Ten poor men sleep in peace on one straw heap, as Saadi sings,
  But the immensest empire is too narrow for two kings.

  —­William R. Alger.

  Here lies our sovereign lord, the king,
    Whose word no man relies on,
  Who never said a foolish thing,
    And never did a wise one.

Said by a courtier of Charles, II.  To which the King replied, “That is very true, for my words are my own.  My actions are my minister’s.”

KISSES

  Here’s to a kiss: 
  Give me a kiss, and to that kiss add a score,
  Then to that twenty add a hundred more;
  A thousand to that hundred, and so kiss on,
  To make that thousand quite a million,
  Treble that million, and when that is done
  Let’s kiss afresh as though we’d just begun.

“If I should kiss you I suppose you’d go and tell your mother.”

“No; my lawyer.”

“What is he so angry with you for?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.  We met in the street, and we were talking just as friendly as could be, when all of a sudden he flared up and tried to kick me.”

“And what were you talking about?”

“Oh, just ordinary small talk.  I remember he said, ’I always kiss my wife three or four times every day.’”

“And what did you say?”

“I said, ‘I know at least a dozen men who do the same,’ and then he had a fit.”

  There was an old maiden from Fife,
  Who had never been kissed in her life;
    Along came a cat;
    And she said, “I’ll kiss that!”
  But the cat answered, “Not on your life!”

  Here’s to the red of the holly berry,
    And to its leaf so green;
  And here’s to the lips that are just as red,
    And the fellow who’s not so green.

  There was a young sailor of Lyd,
  Who loved a fair Japanese kid;
    When it came to good-bye,
    They were eager but shy,
  So they put up a sunshade and—­did.

  There once was a maiden of Siam,
  Who said to her lover, young Kiam,
    “If you kiss me, of course
    You will have to use force,
  But God knows you’re stronger than I am.”

Lord!  I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.—­Swift.

See also Courtship; Servants.

KNOWLEDGE

A physician was driving through a village when he saw a man amusing a crowd with the antics of his trick dog.  The doctor pulled up and said:  “My dear man, how do you manage to train your dog that way?  I can’t teach mine a single trick.”

The man glanced up with a simple rustic look and replied:  “Well, you see, it’s this way; you have to know more’n the dog or you can’t learn him nothin’.”

With knowledge and love the world is made.—­Anatole France.