Part 33 (1/2)
=Entrance Free, and ”Everything Found”=
A member of the Scottish bar, when a youth, was somewhat of a dandy, and was still more remarkable for the shortness of his temper. One day, being about to pay a visit to the country, he made a great fuss in packing up his clothes for the journey, and his old aunt, annoyed at the bustle, said: ”Whaur's this you're gaun, Robby, that you mak' sic a grand ware about your claes?”
The young man lost his temper, and pettishly replied, ”I am going to the devil.”
”'Deed, Robby, then,” was the quiet answer, ”ye need na be sae nice, for he'll just tak' ye as ye are.”
=Two Questions on the Fall of Man=
The Rev. Ralph Erskine, one of the fathers of the secession from the Kirk of Scotland, on a certain occasion paid a visit to his venerable brother, Ebenezer, at Abernethy.
”Oh, man!” said the latter, ”but ye come in a gude time. I've a diet of examination to-day, and ye maun tak' it, as I have matters o' life and death to settle at Perth.”
”With all my heart,” quoth Ralph.
”Noo, my Billy,” says Ebenezer, ”ye'll find a' my folk easy to examine but ane, and him I reckon ye had better no' meddle wi'. He has our old-fas.h.i.+oned Scotch way of answering a question by putting another, and maybe he'll affront ye.”
”Affront me!” quoth the indignant theologian; ”do ye think he can foil me wi' my ain natural toils?”
”Aweel,” says his brother, ”I'se gie ye fair warning, ye had better no'
ca' him up.”
The recusant was one Walter Simpson, the Vulcan of the parish. Ralph, indignant at the bare idea of such an illiterate clown chopping divinity with him, determined to pose him at once with a grand leading unanswerable question. Accordingly, after putting some questions to some of the people present, he all at once, with a loud voice, cried out, ”Walter Simpson!”
”Here, sir,” says Walter, ”are ye wanting me?”
”Attention, sir! Now Walter, can you tell me how long Adam stood in a state of innocence?”
”Ay, till he got a wife,” instantly cried the blacksmith. ”But,” added he, ”can _you_ tell me hoo lang he stood after?”
”Sit doon, Walter,” said the discomfited divine.
=The Speech of a Cannibal=
”Poor-man-of-mutton” is a term applied to a shoulder-of-mutton in Scotland after it has been served as a roast at dinner, and appears as a broiled bone at supper, or at the dinner next day. The Scotch Earl of B----, popularly known as Old Rag, being at an hotel in London, the landlord came in one morning to enumerate the good things in the larder.
”Landlord,” said the Earl of B----, ”I think I _could_ eat a morsel of poor man.” This strange announcement, coupled with the extreme ugliness of his lords.h.i.+p, so terrified Boniface that he fled from the room and tumbled down the stairs. He supposed that the Earl, when at home, was in the habit of eating a joint of a va.s.sal, or tenant, when his appet.i.te was dainty.
=Not ”in Chains”=
A Londoner was traveling on one of the Clyde steamers, and as it was pa.s.sing the beautiful town of Largs, then little larger than a village, and unnoticed in his guide-book, he asked a Highland countryman, a fellow pa.s.senger, its name.
”Oh, that's Largs, sir.”
”Is it incorporated?”