“I did at first; but when he sent in his bill, I found he was right.”

TOMMY—­“Why do the ducks dive?”

HARP—­“Guess they must want to liquidate their bills.”

Bill Sprague kept a general store at Croyden Four Corners.  One day he set off for New York to buy a lot of goods.  The goods were shipped immediately; and as Bill had lingered in New York sightseeing, they reached Croyden Four Corners before him.  The goods in an enormous packing-case were driven to the general store by the local teamster.  Mrs. Sprague came out to see what had arrived and, with a shriek, tottered and fell.

“Oh, what’s the matter, ma’am?” cried the hired girl.

Mrs Sprague, her eyes blinded with tears, pointed to the packing-case, whereon was stenciled in large black letters:  “BILL INSIDE.”

When you do not intend to pay a bill there is nothing like being decisive in your refusal.  The other day a bookseller had an “account rendered” returned to him with the following reply scrawled across the billhead:  “Dear Sir—­I never ordered this beastly book.  If I did, you didn’t send it.  If you sent it, I never got it.  If I got it, I paid for it.  If I didn’t, I won’t.  Now go and hang yourself, you fathead.—­Yours very respectfully, John Jones.”

PATIENT—­“Doctor, what I need is something to stir me up—­something to put me in fighting-trim.  Did you put anything like that in this prescription?”

DOCTOR—­“No.  You will find that in the bill.”—­Judge.

See also Debts; Collecting of accounts.

BLUFFING

VISITOR (at private hospital)—­“Can I see Lieutenant Barker, please?”

MATRON—­“We do not allow ordinary visiting.  May I ask if you’re a relative?”

VISITOR (boldly)—­“Oh, yes!  I’m his sister.”

MATRON—­“Dear me!  I’m very glad to meet you.  I’m his
mother.”—­Punch.

Yes, life’s like poker sure enough.  It pays to know just when to bluff.

Half-way up the steep hill the stage-coach stopped.  For the seventh time the driver climbed down from his seat and opened and slammed the rear door.

“What do you do that for?” asked a passenger, whose curiosity had got the better of him.

“Sh-h; spake aisy.  Don’t let th’ mare ’ear yer,” cautioned the driver.  “Every toime she ‘ears th’ door shut she thinks some one has got down, and it starrts ’er up quicker loike.”

Ollie James is a big man personally and politically.  He is a United States senator from Kentucky, and he weighs a trifle more than three hundred and fifty pounds.

On one occasion, in traveling from New York to Washington, he barely caught the midnight train, and discovered that the only berth left was an upper.  Having learned from experience that the process of coiling up his three hundred and fifty pounds and his six feet three inches in an upper berth was tough stuff, he was indignant.  He was particularly enraged when he noticed that the lower directly under his berth was occupied by a small man who tipped the scales at not more than a hundred and twenty.