The Jest Book<br />The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings by Mark Lemon (christmas read aloud TXT) 📗
- Author: Mark Lemon
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"If my learned friend will adopt the usual designation, and call the carriage a Bro'am, it will save the time of the court," said Lord Campbell, with a smile.
Mr. Hawkins bowed and accepted his Lordship's pronunciation of the word during the remainder of his speech. When Lord Campbell proceeded to sum up the evidence, he had to refer to the Omnibus which had damaged the Bro'am, and in doing so pronounced the word also, according to its orthography. "I beg your Lordship's pardon," said Mr. Hawkins, very respectfully; "but if your Lordship will use the common designation for such a vehicle, and call it a 'Buss—" The loud laughter which ensued, and in which his Lordship joined, prevented the conclusion of the sentence.[Pg 164]
DCCXLVII.—TRUE POLITENESS.Sir W.G., when governor of Williamsburg, returned the salute of a negro who was passing. "Sir," said a gentleman present, "do you descend to salute a slave?"—"Why, yes," replied the governor; "I cannot suffer a man of his condition to exceed me in good manners."
DCCXLVIII.—A RAKE'S ECONOMY.My savings are complete;
I light the candle at both ends,
And thus make both ends meet.
DCCXLIX.—EASILY SATISFIED.
A cowardly fellow having spoken impertinently to a gentleman, received a violent box of the ear. He demanded whether that was meant in earnest. "Yes, sir," replied the other, without hesitation. The coward turned away, saying, "I am glad of it, sir, for I do not like such jests."
DCCL.—PERT.Macklin was once annoyed at Foote laughing and talking just as the former was about to begin a lecture. "Well, sir, you seem to be very merry there; but do you know what I am going to say now?" asked Macklin. "No, sir," said Foote, "pray, do you?"
DCCLI.—A ROYAL MUFF.The following anecdote was told with great glee at a dinner by William IV., then Duke of Clarence: "I was riding in the Park the other day, on the road between Teddington and Hampton-wick, when I was overtaken by a butcher's boy, on horseback, with a tray of meat under his arm.—'Nice pony that of yours, old gentleman,' said he.—'Pretty fair,' was my reply.—'Mine's a good 'un too,' rejoined he; 'and I'll trot you to Hampton-wick for a pot o' beer.' I declined the match; and the butcher's boy, as he stuck his single spur into his horse's side, exclaimed,[Pg 165] with a look of contempt, 'I thought you were only a muff!'"
DCCLII.—A BROAD HINT.An eminent barrister having a case sent to him for an opinion—the case being outrageously preposterous—replied, in answer to the question, "Would an action lie?"—"Yes, if the witnesses would lie too, but not otherwise."
DCCLIII.—A TASTE OF MARRIAGE.A gentleman described to Jerrold the bride of a mutual friend. "Why, he is six foot high, and she is the shortest woman I ever saw. What taste, eh?"
"Ay," Jerrold replied, "and only a taste!"
DCCLIV.—"THE LAST WAR."Mr. Pitt, speaking in the House of Commons of the glorious war which preceded the disastrous one in which we lost the colonies, called it "the last war." Several members cried out, "The last war but one." He took no notice; and soon after, repeating the mistake, he was interrupted by a general cry of "The last war but one,—the last war but one."—"I mean, sir," said Mr. Pitt, turning to the speaker, and raising his sonorous voice,—"I mean, sir, the last war that Britons would wish to remember." Whereupon the cry was instantly changed into an universal cheering, long and loud.
DCCLV.—THE PHILANTHROPIST.Jerrold hated the cant of philanthropy, and writhed whenever he was called a philanthropist in print. On one occasion, when he found himself so described, he exclaimed, "Zounds, it tempts a man to kill a child, to get rid of the reputation."
DCCLVI.—TOO MUCH OF A BAD THING.English tourists in Ireland soon discover that the length of Irish miles constantly recurs to their observation; eleven Irish miles being equal to about fourteen English. A stranger one day complained of the barbarous[Pg 166] condition of the road in a particular district; "True," said a native, "but if the quality of it be rather infairior, we give good measure of it, anyhow."
DCCLVII—BAD COMPANY.At the time that the bubble schemes were flourishing, in 1825, Mr. Abernethy met some friends who had risked large sums of money in one of those fraudulent speculations; they informed him that they were going to partake of a most sumptuous dinner, the expenses of which would be defrayed by the company. "If I am not very much deceived," replied he, "you will have nothing but bubble and squeak in a short time."
DCCLVIII.—EPIGRAM.(On the King's double dealing.)
Before I never dreamt;
The King of England has become,
A subject of contempt!!!
DCCLIX.—PAINTING.
A gentleman seeing a fine painting representing a man playing on the lute, paid this high compliment to the artist. "When I look on that painting I think myself deaf."
DCCLX.—NIL NISI, ETC.A gentleman calling for beer at another gentleman's table, finding it very bad, declined drinking it. "What!" said the master of the house, "don't you like the beer?"—"It is not to be found fault with," answered the other; "for one should never speak ill of the dead."
DCCLXI.—ODD FORESIGHT.Lady Margaret Herbert asked somebody for a pretty pattern for a nightcap. "Well," said the person, "what signifies the pattern of a nightcap?"—"O! child," said she, "you know, in case of fire!"[Pg 167]
DCCLXII.—"THEREBY HANGS," ETC.A certain Irish judge, called the Hanging Judge, and who had never been known to shed a tear except when Macheath, in the "Beggar's Opera," got his reprieve, once said to Curran, "Pray, Mr. Curran, is that hung beef beside you? If it is, I will try it."—"If you try it, my lord," replied Curran, "it's sure to be hung."
DCCLXIII.—GENERAL WOLFE.General Wolfe invited a Scotch officer to dine with him; the same day he was also invited by some brother officers. "You must excuse me," said he to them; "I am already engaged to Wolfe." A smart young ensign observed, he might as well have expressed himself with more respect, and said General Wolfe. "Sir," said the Scotch officer, with great promptitude, "we never say General Alexander, or General Cæsar." Wolfe, who was within hearing, by a low bow to the Scotch officer, acknowledged the pleasure he felt at the high compliment.
DCCLXIV.—A QUESTION FOR THE PEERAGE.Over Westminster-bridge strutted five in a row,
"I feel for the bridge," whispered Dick, with a shiver;
"Thus tried by the mob, it may sink in the river."
Quoth Tom, a crown lawyer: "Abandon your fears:
As a bridge it can only be tried by its piers."
DCCLXV.—A NOISE FOR NOTHING.
When Thomas Sheridan was in a nervous, debilitated state, and dining with his father at Peter Moore's, the servant, in passing by the fire-place knocked down the plate-warmer, and made such a clatter as caused the invalid to start and tremble. Moore, provoked by the accident, rebuked the man, and added, "I suppose you have broken all the plates?"—"No, sir," said the servant, "not one!"—"Not one!" exclaimed Sheridan, "then, hang it, sir, you have made all that noise for nothing!"[Pg 168]
DCCLXVI.—SHORT MEASURE.Some one wrote in a hotel visitors' book his initials, "A.S." A wag wrote underneath, "Two-thirds of the truth."
DCCLXVII.—DECANTING EXTRAORDINARY.Theodore Hook once said to a man at whose table a publisher got very drunk, "Why, you appear to have emptied your wine-cellar into your book-seller."
DCCLXVIII.—A DILEMMA.Whilst a country parson was preaching, the chief of his parishioners sitting near the pulpit was fast asleep: whereupon he said, "Now, beloved friends, I am in a great strait; for if I speak too softly, those at the farther end of the church cannot hear me; and if I talk too loud, I shall wake the chief man in the parish."
DCCLXIX.—HOW TO MAKE A MAN OF CONSEQUENCE.A frequent shrug of the os humeri,
A nod significant, a stately gait,
A blustering manner, and a tone of weight,
A smile sarcastic, an expressive stare,—
Adopt all these, as time and place will bear:
Then rest assured that those of little sense
Will deem you, sure, a man of consequence.
DCCLXX.—A CHEAP WATCH.
A sailor went to a watchmaker, and presenting a small French watch to him, demanded to know how much the repair of it would come to. The watchmaker, after examining it, said, "It will be more expense repairing than its original cost."—"I don't mind that," said the tar; "I will even give you double the original cost, for I gave a fellow a blow on the head for it, and if you repair it, I will give you two."
DCCLXXI.—SCOTCH WUT.A laird riding past a high, steep bank, stopped opposite[Pg 169] a hole in it, and said, "John, I saw a brock gang in there."—"Did ye," said John; "wull ye haud my horse, sir?"—"Certainly," said the laird, and away rushed John for a spade. After digging for half an hour, he came back, nigh speechless, to the laird, who had regarded him musingly. "I canna find him, sir," said John. "Deed," said the laird very coolly, "I wad ha' wondered if ye had, for it's ten years sin' I saw him gang in there."
DCCLXXII.—ATTENDING TO A WISH."I wish you would pay a little attention, sir!" exclaimed a stage manager to a careless actor. "Well, sir, so I am paying as little as I can!" was the calm reply.
DCCLXXIII.—A MECHANICAL SURGEON.A valiant sailor, that had lost his leg formerly in the wars, was nevertheless, for his great prudence and courage, made captain of a ship; and being in the midst of an engagement, a cannon bullet took off his wooden supporter, so that he fell down. The seamen immediately called out for a surgeon. "Confound you all," said he, "no surgeon, no surgeon,—a carpenter! a carpenter!"
DCCLXXIV.—CANINE POETRY.A pretty little dog had written on its collar the following distich:—
Pass on—or you may have one too, sir."
The same person might have been the proprietor of another dog, upon whose collar was inscribed:—
DCCLXXV.—FOOTIANA.
Foote praising the hospitality of the Irish, after one of his trips to the sister kingdom, a gentleman asked him whether he had ever been at Cork. "No, sir," replied Foote; "but I have seen many drawings of it."[Pg 170]
DCCLXXVI.—NIGHT AND MORNING.An industrious tradesman having taken a new apprentice, awoke him at a very early hour on the first morning, by calling out that the family were sitting down to table. "Thank you," said the boy, as he turned over in the bed to adjust himself for a new nap; "thank you, I never eat anything during the night!"
DCCLXXVII.—FULL INSIDE.Charles Lamb, one afternoon, in returning from a dinner-party, took his seat in a crowded omnibus, when a stout gentleman subsequently looked in and politely asked, "All full inside?"—"I don't know how it may be, sir, with the other passengers," answered Lamb, "but that last piece of oyster-pie did the business for me."
DCCLXXVIII.—A SHORT JOURNEY.An old clergyman one Sunday, at the close of the sermon, gave notice to the congregation that in the course of the week he expected to go on a mission to the heathen. One of his parishioners, in great agitation, exclaimed, "Why, my dear sir, you have never told us one word of this before; what shall we do?"—"O, brother," said the parson, "I don't expect to go out of this town."
DCCLXXIX.—A POSER BY LORD ELLENBOROUGH.During the Chief-Justiceship of the late Lord Ellenborough there was a horse-cause, to which a certain Privy Councillor was a party, and who, as of right, took his seat upon the bench at the hearing, and there (while his adversary's counsel told his tale) ventured a whisper of remark to the Chief Justice. "If you again address me, Sir W——, I shall give you in custody of the Marshal." It was a settler for him, and, as it turned out, of his cause; for he lost it, and most justly too.
DCCLXXX.—EPIGRAM."What reason can be given,
Since marriage is a
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