"So do policemen," said Bob.

"Maybe," said Jack; "but they have uniforms and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and burglars haven't."

AN EXCUSE.

"Tommie, your spelling report is very bad," said Mr. Hicks to his boy.

"That's all right, papa," said Tommie. "When I grow up I'm going to dictate all my letters, like you do. It's the type-writer that'll have to know spelling, not me."

Whenever he felt two st.i.tches in his side The little old philosopher cried: "I'm lucky, I think; don't you?

If one in time saves nine, as they say, I'd have had eighteen of 'em some day If it wasn't for these two!"

A BAD COMBINATION.

"Far as I can see," observed Jack, after his bicycle accident, "a bicycle's just as skittish as a horse."

"It's worse," said Willie. "My bike not only threw me like a horse, but turned back and gored me with the bar-handles like a bull."

A LITTLE TOMMIE QUESTION.

"Say, mamma," said little Tommie, looking up from his tin soldiers, "do angels put their heads under their wings like turkeys when they go to sleep?"

HIS MEMORY.

JOHNNY. "I can't remember the name of that little girl I met at Newport."

PAPA. "You must improve your memory. That little girl had a very common name. Now guess--what happens before meat?"

JOHNNY. "The sharpening of the knife."

OLLIE'S OPINION.

If the two "z's" in buzzard Are because it buzzes, then I think that in "mosquito"

There should be eight or ten.

MAMMA. "Bobby, which rule in school do you find the hardest?"

BOBBY. "The teacher's."

Little Ella, hearing her father speak of putting something aside for a rainy day, broke out with the remark,

"Oh, papa! I've got an umbrella laid aside for that."

JACK. "I think my brother is an awful cross fellow."

MOTHER. "Don't you think you're a little to blame at times, Jack!"

JACK. "No; because he can't help it--it's the W in his name makes the _ill Will_."

JIMMY'S FUTURE.

JIMMY. "When I grow up I'm going to be a school-teacher."

PAPA. "Why do you want to be a school-teacher?"

JIMMY. "'Cos you don't have to know the lessons yourself--you just have to hear them out of a book."

"Ha! ha!" laughed the fish, as it glanced at the bait That hung so temptingly by; "By your silence I see you're intended to be Rather too pointed to try."