Now the proprietor happened to be standing in the doorway, and when he saw the smile of the gentleman who had stopped in front of his place he asked to be favored with an explanation of the joke.

Whereupon the other explained about the missing “b” in “lamb,” and the proprietor accepted the correction in good part, at the same time expressing his thanks.

When next the Chicago man passed that restaurant he found that the menu had been changed, but that the lesson in orthography had not been forgotten.  The proprietor was now offering “Clamb Chowder.” —­Harper’s.

“The spelling-book’s all wrong, mama!  It don’t look right for a little thing like a kitten to have six letters and a big cat to only have three.”

“What did you learn at the school?” the boss asked the fair young applicant for the stenographer’s job.

“I learned,” she replied, “that spelling is essential to a stenographer.”

The boss chuckled,

“Good.  Now let me hear you spell ‘essential.’”

The fair girl hesitated for the fraction of a second.

“There are three ways,” she replied.  “Which do you prefer?”

And she got the job.

JONES—­“’Ow is your ’ealth today, Mr.  ’Arrison?”

HARRISON—­“My name is not ’Arrison.”

JONES—­“Well, if a haitch, a hay, two hars, a hi, a hes, a ho and a hen don’t spell ’Arrison, then what does it spell?”

A sailor was taken ill with a bad attack of rheumatism while mine-sweeping on a trawler.

The sick man was promptly ordered to hospital, but later on the doctor found out, quite by accident, that he was still on board ship.

Angrily he asked why his order had not been obeyed.

“Well,” replied the captain, we tried to send him ashore, but a sergeant of police hailed us and said that on no account was he to be landed or we’d be fined L100, so we just kept him on board.”

“But did you not signal to the depot, as I said.”

“Yes, we did; but neither me nor the signalman knew how to spell rheumatism, so we called it smallpox.”

O-U-G-H

A Fresh Hack at an Old Knot

I’m taught p-l-o-u-g-h
S’all be pronounce “plow.” 
“Zat’s easy w’en you know,” I say,
“Mon Anglais, I’ll get through!”

My teacher say zat in zat case,
O-u-g-h is “oo”
And zen I laugh and say to him,
“Zees Anglaiz make me cough.”

  He say “Not coo,” but in zat word,
    O-u-g-h is ‘off’
  Oh, Sacre bleu! such varied sounds
    Of words makes me hiccough!

  He say “Again mon frien’ ees wrong;
    O-u-g-h is ‘up’
  In hiccough.”  Zen I cry, “No more,
    You make my t’roat feel rough.”

  “Non, non!” he cry, “you are hot right;
    O-u-g-h is ‘uff.’”
  I say, “I try to spik your words,
    I cannot spik zem though!”

  “In time you’ll learn, but now you’re wrong! 
    O-u-g-h is ‘owe.’”
  “I’ll try no more, I s’all go mad,
    I’ll drown me in ze lough!”