one you to death with fossils," cried
the repentant lawyer, throwing a series of trilobites from his
tobacco-less pocket at his retreating friend. The friend stopped and
said curtly: "What is it to be?"

"Wilks, you remind me of an old darkey woman that had a mistress who was
troubled with sneezing fits. The mistress said: 'Chloe, whenever I
sneeze in public, you, as a faithful servant, should take out your
handkerchief, and pretend that it was you; you should take it upon
yourself, Chloe.' So, one day in church, the old lady made a big
tis-haw, when Chloe jumped up and cried out: 'I'll take dat sneeze my
ole missus snoze on mysef,' waving her handkerchief all around."

"I did not delay my journey to listen to negro stories, Mr. Coristine."

"It has a moral," answered the lawyer; "it means that I am going to take
all this trouble on myself, and hinder you making a bigger ass of yours.
I'll apologize to the pair of them for me and you."

"That being the case, in spite of the objectionable words, 'bigger ass,'
which you will live to repent, I shall stay."

Mrs. Hill was proceeding to milk the cow, and her husband was busy at
the wood-pile. Coristine sauntered up to the old lady, and carried the
milking pail and stool for her, the latter being of the Swiss
description, with one leg sharp enough to stick into the ground. The
lawyer adroitly remarked:--

"Turning to the subject of language, Mrs. Hill, one who has had your
experience in education must have observed fashion in words as in other
things, how liable speech is to change at different times and in
different places."

Yes; Mrs. Hill had noticed that.

"You will, I trust, not think me guilty of too great a liberty, if I
say, in reference to my friend's remark at the supper table, that
gastronomy, instead of meaning the art of extracting gas from coal, has
now come to denote the science of cookery or good living, and that the
old meaning is now quite out of date. I thought you would like to know
of the change, which, I imagine, has hardly found its way into the
country yet."

"Certainly, sir, I am much obliged to you for setting me right so
kindly. Doubtless the change has come about through the use of gas
stoves for cooking, which I have seen advertised in our Toronto
religious paper."

"I never thought of that," said the perfidious lawyer. "The very
uncommon word deipnosophist, hardly an English word at all, when
employed at the present day, always means