CLEAN JOKES EMPHASIS

The force of emphasis is clearly shown in the following brief colloquy, between two lawyers:

"Sir," demanded one, indignantly, "do you imagine me to be a scoundrel?"

"No, Sir," said the other coolly, "I do not imagine you to be one."

CLEAN JOKES A FORGETFUL MAN

A man, endowed with an extraordinary capacity for forgetfulness, was tried some time ago, at Paris, for vagabondage. He gave his name as Auguste Lessite, and believed he was born at Bourges. As he had forgotten his age, the registry of all the births in that city, from 1812 to 1822, was consulted, but only one person of the name of Lessite had been born there during that time, and that was a girl.

"Are you sure your name is Lessite?" asked the judge.

"Well, I thought it was, but maybe it ain't."

"Are you confident you were born at Bourges?"

"Well, I always supposed I was, but I shouldn't wonder if it was somewhere else."

"Where does your family live at present?"

"I don't know; I've forgotten."

"Can you remember ever having seen your father and mother?"

"I can't recollect to save myself; I sometimes think I have, and then again I think I haven't."

"What trade do you follow?"

"Well, I am either a tailor or a cooper, and for the life of me I can't tell which: at any rate, I'm either one or the other."

CLEAN JOKES AN ACUTE HINT

An Irish footman carrying a basket of game from his master to his friend, waited some time for the customary fee, but seeing no appearance of it, he scratched his head, and said, "Sir, if my master should say, Paddy, what did the gentleman give you?—what would your honor have me to tell him?"

CLEAN JOKES COCKNEY NARRATIVE

I laid at my friend's house last night, and just as I laid me down to sleep, I heard a rumbling at the window of my chamber, which was just over the kitchen, a sort of portico, the top of which was just even with the floor of my room. Well, I just peeped up, and as the moon was just rising, I just saw the head of a man; so I got me up softly, just as I was, in my shirt, goes to where the pistols laid that I had just loaded, and laid them just within my reach. I hid myself behind the curtains, just as he was completely in the room. Just as I was about to lift my hand to shoot him, thinks I, would it be just to kill this here man, without one were sure he came with an unjust intention? so I just cried out hem! upon which he fell to the ground, and there he laid, and I could just see that he looked just as if he was dead; so I just asked him what business he had in that there room? Poor man! he could just speak, and said he had just come to see Mary!

CLEAN JOKES SINCERE REGRET

To a gentleman who was continually lamenting the loss of his first wife before his second, she one day said, "Indeed, Sir, no one regrets her more than I do."

CLEAN JOKES HARD CASE

A polite young lady recently asserted that she had lived near a barn-yard, and that it was impossible for her to sleep in the morning, on account of the outcry made by a "gentleman hen."

CLEAN JOKES BIG WORDS

The best hit we have lately seen at the rather American fashion of employing big crooked words, instead of little straight ones, is in the following dialogue between a highfalutin lawyer and a plain witness:

"Did the defendant knock the plaintiff down with malice prepense?"

"No, Sir; he knocked him down with a flat-iron."

"You misunderstand me, my friend; I want to know whether he attacked him with any evil intent?"

"O no, Sir, it was outside of the tent."

"No, no; I wish you to tell me whether the attack was at all a preconcerted affair?"

"No, Sir; it was not a free concert affair—it was at a circus."