"But it's true," the wife answered. "The dishes she smashed cost double her wages."

   The baby pulled brother's hair until he yelled from the pain of it. The mother soothed the weeping boy:

   "Of course, she doesn't know how badly it hurts." Then she left the room.

   She hurried back presently on hearing frantic squalling from baby.

   "What in the world is the matter with her?" she questioned anxiously.

   "Nothin' 'tall," brother replied contentedly. "Only now she knows."

   There was a chicken-stealing case before the court. The colored culprit pleaded guilty and was duly sentenced. But the circumstances of the case had provoked the curiosity of the judge, so that he questioned the darky as to how he had managed to take those chickens and carry them off from right under the window of the owner's house, and that with a savage dog loose in the yard. But the thief was not minded to explain. He said:

   "Hit wouldn't be of no use, jedge, to try to 'splain dis ting to you-all. Ef you was to try it you more'n like as not would git yer hide full o' shot an' git no chickens, nuther. Ef you want to engage in any rascality, jedge, you better stick to de bench, whar you am familiar."

   On her return home after an absence of a few hours, the mother was displeased to find that little Emma, who

   was ailing, had not taken her pill at the appointed time, although she had been carefully directed to do so.

   "You were very naughty, Emma," the mother chided. "I told you to be sure and take that pill."

   "But, mamma," the child pleaded in extenuation, "you didn't tell me where to take it to."

   A rich and listless lady patron examined the handbags in a leading jeweler's shop in New York City. The clerk exhibited one bag five inches square, made of platinum and with one side almost covered with a setting of diamonds. This was offered at a price of $9,000.

   But the lady surveyed the expensive bauble without enthusiasm. She turned it from side to side and over and over, regarding it with a critical eye and frowning disapprovingly. At last she voiced her comment:

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