Sassy. "Well," says he, "you're a credit to your broughtens
up. We'll let the fine drop, for we are about even, I guess. Let's
liquor," and he took him into a bar and treated him to a mint julep. It
was generally considered a great bite, that, and I must say, I don't
think it was bad--do you?--_Sam Slick._

COMFORTABLE.

THEODORE HOOK, when surprised, one evening, in his arm-chair, two or
three hours after dinner, is reported to have apologised, by saying:
"When one is alone, the bottle _does_ come round so often." It was Sir
Hercules Langrishe, who, being asked, on a similar occasion, "Have you
finished all that port (three bottles) without assistance?" answered,
"No, not quite that; I had the assistance of a bottle of Madeira."

HORNE TOOKE.

WHEN Horne Tooke was at school, the boys asked him "what his father
was?" Tooke answered, "A Turkey merchant." (He was a poulterer.)

He once said to his brother, a pompous man, "You and I have reversed the
natural course of things; you have risen by your gravity; I have sunk by
my levity."

To Judge Ashhurst's remark, that the law was open to all, both to the
rich and to the poor, Tooke replied, "So is the London tavern."

He said that Hume wrote his history, as witches say their
prayers--backwards.

LAMB AND ERSKINE.

COUNSELLOR Lamb, an old man when Lord Erskine was in the height of his
reputation, was of timid manners and nervous disposition, usually
prefacing his pleadings with an apology to that effect; and on one
occasion, when opposed, in some cause, to Erskine, he happened to remark
that "he felt himself growing more and more timid as he grew older." "No
wonder," replied the witty, but relentless barrister; "every one knows
the older a _lamb_ grows, the more _sheepish_ he becomes."

THE TRUTH TOLD BY MISTAKE.

I SHALL not easily forget the sarcasm of Swift's simile as he told us of
the Prince of Orange's harangue to the mob of Portsmouth:--"We are
come," said he, "for your good--for _all_ your _goods_." "A universal
principle," added Swift, "of all governments; but, like most other
truths, only told by mistake."--_Ethel Churchill._

TALLEYRAND'S WIT.

TALLEYRAND being asked, if a certain authoress, whom he had long since
known, but who belonged rather to the last age, was not "a little
tiresome?" "Not at all," said he, "she was perfectly tiresome."

A gentleman in company was one day making a somewhat zealous eulo