was present.

"It is a pleasure," she said to him, afterward, "to hear you saying your
prayers so well. You speak so earnestly and seriously, and mean what you
say, and care about it."

"Ah!" he answered, "ah, but, auntie, you should hear me gargle!"

ROBBING HIMSELF

"Germany's claim that she imports nothing, buys only of herself, and so
is growing rich from the war, is a dreadful fallacy."

The speaker was Herbert C. Hoover, chairman of the American Food Board.

"Germany," he went on, "is like the young man who wisely thought he'd
grow his own garden stuff. This young man had been digging for about an
hour when his spade turned up a quarter. Ten minutes later he found
another quarter. Then he found a dime. Then he found a quarter again.

"'By gosh!' he said, 'I've struck a silver mine,' and, straightening up,
he felt something cold slide down his leg. Another quarter lay at his
feet. He grasped the truth: There was a hole in his pocket."

PESSIMISTS

Out at the front two regiments, returning to the trenches, chanced to
meet. There was the usual exchange of wit.

"When's the bloomin' war goin' to end?" asked one north-country lad.

"Dunno," replied one of the south-shires. "We've planted some daffydils
in front of our trench."

"Bloomin' optimists!" snorted the man from the north. "We've planted
acorns."

DELAYED

The way they take air raids in England is illustrated by the following
conversation from _Punch_:

"Just ask Dr. Jones to run round to my place right away. Our cook's
fallen downstairs--broke her leg; the housemaid's got chicken-pox, and
my two boys have been knocked down by a taxi."

"I'm sorry, sir, but the doctor was blown up in yesterday's air raid,
and he won't be down for a week."

HOW MARY LOST A TIP

Soon after a certain judge of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island had been
appointed he went down into one of the southern counties to sit for a
week. He was well satisfied with himself.

"Mary," he said to the Irish waitress at the hotel where he was
stopping, "you've been in this country how long?"

"Two years, sir," she said.

"Do you like it?"

"Sure, it's well enough," answered Mary.

"But, Mary," the judge continued, "you have many privileges in this
country which you'd not have in Ireland. Now at home you would never be
in a room with a justice of the Supreme Court, and chatting familiarly
with him."

"But, sure, sir," said Mary, quite in earnest, "you'd never