EMPHASIS.
THE force of emphasis is clearly shown in the following brief colloquy, between two lawyers:
"Sir," demanded one, indignantly, "do you imagine me to be a scoundrel?"
"No, Sir," said the other coolly, "I do not _imagine_ you to be one."
A FORGETFUL MAN.
A MAN, endowed with an extraordinary capacity for forgetfulness, was tried some time ago, at Paris, for vagabondage. He gave his name as Auguste Lessite, and believed he was born at Bourges. As he had forgotten his age, the registry of all the births in that city, from 1812 to 1822, was consulted, but only one person of the name of Lessite had been born there during that time, and that was a girl.
"Are you sure your name is Lessite?" asked the judge.
"Well, I thought it was, but maybe it ain"t."
"Are you confident you were born at Bourges?"
"Well, I always supposed I was, but I shouldn"t wonder if it was somewhere else."
"Where does your family live at present?"
"I don"t know; I"ve forgotten."
"Can you remember ever having seen your father and mother?"
"I can"t recollect to save myself; I sometimes think I have, and then again I think I haven"t."
"What trade do you follow?"
"Well, I am either a tailor or a cooper, and for the life of me I can"t tell which: at any rate, I"m either one or the other."
AN ACUTE HINT.
AN Irish footman carrying a basket of game from his master to his friend, waited some time for the customary fee, but seeing no appearance of it, he scratched his head, and said, "Sir, if my master should say, Paddy, what did the gentleman give you?--_what would your honor have me to tell him?_"
c.o.c.kNEY NARRATIVE.
I _laid_ at my friend"s house last night, and _just_ as I _laid me down_ to sleep, I heard a rumbling at the window of my chamber, which was _just_ over the kitchen, a sort of portico, the top of which was _just_ even with the floor of my room. Well, I _just_ peeped up, and as the moon was _just_ rising, I _just_ saw the head of a man; so I _got me up_ softly, _just_ as I was, in my shirt, _goes_ to where the pistols _laid_ that I had _just_ loaded, and laid them _just_ within my reach. I hid myself behind the curtains, _just_ as he was completely in the room.
_Just_ as I was about to lift my hand to shoot him, _thinks I_, would it be _just_ to kill _this here_ man, without _one_ were sure he came with an _unjust_ intention? so I _just_ cried out _hem!_ upon which he fell to the ground, and there he _laid_, and I could _just_ see that he looked _just_ as if he was dead; so I _just_ asked him what business he had in _that there_ room? Poor man! he could _just_ speak, and said he had _just_ come to see Mary!
SINCERE REGRET.
TO a gentleman who was continually lamenting the loss of his first wife before his second, she one day said, "_Indeed, Sir, no one regrets her more than I do._"
HARD CASE.
A POLITE young lady recently a.s.serted that she had lived near a barn-yard, and that it was impossible for her to sleep in the morning, on account of the outcry made by a "gentleman hen."
BIG WORDS.
THE best hit we have lately seen at the _rather_ American fashion of employing big crooked words, instead of little straight ones, is in the following dialogue between a highfalutin lawyer and a plain witness:
"Did the defendant knock the plaintiff down with _malice prepense_?"
"No, Sir; he knocked him down with a flat-iron."
"You misunderstand me, my friend; I want to know whether he attacked him with any evil intent?"
"O no, Sir, it was outside of the tent."
"No, no; I wish you to tell me whether the attack was at all a preconcerted affair?"
"No, Sir; it was not a free concert affair--it was at a circus."
LACONIC AND DECISIVE.