nutes. One week the press of
business compelled the packers to unusually hard labor, and Saturday
night found the deacon completely exhausted. Indeed, he was almost sick
the next morning, when church time came; but he was a leading member,
and it was his duty to attend the usual Sabbath service, if he could. He
went. The occasion was of unusual solemnity, as a revival was in
progress. The minister preached a sermon, well calculated for effect.
His peroration was a climax of great beauty. Assuming the attitude of
one intently listening, he recited to the breathless auditory:
"Hark, they whisper; angels say--
"_Hog in!_" came from the deacon's pew, in a stentorian voice. The
astonished audience turned their attention from the preacher. He went
on, however, unmoved--
"Sister spirit, come away."
"_Hog out!_" shouted the deacon, "_tally four_."
This was too much for the preacher and the audience. The latter smiled,
some snickered audibly, while a few boys broke for the door, to "split
their sides," laughing outside, within full hearing. The preacher was
entirely disconcerted, sat down, arose again, pronounced a brief
benediction, and dismissed the anything else than solemn minded hearers.
The deacon soon came to a realizing sense of his unconscious interlude,
for his brethren reprimanded him severely; while the boys caught the
infection of the joke, and every possible occasion afforded an
opportunity for them to say, "_Hog in!_" "_Hog out!_"
LOST IN A FOG.
"SUPPOSE you are lost in a fog," said Lord C---- to his noble relative,
the Marchioness, "what are you most likely to be?" "Mist, of course,"
replied her ladyship.
NO MISTAKE.
"YOU don't seem to know how to take me," said a vulgar fellow to a
gentleman he had insulted. "Yes, I do," said the gentleman, taking him
by the nose.
RESPECT FOR APPEARANCES.
ON a Sunday, a lady called to her little boy, who was tossing marbles on
the side walk, to come in the house.
"Don't you know you should not be out there, my son?" said she. "Go into
the back yard, if you want to play marbles; it is Sunday."
"I will," answered the little boy; "but ain't it Sunday in the back
yard, mother?"
MAKING THE RESPONSES.
AN ignorant fellow, who was about to get married, resolved to make
himself perfect in the responses of the marriage service; but, by
mistake, he committed the office of baptism for those of riper years; so
when t
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