“This morning there was found in this church a purse filled with money.  If the owner is present he or she can go to Helen Hunt for it.”

And the minister wondered why the congregation tittered!

A street-car “masher” tried in every way to attract the attention of the pretty young girl opposite him.  Just as he had about given up, the girl, entirely unconscious of what had been going on, happened to glance in his direction.  The “masher” immediately took fresh courage.

“It’s cold out to-day, isn’t it?” he ventured.

The girl smiled and nodded assent, but had nothing to say.

“My name is Specknoodle,” he volunteered.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” she said sympathetically, as she left the car.

The comedian came on with affected diffidence.

“At our last stand,” quoth he, “I noticed a man laughing while I was doing my turn.  Honest, now!  My, how he laughed!  He laughed until he split.  Till he split, mind you.  Thinks I to myself, I’ll just find out about the man and so, when the show was over, I went up to him.

“My friend,” says I, “I’ve heard that there’s nothing in a name, but are you not one of the Wood family?”

“I am,” says he, “and what’s more, my grandfather was a Pine!”

“No Wood, you know, splits any easier than a Pine.”—­Ramsey Benson.

“But Eliza,” said the mistress, “your little boy was christened George Washington.  Why do you call him Izaak Walton?  Walton, you know, was the famous fisherman.”

“Yes’m,” answered Eliza, “but dat chile’s repetashun fo’ telling de troof made dat change imper’tive.”

The mother of the girl baby, herself named Rachel, frankly told her husband that she was tired of the good old names borne by most of the eminent members of the family, and she would like to give the little girl a name entirely different.  Then she wrote on a slip of paper “Eugenie,” and asked her husband if he didn’t think that was a pretty name.

The father studied the name for a moment and then said:  “Vell, call her Yousheenie, but I don’t see vat you gain by it.”

  There was a great swell in Japan,
  Whose name on a Tuesday began;
    It lasted through Sunday
    Till twilight on Monday,
  And sounded like stones in a can.

He was a young lawyer who had just started practicing in a small town and hung his sign outside of his office door.  It read:  “A.  Swindler.”  A stranger who called to consult him saw the sign and said:  “My goodness, man, look at that sign!  Don’t you see how it reads?  Put in your first name—­Alexander, Ambrose or whatever it is.”

“Oh, yes I know,” said the lawyer resignedly, “but I don’t exactly like to do it.”

“Why not?” asked the client.  “It looks mighty bad as it is.  What is your first name?”

“Adam.”

  Who hath not own’d, with rapture-smitten frame,
  The power of grace, the magic of a name.