together for about eight years, durin" which time she had been inculcatin" into him, as you might call it, the beauties of economy; but when she discovered, just lately, that he had learnt his lesson so well that he had saved up two hundred and seventeen pairs of socks for her to darn immediately after the wedding, she "peared to conclude that he had taken her advice a little too literally, and broke off the match."--_Puck_.
They sat each at an extreme end of the horsehair sofa. They had been courting now for something like two years, but the wide gap between had always been respectfully preserved.
"A penny for your thochts, Sandy," murmured Maggie, after a silence of an hour and a half.
"Weel," replied Sandy slowly, with surprising boldness, "tae tell ye the truth, I was jist thinkin" how fine it wad be if ye were tae gie me a wee bit kissie."
"I"ve nae objection," simpered Maggie, slithering over, and kissed him plumply on the tip of his left ear.
Sandy relapsed into a brown study once more, and the clock ticked twenty-seven minutes.
"An" what are ye thinkin" about noo--anither, eh?"
"Nae, nae, la.s.sie; it"s mair serious the noo."
"Is it, laddie?" asked Maggie softly. Her heart was going pit-a-pat with expectation. "An" what micht it be?"
"I was jist thinkin"," answered Sandy, "that it was aboot time ye were paying me that penny!"
The coward calls himself cautious, the miser thrifty.--_Syrus_.
There are but two ways of paying debt: increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.--_Carlyle_.
_See also_ Economy; Saving.
TIDES
A Kansan sat on the beach at Atlantic City watching a fair and very fat bather disporting herself in the surf. He knew nothing of tides, and he did not notice that each succeeding wave came a little closer to his feet. At last an extra big wave washed over his shoe tops.
"Hey, there!" he yelled at the fair, fat bather. "Quit yer jumpin" up and down! D"ye want to drown me?"
At a recent Confederate reunion in Charleston, S.C., two Kentuckians were viewing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.
"Say, cap"n," said one of them, "what ought I to carry home to the children for a souvenir?"
"Why, colonel, it strikes me that some of this here ocean water would be right interestin"."
"Just the thing!" exclaimed the colonel delightedly. From a rear pocket he produced a flask, and, with the aid of the captain, soon emptied it.
Then, picking his way down to the water"s edge, he filled it to the neck and replaced the cork.
"Hi, there! Don"t do that!" cried the captain in great alarm. "Pour out about a third of that water. If you don"t, when the tide rises she"ll bust sure."
Nae man can tether time or tide.--_Burns_.
TIME
Mrs. Hooligan was suffering from the common complaint of having more to do than there was time to do it in. She looked up at the clock and then slapped the iron she had lifted from the stove back on the lid with a clatter. "Talk about toime and toide waitin" fer no man," she muttered as she hurried into the pantry; "there"s toimes they waits, an" toimes they don"t. Yistherday at this blessed minit "twas but tin o"clock an"
to-day it"s a quarther to twilve."
MRS. MURPHY--"Oi hear yer brother-in-law, Pat Keegan, is pretty bad off."
MRS. CASEY--"Shure, he"s good for a year yit."
MRS. MURPHY--"As long as thot?"
MRS. CASEY--"Yis; he"s had four different doctors, and each one av thim give him three months to live."--_Puck_.
A long-winded attorney was arguing a technical case before one of the judges of the superior court in a western state. He had rambled on in such a desultory way that it became very difficult to follow his line of thought, and the judge had just yawned very suggestively.
With just a trace of sarcasm in his voice, the tiresome attorney ventured to observe: "I sincerely trust that I am not unduly trespa.s.sing on the time of this court."
"My friend," returned his honor, "there is a considerable difference between trespa.s.sing on time and encroaching upon eternity."--_Edwin Tarrisse_.
A traveler, finding that he had a couple of hours in Dublin, called a cab and told the driver to drive him around for two hours. At first all went well, but soon the driver began to whip up his horse so that they narrowly escaped several collisions.
"What"s the matter?" demanded the pa.s.senger. "Why are you driving so recklessly? I"m in no hurry."
"Ah, g"wan wid yez," retorted the cabby. "D"ye think thot I"m goin" to put in me whole day drivin" ye around for two hours? Gitap!"
Frank comes into the house in a sorry plight.
"Mercy on us!" exclaims his father. "How you look! You are soaked."
"Please, papa, I fell into the ca.n.a.l."
"What! with your new trousers on?"
"Yes, papa, I didn"t have time to take them off."
A well-known Bishop, while visiting at a bride"s new home for the first time, was awakened quite early by the soft tones of a soprano voice singing "Nearer, My G.o.d, to Thee." As the Bishop lay in bed he meditated upon the piety which his young hostess must possess to enable her to begin her day"s work in such a beautiful frame of mind.