A SPECIMEN OF THE ABSURD.

At a catechetical examination, an examiner, fond of badgering blockheads, enjoyed the following treat: Q. It is recorded in Scripture that a beast spoke. What was the beast? A. A whale. Q. To whom did the whale speak? A. To Moses in the bulrushes. Q. What did the whale say? A. Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Q. And what did Moses reply? A. Thou art the man.

The evening before a battle, an officer asked Marshal Toiras for permission to go and see his father, who was at the point of death. "Go," said the Marshal, "honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land."

OLD COMPLAINT.

A losing gambler rushing out of the Kursaal at Homburg saw a stout man with his foot raised on the post at the corner tying his shoe. The gambler ran at the stout man, kicked his anonymous quarter, and upset him. The stout man, panting with indignation, demanded to know "what that was for? I was only tying my shoe at that post.' Only tying your shoe at that post!" roared the other in a frenzy of rage; "you are always tying your shoe at that post!"

PARISH CHURCHES.

In some parish churches it used to be the custom to separate the men from the women. A clergyman being interrupted by loud talking, stopped short, when a woman, eager for the honour of her sex, arose, and said, "Sir, the noise is not among us." "So much the better," answered the priest, "it will the sooner be over."

TURNING THE TABLES.

A young Australian girl being asked if she should like to go to Britain, answered that she should like to see but not to live in it. On being pressed for her reason, she replied "that from the great number of bad people sent out from thence, it must surely be a very wicked place to live in !"

CAPABILITIES.

An Oxford student joined, without invitation, a party dining at an inn. After dinner he boasted so much of his abilities, that one of the party said, "You have told us enough of what you can do; tell us, pray, something you can't do." "Faith," said the student, I can't pay my share of the reckoning.”

HERE'S FOR YOUR WIG.

A fat man walking down a street had his hat snatched from his head. He pursued the thief until he was exhausted, then clung to a lamp-post to prevent himself from falling. A gentlemanly man approached him, and with great solicitude desired to know what was the matter. The fat man still breathless, with difficulty explained. "And you can pursue the thief no further ?" No, sir,- -no further." "You are entirely exhausted?" "Sir-I could— not move-an-inch." Then," said the gentlemanly man, "here's for your wig," and snatching it from his head he ran off.

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CASH PAYMENTS.

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Paterson, the comedian, lent a brother actor two shillings, and when he made a demand for the sum, the debtor, turning peevishly from him, said, "Hang it! I'll pay to-day in some shape or other." Paterson replied, "I shall be much obliged to you, Tom, to let it be as like two shillings as you can.'

COLERIDGE AND THE JEW.

"Once," said Coleridge, "I sat in a coach opposite a Jew, a symbol of old-clothes bags; an Isaiah of Holywell Street. He would close the window; I opened it. He closed it again; upon which, in a very solemn tone, I said to him, "Son of Abraham! thou smellest; son of Isaac ! thou art offensive; son of Jacob! thou stinkest foully. See the man in the moon! he is holding his nose at that distance. Dost thou think that I, sitting here, can endure it any longer?" My Jew was astounded, opened the window forthwith himself, and said, "He was sorry he did not know before I was so great a gentleman."

A REASON.

Some one inquiring why a certain Irishman walked about London with his tongue out or his mouth open, a wit answered "That he supposed he did so in hopes to catch the English accent."

LONG STORY.

A garrulous lady, ill of a complaint of forty years' standing, had begun to describe its progress from the first, when the physician to whom she addressed herself, interrupted her, saying he wanted to go into the next street to see a patient, and begged the lady to inform him how long it would take her to tell her story. The answer was twenty minutes. He asked her to proceed, and hoped she would endeavour to finish by the time he returned.

A DUTCHMAN'S TESTIMONY.

"I will tell you, such is de powers of de Shakespeer, that I vunce saw de plays acted in Anglish languish in Holland, where dere vas not vun persons in all de house but myself could onderstand it; yet dare vas not vun persons in all dat house but vas in tears, dat is, all crying, blowing de nose, and veep very mouch-couldn't onderstond vun vord of de play, yet all veeping. Such vas de power of de Shakespeer.'

POSTSCRIPTS.

George Selwyn once affirmed that no woman ever wrote a letter without a postscript. "My next letter shall refute you," said Lady S. Selwyn soon after received a letter from her ladyship, when, after her signature, stood— "P.S.-Who was right now, you or I?"

MIS-DEAL.

A Glasgow clergyman had just risen in the pulpit to lead the congregation in prayer, when a gentleman in front of the gallery took out a handkerchief to wipe the dust from his brow, forgetting that a pack of cards was wrapped up in it, and the whole pack was scattered over the breast of the gallery. Oh, man! man!" exclaimed the clergyman, surely your psalm-book has been ill bun' (bound)."

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GOVERNESSES.

A lady wrote to her son requesting him to look out for a lady, such as is ordinarily expected in a governess; that is to say, all-accomplished, with the disposition of an angel. The gentleman wrote back that he had long been looking out for such a person, and that when he found her, he should not recommend her for a governess, but take her for a wife.

A MAGDALENE.

A French bishop preaching, exclaimed, "a Magdalene is present; she is looking at me. I will not mention her name, but I will throw my book at her." He then raised his arm as if to put his threat into execution, when all the women in the church ducked their heads. "What!" said he, "all Magdalenes!"

SHERIDAN.

Sheridan one day descanting on the pedigree of his family, was regretting that they were no longer styled O'Sheridan, as they had been formerly. 'Indeed, father," replied his son, "we have more right to the O than any one else, for we owe everybody."

AN IRISH REPLY.

At a dinner party a conversation took place on a man who, having fallen into a trance, on recovering consciousness, found his speech gone. Each of the guests endeavoured to account for the man's dumbness. At last the host jokingly demanded the opinion of his Irish footman. "Please your honour," replied Pat, "I think that he did not go quite into the other world, but so near it as to see what they were about; and so they took away his speech, that he might not tell the secret when he came back."

ADAM'S APPLE.

"Why did Adam bite the apple?" asked a country schoolmaster of one of his scholars. "Because he had no

knife," was the answer.

A PARROT SHOW.

A prize was once offered to the parrot who in a parrot show should say the best thing. A large number of parrots was assembled, and tested. When the last of the

parrots had been examined, a man who had hung back, produced from a basket a parrot, which, having glanced around him with a comical stare, abruptly exclaimed, "Oh, lord! what a lot of parrots!" It gained the prize.

QUAKER WIT.

A Quaker and a Baptist travelling together, the Baptist took every occasion to ridicule the Quaker, on account of his religious profession. Ere long they came to where the body of a malefactor was hanging. "I wonder now," said the Baptist, "what religion this man was of?" "Perhaps," replied the Quaker, he was a Baptist, and they have hung him up to dry."

A FUNERAL.

A clergyman at a funeral had proceeded in the Service till he had come to the part which says, "Our deceased brother or sister," without knowing whether the deceased was male or female. He turned to one of the mourners and asked whether it was a brother or a sister. The man innocently replied, "No relation at all, sir, only an acquaintance."

SHARP REPLY.

Two country attorneys overtaking a waggoner on the road and thinking to be witty, asked him why his fore horse was so fat, and the rest so lean. The waggoner, knowing them, answered, "That his fore horse was a lawyer, and the rest were his clients."

THROW PHYSIC TO THE DOGS.

When Beau Nash was ill, Dr. Cheyne wrote a prescription for him. The next day, the doctor, coming to see his patient, inquired if he had followed his prescription. "No," answered Nash; "if I had I should have broken my neck, for I threw it out of a two pair of stairs window."