e hull house was jes' crowded wiv de gifts."

"And was your house nicely decorated?"

"Yes'm, yes'm. An' everybody done wear der very best, look jes' lak a
white-folks' weddin', yes'm."

"And yourself, Martha, how did you look?"

"Ah was sutinly some scrumptious, yes'm. Ah done wore mah white bridal
dress an' orange blossoms, yes'm. Ah was some kid."

"And the bridegroom, how did he appear?"

"De bridegroom? Aw, dat triflin', low-down houn' dawg, he didn't show up
at all, but we had a magnificious occasion wivout him, jes' de same!"

MERIT

Mrs. Rafferty stopped to address Mrs. Flannagan, who was standing at
ease in the door of the tenement. She spoke with an air of fine pride:

"I'm afther havin' a letter from me boy. He tells me that fer
meritorious condooct, his sintince will be reduced six months."

Mrs. Flannagan beamed appreciatively on hearing the glad tidings.

"Sure, now, an' what a comfort it must be t' yez, havin' a son what does
ye such credit."

MILITARY DISCIPLINE

The raw recruit was on sentry duty. He had a piece of pie, which he had
brought from the canteen, and proceeded to enjoy it. Just then, the
colonel happened along, and scowled at the sentry, who paid no attention
to him whatever.

"Do you know who I am?" the officer demanded.

The sentry shook his head. "Mebby, the veterinarian, or the barber, or
mebby the colonel himself." The sentry laughed loudly at his own wit.
But he wiltered as the officer sternly declared his identity.

"Oh good land!" the recruit cried out in consternation. "Please, hold
this pie while I present arms."

MISCELLANY

It is related concerning a sofa, belonging to a man blessed (?) with
seven daughters, all unmarried, which was sent to the upholsterer to be
repaired, that, when taken apart, the following articles were
discovered:

Forty-seven hairpins, three mustache combs, nineteen suspender buttons,
thirteen needles, eight cigarettes, four photographs, two hundred and
seventeen pins, some grains of coffee, a number of cloves, twenty-seven
cuff-buttons, six pocket-knives, fifteen poker-chips, a vial of
homeopathic medicine for the nerves, thirty-four lumps of chewing-gum,
fifty-nine toothpicks, twenty-eight matches, fourteen button-hooks, two
switches, a transformation and two plates of false teeth, which
apparently had bitten each other.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

The raw Irishman was told by the farmer for whom he worked that the
pumpkins in t