“Did you tell the gentleman from Texas what I said?”

“I did,” replied the page.

“What did he say?” asked Reed.

“Well—­er,” stammered the page, “he said to give his compliments to you and tell you he did not believe in signs.”

SILENCE

A conversation with an Englishman.—­Heine.

BALL-"What is silence?”

HALL-"The college yell of the school of experience.”

The other day upon the links a distinguished clergyman was playing a closely contested game of golf.  He carefully teed up his ball and addressed it with the most aproved grace; he raised his driver and hit the ball a tremendous clip, but instead of soaring into the azure it perversely went about twelve feet to the right and then buzzed around in a circle.  The clerical gentleman frowned, scowled, pursed up his mouth and bit his lips, but said nothing, and a friend who stood by him said:  “Doctor, that is the most profane silence I ever witnessed.”

SIN

  Man-like is it to fall into sin,
  Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
  Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
  God-like is it all sin to leave.

  —­Friedrich von Logan.

“Now,” said the clergyman to the Sunday-school class, “can any of you tell me what are sins of omission?”

“Yes, sir,” said the small boy.  “They are the sins we ought to have done and haven’t.”

SINGERS

As the celebrated soprano began to sing, little Johnnie became greatly exercised over the gesticulations of the orchestra conductor.

“What’s that man shaking his stick at her for?” he demanded indignantly.

“Sh-h!  He’s not shaking his stick at her.”

But Johnny was not convinced.

“Then what in thunder’s she hollering for?”

A visiting clergyman was occupying a pulpit in St. Louis one Sunday when it was the turn of the bass to sing a solo, which he did very badly, to the annoyance of the preacher, a lover of music.  When the singer fell back in his seat, red of face and exhausted, the clergyman arose, placed his hands on the unopened Bible, deliberately surveyed the faces of the congregation, and announced the text: 

“And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.”

It wasn’t the text he had chosen, but it fitted his sermon as well as the occasion.

One cold, wet, and windy night he came upon a negro shivering in the doorway of an Atlanta store.  Wondering what the darky could be doing, standing on a cold, wet night in such a draughty position, the proprietor of the shop said: 

“Jim, what are you doing here?”

“‘Sense me, sir,” said Jim, “but I’m gwine to sing bass tomorrow mornin’ at church, an’ I am tryin’ to ketch a cold.”—­Howard Morse.