“Well, sonny, how did you like the show?”

“I’m glad I didn’t sell my dog,” was the reply.

DRAMATISTS

“I hear Scribbler finally got one of his plays on the boards.”

“Yes, the property man tore up his manuscript and used it in the snow storm scene.”

“So you think the author of this play will live, do you?” remarked the tourist.

“Yes,” replied the manager of the Frozen Dog Opera House.  “He’s got a five-mile start and I don’t think the boys kin ketch him.”—­Life.

We all know the troubles of a dramatist are many and varied.

Here’s an advertisement taken from a morning paper that shows to what a pass a genius may come in a great city: 

“Wanted—­A collaborator, by a young playwright.  The play is already written; collaborator to furnish board and bed until play is produced.”

DRESSMAKERS

WIFE—­“Wretch!  Show me that letter.”

HUSBAND—­“What letter?”

WIFE—­“That one in your hand.  It’s from a woman, I can see by the writing, and you turned pale when you saw it.”

HUSBAND—­“Yes.  Here it is.  It’s your dressmaker’s bill.”

DRINKING

  He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,
  Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;
  But he who goes to bed, and does so mellow,
  Lives as he ought to, and dies a good fellow.

  —­Parody on Fletcher.

I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion.—­Cervantes.

I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking.  I could wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.—­Shakespeare.

  The Frenchman loves his native wine;
    The German loves his beer;
  The Englishman loves his ’alf and ’alf,
    Because it brings good cheer;
  The Irishman loves his “whiskey straight,”
    Because it gives him dizziness;
  The American has no choice at all,
    So he drinks the whole blamed business.

A young Englishman came to Washington and devoted his days and nights to an earnest endeavor to drink all the Scotch whiskey there was.  He couldn’t do it, and presently went to a doctor, complaining of a disordered stomach.

“Quit drinking!” ordered the doctor.

“But, my dear sir, I cawn’t.  I get so thirsty.”

“Well,” said the doctor, “whenever you are thirsty eat an apple instead of taking a drink.”

The Englishman paid his fee and left.  He met a friend to whom he told his experience.

“Bally rot!” he protested.  “Fawncy eating forty apples a day!”

If you are invited to drink at any man’s house more than you think is wholesome, you may say “you wish you could, but so little makes you both drunk and sick; that you should only be bad company by doing so.”—­Lord Chesterfield.