DRINK

     It was nine o'clock in the morning, but this particular passenger on the platform of the trolley car still wore a much crumpled evening suit. 

     As the car swung swiftly around a curve this riotous liver was jolted off, and fell heavily on the cobble stones.

     The car stopped, and the conductor, running back, helped the unfortunate man to scramble to his feet.  The bibulous passenger was severely shaken, but very dignified.

     "Collision?" he demanded.

     "No," the conductor answered.

     "Off the track?" was the second inquiry.

     "No," said the conductor again.

     "Well!" was the indignant rejoinder.  "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have got off."

*  *  *

The very convivial gentleman left his club happy, but somewhat dazed.  On his homeward journey, made tackingly, he ran against the vertical iron rods that formed a circle of protection for the trunk of a tree growing by the curb.  He made a tour around the barrier four times, carefully holding to one rod until he had a firm grasp on the next.  Then, at last, he halted and leaned despairingly against the rock to which he held, and called aloud for succor:

     "Hellup!  hellup!  Somebody let me out!"

     A highly inebriated individual halted before a solitary tree, and regarded it as intently as he could, with the result that he saw two trees.  His attempt to pass between these resulted in a near-concussion of the brain.  He reeled back, but presently sighted carefully, and tried again, with the like result.  When this had happened a half-dozen times, the unhappy man lifted his voice and wept.

     "Lost -- Lost!" he sobbed.  "Hopelessly lost in an impenetrable forest!"

     The proprietor of the general store at the cross-roads had his place overrun by rats, and the damage was such that he offered a hundred dollars reward to anyone who would rid him of the pests.  A disreputable-appearing person turned up one morning, and announced that he was a professional rat-killer.

     "Get to work," the store-keeper urged.

     "I must have a pound of cheese," the killer declared.

     When this had been provided:

     "Now give me a quart of whiskey."

     Equipped with the whiskey, the professional spoke briskly:

     "Now show me the cellar."

     An  hour elapsed, and then the rat-catcher galloped up the cellar stairs and leaped into the store.  His face was red, the eyes glaring, and he shook his fists in defiance of the world at large, as he jumped high in the air and shouted:

     "Whoopee!  I'm ready! bring on your rats!"

     Two Southern gentlemen, who were of very convivial habits, chanced to meet on the street at none o'clock in the morning after an evening's revel together.  The major addressed the colonel with decorous solemnity:

     "Colonel, how do you feel, suh?"

     The colonel left nothing doubtful in the nature of his reply:

     "Major," he declared tartly, "I feel like thunder suh, as any Southern gentleman should, suh, at this hour of the morning!"

     The old toper was asked if he had ever met a certain geltleman, also notorious for his bibulous habits.

     "Know him!" was the reply.  "I should say I do!  Why, I got him so drunk one night it took three hotel porters to put me to bed."

     A farmer, who indulged in sprees, was observed in his Sunday clothes throwing five bushels of corn on the ear into the pen where he kept half a dozen hogs, and he was heard to mutter:

     "Thar, blast ye! if ye're prudent, that orter last ye."