Answering an Advertisement — 533
A merchant advertising for a clerk, “who could bear confinement,” received an answer from one who had been ten years in the State prison!
The Lovers’ Leap — 534
Mr. Dickens tells an American story of a young lady who, being intensely loved by five young men, was advised to “jump overboard, and marry the man who jumped in after her.” Accordingly, next morning, the five lovers being on deck, and looking very devotedly at the young lady, she plunged into the sea head foremost. Four of the lovers immediately jumped in after her. When the young lady and four lovers were out again, she says to the captain, “What am I to do with them now, they are so wet?” “Take the dry one.” And the young lady did, and married him.
She was all sorts of a gal—there warn’t a sprinklin’ too much of her; she had an eye that would make a fellow’s heart try to get out of his bosom; her step was as light as a panther’s, and her breath sweet as a prairie flower.
General Lee one day found Dr. Cutting, the army surgeon, who was a handsome and dressy man, arranging his cravat complacently before a glass. “Cutting,” said Lee, “you must be the happiest man in creation.” “Why, General?” “Because,” replied Lee, “you are in love with yourself, and you have not a rival upon earth.”