Statesman Arbuthnot-Joyce plays golf so badly that he prefers a solitary round with only the caddy present. He had a new boy one day recently, and played as wretchedly as usual.

   "I fancy I play the worst game in the world," he confessed to the caddy.

   "Oh, I wouldn't say that, sir," was the consoling response. "From what the boys were saying about another gentleman who plays here, he must be worse even than you are."

   "What's his name?" asked the statesman hopefully.

   And the caddy replied:

   "Arbuthnot-Joyce."

   The son and heir had just been confirmed. At the dinner table, following the church service, the father called on his son to say grace. The boy was greatly embarrassed by the demand. Moreover, he was tired, not only from the excitement of the special service

   through which he had passed, but also from walking to and from the church, four miles away, and, too, he was very hungry indeed and impatient to begin the meal. Despite his protest, however, the father insisted.

   So, at last, the little man folded his hands with a pious air, closed his eyes tight, bent his head reverently, and spoke his prayer:

   "O Lord, have mercy on these victuals. Amen!"

   *    *    *

   The new clergyman in the country parish, during his visit to an old lady of his flock, inquired if she accepted the doctrine of Falling from Grace. The good woman nodded vigorously.

   "Yes, sir," she declared with pious zeal, "I believe in it, and, praise the Lord! I practise it!"

   The passing lady mistakenly supposed that the woman shouting from a window down the street was calling to the little girl minding baby brother close by on the curb.

   "Your mother is calling you," she said kindly.

   The little girl corrected the lady:

   "Her ain't a-callin' we. Us don't belong to she."

   *    *    *

 Prev. P 65/289 next