The buxom maid had been hinting that she did not think much of working out, and this in conjunction with the nightly appearance of a rather sheepish young man caused her mistress much apprehension.

“Martha, is it possible that you are thinking of getting married?”

“Yes’m,” admitted Martha, blushing.

“Not that young fellow who has been calling on you lately?”

“Yes’m he’s the one.”

“But you have only known him a few days.”

“Three weeks come Thursday,” corrected Martha.

“Do you think that is long enough to know a man before taking such an important step?”

“Well,” answered Martha with spirit, “’tain’t ’s if he was some new feller.  He’s well recommended; a perfectly lovely girl I know was engaged to him for a long while.”

An Englishman and an Irishman went to the captain of a ship bound for America and asked permission to work their passage over.  The captain consented, but asked the Irishman for references and let the Englishman go on without them.  This made the Irishman angry and he planned to get even.

One day when they were washing off the deck, the Englishman leaned far over the rail, dropped the bucket, and was just about to haul it up when a huge wave came and pulled him overboard.  The Irishman stopped scrubbing, went over to the rail and, seeing the Englishman had disappeared, went to the Captain and said:  “Perhaps yez remember whin I shipped aboard this vessel ye asked me for riferences and let the Englishman come on widout thim?”

The Captain said:  “Yes, I remember.”

“Well, ye’ve been decaved,” said the Irishman; “he’s gone off wid yer pail!”

RECONCILIATIONS

“Yes, I quarreled with my wife about nothing.”

“Why don’t you make up?”

“I’m going to.  All I’m worried about now is the indemnity.”

REFORMERS

LOUISE—­“The man that Edith married is a reformer.”

JULIA—­“How did he lose his money?”—­Judge.

He was earnestly but prosily orating at the audience.  “I want land reform,” he wound up, “I want housing reform, I want educational reform, I want—­”

And said a bored voice in the audience:  “Chloroform.”

The young woman sat before her glass and gazed long and earnestly at the reflection there.  She screwed up her face in many ways.  She fluffed her hair and then smoothed it down again; she raised her eyes and lowered them; she showed her teeth and she pressed her lips tightly together.  At last she got up, with a weary sigh, and said: 

“It’s no use.  I’ll be some kind of reformer.”

REGRETS

A Newport man who was invited to a house party at Bar Harbor, telegraphed to the hostess:  “Regret I can’t come.  Lie follows by post.”