Commissioner of Shrimps and
Crabs.

"Sir," said the Most Respectable Citizen, austerely, "were you not once
in the State Senate?"

"Not so bad as that, sir, I assure you," was the reply. "I was a member
of the Slower House. I was expelled for selling my influence for money."

"And you dare to ask for mine!" shouted the Most Respectable Citizen.
"You have the impudence? A man who will accept bribes will probably
offer them. Do you mean to--"

"I should not think of making a corrupt proposal to you, sir; but if I
were Commissioner of Shrimps and Crabs, I might have some influence with
the water-front population, and be able to help you make your fight for
Coroner."

"In that case I do not feel justified in denying you the letter."

So he took his pen, and, some demon guiding his hand, he wrote, greatly
to his astonishment:

"Who sells his influence should stop it,
An honest man will only swap it."

The Rainmaker

An Officer of the Government, with a great outfit of mule-waggons loaded
with balloons, kites, dynamite bombs, and electrical apparatus, halted in
the midst of a desert, where there had been no rain for ten years, and
set up a camp. After several months of preparation and an expenditure of
a million dollars all was in readiness, and a series of tremendous
explosions occurred on the earth and in the sky. This was followed by a
great down-pour of rain, which washed the unfortunate Officer of the
Government and the outfit off the face of creation and affected the
agricultural heart with joy too deep for utterance. A Newspaper Reporter
who had just arrived escaped by climbing a hill near by, and there he
found the Sole Survivor of the expedition--a mule-driver--down on his
knees behind a mesquite bush, praying with extreme fervour.

"Oh, you can't stop it that way," said the Reporter.

"My fellow-traveller to the bar of God," replied the Sole Survivor,
looking up over his shoulder, "your understanding is in darkness. I am
not stopping this great blessing; under Providence, I am bringing it."

"That is a pretty good joke," said the Reporter, laughing as well as he
could in the strangling rain--"a mule driver's prayer answered!"

"Child of levity and scoffing," replied the other; "you err again, misled
by these humble habiliments. I am the Rev. Ezekiel Thrifft, a minister
of the gospel, now in the service of the great manufacturing firm of
Skinn & Sheer. They make balloons, kite