DEFINITION

     The schoolboy, after profound thought, wrote this definition of the word "spine," at his teacher's request.

     "A spine is a long, limber bone.  Your head sets on one end and you set on the other." 

DEGREES OF DEGRADATION

     Phil May, the artist, when once down on his luck in Australia, took a job as waiter in a very low-class restaurant.  An acquaintance came into the place to dine, and was aghast when he discoverd the artist in his waiter.

     "My God!" he whispered.  "To find you in such a place as this."

     "Phil May smiled, as he retorted:

     "Oh, but, you see, I don't eat here."

DELAY

     A woman in the mountains of Tennessee was seated in the doorway of the cabin, busily eating some pig's feet.  A neighbor hurried up to tell of how her husband had become engaged in a saloon brawl and had been shot to death.  The widow continued munching on a pig's foot in silence while she listened to the harrowing news.  As the narrator paused, she spoke thickly from her crowded mouth:

     "Jest wait till I finish this-here pig's trotter, an' ye'll hear some hollerin' as is hollerin'."

DEVIL

     Some wasps built their nests during the week in a Scotch clergyman's best breeches.  On the Sabbath as he warmed up to his preaching, the wasps, too, warmed up, with the result that presently the minister was leaping about like a jack in the box, and slapping his lower anatomy 2with great vigor, to the amazement of the congregation.

    "Be calm, brethren," he shouted.  "The word of God is in my mouth, but the De'il's in my breeches!"

DIET

     The young lady, who was something of a food fadist, was on a visit to a coast fishing village.  She questioned her host as to the general diet of the natives, and was told that they subsisted almost entirely on fish.  The girl protested:

     "But fish is a brain food, and these folks are really the most unintelligent-looking that I ever saw!"

     "mebbe so," the host agreed.  "And just think what they'd look like if they didn't eat fish!"