“Well, I hope, then, you’ll feel sorry tomorrow when I’m getting punished for your ignorance.”

Henry was the neighborhood magistrate.  He had been settling a dispute between two blockaders.  The one in whose favor the verdict was cast was filled with admiration for the facility with which Henry made out the papers.

“You are one of those ‘read’ men, ain’t you Henry?”

“Yes, I kin read right smart,” modestly admitted Henry.

“You been to school, ain’t you?” With just pride Henry nodded his head.

“I reckon you been through algebra!”

“Yes, I have,” said Henry, “but it was night and I didn’t see nothing.”

EMPLOYER—­“For this job you’ve got to know French and Spanish, and the pay is eighteen dollars a week.”

“Lord, Mister!  I ain’t got no edication; I’m after a job in the yards.”

“See the yard-boss.  We’ll start you in at forty.”—­Life.

When James A. Garfield was president of Oberlin College, a man brought for entrance as a student his son, for whom he wished a shorter course than the regular one.

“The boy can never take all that in,” said the father.  “He wants to get through quicker.  Can you arrange it for him?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Garfield.  “He can take a short course; it all depends on what you want to make of him.  When God wants to make an oak he takes a hundred years, but he takes only two months to make a squash.”

Doubtless the old woman in this story from the London Post will now be able to enlighten her husband on a troublesome subject.

“Doctor,” she inquired of a country physician, “can you tell me how it is that some folks be born dumb?”

“Why—­hem!—­why, certainly, ma’am,” replied the doctor.  “It is because they come into the world without power of speech.”

“Dear me,” remarked the woman, “just see what it is to have a physical edication!  I’m right glad I axed you.  I’ve axed my old man a hundred times that there same question, and all he would ever say was, ’Cause they be.’”

PROFESSOR—­“So, sir, you said that I was a learned jackass, did you?”

FRESHIE—­“No, sir, I merely remarked that you were a burro of information.”

EFFICIENCY

After many trials and tribulations Mrs. Timson had managed to get a “maid” of sorts.

“Now, Thurza,” said she, “be careful about the water.  We only use the well water for drinking, as we have to pay a man to pump it.  The rain water is good enough for washing up and so on.”

After tea Mrs. Timson asked: 

“Did you remember about the water, Thurza?”

“Oh, yes, mum!” said Thurza.  “I filled the kettle half full of water from the butt and the other half with water from the well.  I thought the bottom half might as well be getting hot at the same time for washing up after tea.”