," said a planter to his negro, "climb up that tree and thin the branches." The negro showed no disposition to comply, and being pressed for a reason, answered: "Well, look heah, massa, if I go up dar and fall down an' broke my neck, dat'll be a thousand dollars out of your pocket. Now, why don't you hire an Irishman to go up, and den if
he
falls and kills himself, dar won't be no loss to nobody?"
Mr. Newman
is a famous New England singing-master;
i. e.
, a teacher of vocal music in the rural districts. Stopping over night at the house of a simple minded old lady, whose grandson and pet, Enoch, was a pupil of Mr. Newman, he was asked by the lady how Enoch was getting on. He gave a rather poor account of the boy, and asked his grandmother if she thought Enoch had any ear for music.
"Wa'al," said the old woman, "I raaly don't know; won't you just take the candle and see?"
There
was once a clergyman in New Hampshire, noted for his long sermons and indolent habits. "How is it," said a man to his neighbour, "Parson ----, the laziest man living, writes these interminable sermons?" "Why," said the other, "he probably gets to writing and he is too lazy to stop."
"
Bring
in the oysters I told you to open," said the head of a household growing impatient. "There they are," replied the Irish cook proudly. "It took me a long time to clean them; but I've done it, and thrown all the nasty insides into the strate."
Quoth
Patrick of the Yankee: "Bedad, if he was cast away on a dissolute island, he'd get up the next mornin' an' go around sellin' maps to the inhabitants."
A poor
son of the Emerald Isle applied for employment to an avaricious hunks, who told him he employed no Irishmen; "for," said he, "the last one died on my hands, and I was forced to bury him at my own expense."
"Ah! your honour," said Pat, brightening up, "and is that all? Then you'll give me the place, for sure I can get a certificate that I niver died in the employ of any master I iver
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