves arranged in a column instead of a row.  Nothing daunted, the debutante turned to a bored, middle-aged man next to her.  Surely he would not mind changing with her friend in front.

“I beg your pardon,” she said politely.

No reply.  He must be deaf.

“I beg your pardon,” she repeated louder.

Still no reply.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, bumping his elbow.