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SCENE IN A MUSIC STORE.
Proprietor and customer discussing the
merits of anew piano. Neither of them
can play. Enter a freckle-faced, sharp,
grey-eyed individual, with a grey coat, a
round felt hat and mud boots, lie
comes in with quite a free and easy step
and manner, merely as if a sudden curi
osity seized him in passing. Evidently
he was never in a music store before.
Just as evidently from the country —
sharp but “green.” Stands staring at the
piano for a moment without being no
ticed. Suddenly “dabs” his big lingers
on the keys, and drawls back, startled at
the noise he produces.
“My golly, stranger, what d’you call
that ere critter ?”
“A piano, sir,” said the proprietor
briefly, and turning away impatiently.
“Gee huminy ! a pyanner. Jist so!
My Swouns, ain’t it a critter! Is that
what you make singing with, stranger'?”
“No, sir ;itisto be played upon. Ex
cuse me for a moment. lam busy.”
“Jist so! Well, 1 swoun Id like to
hear the critter talk. Play a teune, stran
ger, won’t you?”
“1 don’t play, sir. Besides, I am
busy.”
“Jist so! Now do oblige a feller,
won’t you ? I’ll do the same for yeou
one time or nother. Jist come up my
wav, and see es I don’t show yeou the
•/ ‘ •/
ropes. Play a teune, won’t yeou?”
“No, sir !” replied the proprietor, curtly
and sharply.
“Well, yeou need’nt get riled abeout
it. Stranger, you play a feller a teune,
won’t you?” said the country man, turn
ing to the customer, with an earnest
look.
“I only play in the morning before
breakfast,” replied the customer gravely.
“Now, don’t be obstroperous, stran
ger. Jevvhilikins !if yeou wanted to hear
a planner as bad as 1 dew, yeou’d make the
old thing rip right olf.”
“Never play after breakfast, sir ; it’s
against my principles.”
“Oh, deni your principles, stranger.”
Jist play a feller a teune. By golly,
I’ll pay for it, es it cost dad the old grey
mare.
“Can’t do it sir.”
“Yeou won’t.”
“No.”
“Well, I jist tell you what, stranger,”
said the countryman, getting red in the
face and straitening himself, “I don’t be
lieve yeou ever did play on the denied
old thing.”
“You’ve hit it to a TANARUS,” replied the cus
tomer, smiling.
“Jist so ! All I’ve got to say is yeou’re
a mighty mean, ignorant set o’white peo
pie, es you don’t know heow to play on
the pyanner,”
And the youth withdrew indignant.
N. 0. Picayune.
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
STALE PUNS.
A witty London newspaper, once is
sued the following edict against certain
puns which are peculiarly apt to beset
the votaries of that form of wit: —
All the following travelling puns are
strictly prohibited : —All allusions upon
entering a town, to the pound and the
stocks —knowing a man by his gait, and
not liking his style —calling a tall turn
pike keeper a colossus of roads—paying
the post-boy’s charges of ways and means
—seeing no sign of an inn —or, replying
sir, you are out, to your friend who says
he does—talking of a hedger having a
stake in the bank —all allusions to sun
and air to anew married couple—all
stuff about village belles —calling the bel
fry a court of a peal —saying, upon two
carpenters putting up paling, that they
are very peaceable men to be fencing in
a field—all trash about “ manors make
the man,” in the shooting season, and all
such stuff about trees, after this fashion,
“that’s a pop’lar tree —I’ll turn over, a
new leaf and make my bough f &c., &c.
Buns upon field sports, such as racing
being a matter of course —horses starting
without being shy—a good shot being
fond of his butt and his barrel —or saying
that a man fishing deserves a rod for ta
king such a line; if he is sitting under a
bridge, calling him an arch fellow—or
supposing him a nobleman because he
takes his place among the piers —or that
ho will catch nothing but cold, and no
fish by hook or by crook. All these are
prohibited. To talk of yellow pickles
at dinner, and say the way to Turn ‘em
Green is through Hammersmith —all al
lusions to eating men, for Eton men, or
Staines on the table-cloth, or Egg-ham,
are all exploded —as is all stuff —about
Maids and Thornbacks, and Plaice —or
saying to a lady who asks you to help her
to the wing of a chicken, that it is a
mere matter of a pinion —all quibbles
about dressing hare and cutting it —all
stuff about a merry fellow being given to
wine —or upon helping yourself to say
you have a platonic affection for roast
beef—all are entirely banished. We have
not room to set down all the prohibited
puns extant; but we have just shown
that the things which one hears, when
one dines in the city, (where men eat
peas with a tw r o pronged fork, and bet
hats with eacli other,) as novelties, and
the perfection of good fun, are all flat,
stale, and unprofitable to those who have
lived a little longer and seen a little more
cl
of the world, and who have heard puns
when it was the fashion to commit them
at the west end of the town. These hints
are thrown out for the particular use of
some sprightly persons, with whose (ace
tiousness we have of late extremely pes
tered—we apologize to our rational read
ers for the insertion of such stuff, even by
way of surfeit to our quibbling patients.
RANDOM READINGS.
— “Send Down Sal !”—A correspon
dent of the Milwaukie News says he
once attended a meeting of “cullud pus
suns,” in Maryland, and was much amus
ed at the execution of a chorus by the
choir. The masculine darkies were ar
ranged “like four and twenty black-birds
all in a row” on one side, and the female
on the other. The latter commenced the
chorus with :
“Oh ! for a man—oh ! for a man—oh ! for a man
sion in the skies !”
To which the former responded :
“Send down sal—send down sal—send down sal
vation to my soul!”
—A pedantic fellow called for a bottle
of hock at a tavern, which the waiter not
hearing distinctly, asked him to repeat.
“A bottle of hock—hie—hsec —hock,”
replied the visitor.
After sitting, however, for a long time,
and no wine appearing, he ventured to
ring again, and inquire into the cause of
the delay.
“Did 1 not order some hock, sir ? Why
is it not brought in.”
“Because,” answered the water, who
had been taught Latin grammar, “you
afterwards declined it.”
—llorneTooke, being asked by George
111. whether he played at cards, refilled,
“1 cannot, your majesty, tell a Icing from
a knave.”
“You’ve a cowld, Mrs. Leary, dear,”
said one of a swarm of Irish hop-pickers,
to her crony, at Farnham. “Indeed, and
it’s thrue for you, Mrs. Mahon.” “And
where did you get that, honey ?” “Shure,’
and I slept last night in the field, and for
got to shut the gate, now /”
—An elderly lady, residing in South
ernhay, asked Tompkins what sort of a
tree the tree of liberty was. “A pop'lar
tree, ma’am,” was the immediate reply
of our sagacious friend.
—General Lane said one day, at In
dianapolis, in his speech after dinner, that
he was u too full for utterance
—“Millions for de fencef as the darkey
exclaimed when the dog chased him
through the apple orchard.
—Mr. Bottlebury says if there’s any
thing he does utterly loathe, hate, detest,
abhor, it is a grog shop. It robs a man
of his fourpences, bis time, his sleep, and
his domestic feelings. If a man must j
drink, let him buy his liquor by the gal- j
lon, and share it with his wife and child- j
ren. In this way he will keep his aflfec-!
tions centered at home ; besides, it looks
so very cosy to see a kind husband and a
loving father get drunk in the bosom of
his family. Go it Bottlebury!— True ,
Flag.
[.December 25,