REPARTEE IN THE SMOKING ROOM

She (crank): Is there anything worse than a man smoking a nasty cigarette?

He: Yes; a woman minding some one else's business.

With many men, cigars supply the intellectual vacuum which others ingeniously (?) fill up with sighs, shrugs, slander, shuffling, silly schemes, vagaries, vicious thoughts, whistling, weeping, wailing, beering and bawling.

A Better Man For Smoking

When the bishop of Manchester lived in Melbourne Victoria his open air study and smoking den was in his garden, under the shade of a giant blue-gum-tree. A lady visitor having once suggested that tobacco was of satanic origin Bishop Moorhouse replied: "Pardon me, madam, I smoke, and I am a better Christian for doing so. Do you read my letters in the papers?" The lady answered that she did, with pleasure. "Do you ever see anything discourteous or unkind in them?" "Certainly not; I often remark how often you keep your temper." "Well, madam, the first drafts of these letters contained the most cutting thing I could think of. Then I would go sit on the butt of that old gum-tree, light my pipe and have a quiet smoke. After that I would return to the house and strike out every line that might give pain to others. So you see, smoking makes me a better christian."

Why Not Be Happy Now?

To a young man who stood smoking a cigar the other day approached the elderly and impertinent reformer of immemorial legend.

"How many cigars do you smoke a day?", asked the meddler.

"Three," answered the youth, as patiently as he could.

"How much do you pay for them?"

"Ten cents," confessed the young man.

"Don't you know, sir," continued the sage, "That if you save that money, by the time you are as old as I am you could own that big building over the way?"

"Do you own it?" inquired the smoker.

"No."

"Well, I do," said the young man

Pigs and Smokers

"Brother G.," said one clergyman to another, "is it possible you smoke tobacco? Pray, give up the unseemly practice. It is alike unclerical and uncleanly. Tobacco! Why, my dear brother, even a pig would not smoke so vile a weed!" Brother G. delivered a mild outpouring of tobacco-fumes and then as mildly said, "I suppose Brother C., you don't smoke?" "No, indeed!" exclaimed his friend, with virtuous horror. Another puff or two, and then Brother G., who prefers the socratic method of argument, rejoined, "Then, dear brother, which is more like the pig - you or I?"