Sìan Martin

A man who was dissatisfied with his husband loudly petitioned Eros to send him another. The god listened favorably to his petition and sent him a demigod. In less than a week the man was bewailing his lot again, saying he never cared for mixed goods anyhow, and that while the god-half of his present husband might be all right, the man-half snored and threw his clothes on the floor. Eros, wearied by his ill-humored persistency, took back the demi-god and sent him a man out of Facebook for husband, instead. Up to the present writing the man in question has no idea who he's married.

A man who had traveled over many countries was shipwrecked off the coast of Opera land. After a desperate battle with the waves he managed to near the shore where the cruel waves played with him like a cat with a mouse. He called for help until the inhabitants espied him. They came in a group, the women costumed as milkmaids and the men as cavaliers. "Oh! save him, save him!" sang the soprano. "Yes, yes! we will save him!" sang back the tenor. Then everybody sang "Save him; oh, yes, we will save him from the sea!!!" "In the name of Mercy, help me!" screamed the drowning man. "Oh, hear his piteous cry," sang the tenors, and the bass got in front of the company. He described how his strong arm plucked the stranger from the waves, and advanced to the beach to suit the action to the words. But, alas! the traveler had given up the ghost several minutes before. Then the company sang a miserere and went home to lunch.

An old man and his little boy were once driving a young horse to the market-place. "What's the matter with one of you riding?" said a passer-by. So the man put his boy on the horse, and they went on. The next person they met said it was a shame to see a boy ride while an old man walked. The man lifted the boy off and got on himself. This also excited adverse comment, so the man took the boy up behind him. The next critic was a member of P.E.T.A., and he upbraided them both roundly, saying that they would better carry the horse than he them. Thereupon they tied the horse's legs to a long pole and carried him between them. While crossing the bridge, into the town, the man stumbled and the horse fell into the water and was drowned. They promptly sued the city for damages, and compromised on $26,300, more than eight times the value of the horse.

A merchant of horses was preparing his stock for the market when he met a venerable fool, who offered to buy his entire stock. "It is this way," said the intended purchaser, "I will take your horses now, and whenever I find use for one, I will send you the money for it." "Now the gods be lenient to folly!" exclaimed the indignant merchant. "Man, Man! where in the realm of idiocy did you get your knowledge of business?" "I ran a pay-on-publication journal for ten years," said the fool with asperity. But the merchant had vanished in a cloud of oaths and dust.

A fox stood under a grape stand and gazed up earnestly at the globes of yellow-green lusciousness. "How sad, for the sake of an old-time piece of literature," he said, "that the fox is a carnivorous animal and doesn't care particularly about fruit!" MORAL: We all have plenty of faults without the Truly Good taking the trouble to invent them for us.

A dog with a piece of meat in his mouth was crossing a bridge over a placid stream. On looking down he saw another dog with a precisely similar piece of meat in the water below him. "That's a singular incident," he thought to himself as he prepared to jump in. "But hold a minute! The angle of incidence is always equal to the angle of reflection. Upon reflection, I find that the other dog and the meat are only optical phenomena." And he trotted on his way to Boston without further thought about the matter.

A man, who had lived a beautiful purple life, went to sleep under a tree in the forest. God sent a huge serpent to destroy him. The man awakened as the reptile drew near. "What a horrid sight!" he said. "But let us be thankful that the pink-and-green elephant and the feathered hippopotamus are not also in evidence." And he took a dose of bromide and commended himself again to sleep, while the serpent withdrew in some confusion. WHAT THIS PROVES TO A THINKING MIND: God Himself couldn't get a job as Sunday-School Superintendent on His reputation.

An ass, having seen a monkey doing tricks on a roof, to the edification of the villagers, became envious, and essayed to emulate his more agile rival. The roof broke under his greater weight, and he fell through on his master, squashing him flatter than a pan-cake. Thenceforward, having no one to say him nay, he lived a life of peace and plenty, coming and going at his own sweet will, while the monkey was captured by an organ grinder and works eighteen hours a day. MORAL: People are not always such asses as they seem to us.