“Mother, wasn’t that a funny dream I had last night?” said a little boy who was busily engaged with his breakfast cereal.

“Why, I’m sure I don’t know!” replied his mother.  “I haven’t the slightest idea what your dream was about.”

“Why, mother, of course you know!” said the boy reproachfully.  “You were in it.”

DRINKING

  If all be true that I do think,
    There are five reasons we should drink;
  Good wine—­a friend—­or being dry—­
    Or lest we should be by and by—­
  Or any other reason why.

  —­Dr. Henry Aldrich.

Maybe one swallow doesn’t make a summer, but it would brighten it up considerably.

Dangerous Advice

CURATE—­“You should be careful!  Don’t you know that drink is mankind’s worst enemy?”

JEEMS—­“Yes; but don’t you teach us to love our enemies?”

“Pussyfoot” Johnson, whose effort to prohibitionize Scotland failed recently, was discussing his failure with a New York editor.

“Yes, I failed,” he ended, “and I’m very sorry.  Conditions in Scotland are very bad.”

“Did you ever hear the story of the deacon’s daughter?  This story illustrates Scottish conditions very well.

“The wife of a Peebles deacon took a bath one evening, and as it was rainy, chill November weather, she swallowed a teaspoonful or two of whisky after her bath to keep herself from catching cold.  Then in her dressing-gown she went to bid her little daughter good night.  She stooped over the child’s cot and a kiss was exchanged.  After the kiss the little girl drew back sharply, sniffed and said: 

“’Why, mamma, you’ve been using father’s perfume, haven’t you?’”—­Detroit Free Press.

“Now, Sam,” said the speaker, “I want you to be present when I deliver this speech.”

“Yassuh.”

“I want you to start the laughter and applause.  Every time I take a drink of water, you applaud; and every time I wipe my forehead with my handkerchief, you laugh.”

“You better switch dem signals, boss.  It’s a heap mo’ liable to make me laugh to see you standin’ up dar deliberately takin’ a drink o’ water.”

A Washington business man, says the Saturday Evening Post, desiring to test the relative efficiency of two makes of mucilage, handed the bottles one morning to his shiny-faced negro messenger.

“Here, John,” he said; “try these and see which is the stickiest.”

John did not show up at the office again until about noon-time.  He approached his employer’s desk somewhat cautiously and gingerly deposited thereon the two bottles of mucilage.

“Well, John,” asked the boss, “which did you find the stickiest?”

“It wuz lak dis, boss,” was the reply:  “Dis one gummed up ma mouf de most; but de other one, de taste lasted de longest.”

UNABLE SEAMAN—­“When I come around again the surgeon, he says to me, ‘I’m blooming sorry, mate, I don’t know what I was thinking about,’ he says, ‘but there’s a sponge missin’, and I believe it’s sewed up inside yer!’ ‘What’s the odds,’ I says, ‘let it be.’  An there it is to this day.”