HE--I'll go to-morrow and buy a diamond engagement ring.

SHE--Now, George, for the first time your talk has the true ring in it.

"I am told," said she, saucily, "that though you are a military man, you are afraid of powder."

"To prove that the a.s.sertion is calumnious," replied he, "I have only to do this."

Whereupon he lightly kissed her on the cheek, and his lips showed that he was not.

MRS. PENDERGAST (in disgust)--You call these shades alike! Is there anything you can match?

MR. PENDERGAST--Yes. Pennies.

Pressed for work--cider.

Never out of print--the calico counter.

"Is this a fire insurance office?"

"Yes, sir; can we write you some insurance?"

"Perhaps you can. You see, my employer threatens to fire me next Sat.u.r.day, and I'd like some protection."

"We should never complain, whatever may befall us," said the minister. "The moment we grow dissatisfied we become unhappy."

"Do you really think so?" she sighed.

"Yes," returned the good man; "the first woman who complained of her Lot, was turned into a pillar of salt."

"Tommy," said mamma, tearfully, "it gives me as much pain as it does you to punish you."

TOMMY (also tearfully)--Mebbe it does, but not in the same place.

"I'll never ask another woman to marry me as long as I live!"

"Refused again?"

"No; accepted."

A wag who thought to have a joke at the expense of an Irish provision dealer said, "Can you supply me with a yard of pork?"

"Pat," said the dealer to his a.s.sistant, "give this gentleman three pig's feet."

"They say corporations have no soul."

"How about the Shoe Trust."

"Did your sweetheart receive you warmly last night?" asked one Pittsburg young man of another.

"No, but her father did."

"How was that?"

"He fired me."

"Permit me, then, to die at your feet!" he cried desperately.

She shivered.

"I see no objection to that," she answered. "All papa said was that you mustn't hang around here."

Don't doubt the veteran who tells you he was always where the bullets were thickest; perhaps he was hiding under the ammunition wagon.