ding the boaster betook himself to
the haunted house for the night.

When a select committee sought for Sam next morning, no trace of him was
found. Careful search for three days failed to discover the missing
negro.

But on the fourth day Sam entered the village street, covered with mud
and evidently worn with fatigue.

"Hi, dar, nigger!" one of the bystanders shouted. "Whar you-all been de
las' foh days?"

And Sam answered simply:

"Ah's been comin' back."

GOD

The little boy was found by his mother with pencil and paper, making a
sketch. When asked what he was doing, he answered promptly, and with
considerable pride:

"I'm drawing a picture of God."

"But," gasped the shocked mother, "you cannot do that. No one has seen
God. No one knows how God looks."

"Well," the little boy replied, complacently, "when I get through they
will."

GOD'S WILL

The clergyman was calling, when the youthful son and heir approached his
mother proudly, and exhibited a dead rat. As she shrank in repugnance,
he attempted to reassure her:

"Oh, it's dead all right, mama. We beat it and beat it and beat it, and
it's deader 'n dead."

His eyes fell on the clergyman, and he felt that something more was due
to that reverend presence. So he continued in a tone of solemnity:

"Yes, we beat it and beat it until--until God called it home!"

GOLF

The eminent English Statesman Arbuthnot-Joyce plays golf so badly that
he prefers a solitary round with only the caddy present. He had a new
boy one day recently, and played as wretchedly as usual.

"I fancy I play the worst game in the world," he confessed to the caddy.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, sir," was the consoling response. "From what
the boys were saying about another gentleman who plays here, he must be
worse even than you are."

"What's his name?" asked the statesman hopefully.

And the caddy replied:

"Arbuthnot-Joyce."

GRACE

The son and heir had just been confirmed. At the dinner table, following
the church service, the father called on his son to say grace. The boy
was greatly embarrassed by the demand. Moreover, he was tired, not only
from the excitement of the special service through which he had passed,
but also from walking to and from the church, four miles away, and, too,
he was very hungry indeed and impatient to begin the meal. Despite his
protest, however, the father insisted.

So, at last, the little man folded his hands with a pious air,